There can be no doubt. Just 70 days into his historic second term, everything Donald Trump promised is coming true faster than anybody can believe it. Our future is more golden than the toilet he takes his constitutional on of a morning while ignoring his morning brief. Your president and his administration say so with all the gravitas and trust of the executive branch of the United States of America. You’d better believe it.
And for the first time in the 236-years and 11 months since George Washington accepted the awesome responsibilities inherent in serving in the nation’s highest office of public trust, a sitting United States president so insists on the veracity of his incessant lies that he and his handpicked cast of incompetent sycophants will brook no dissent.
And worse yet, nearly all those elected by the people to stand up as equals to the president, 100 U.S. Senators and 435 Representatives, each sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution that defines a government of the people, for the people and of the people, against all enemies, foreign and domestic, have abrogated their sworn responsibilities to the people in favor of licking the golf shoes of our first American tyrant.
It appears okay these days to file frivolous lawsuits and sign executive orders targeting those who disagree or who attempt to uphold the law, a noble thing to Donald Trump provided it applies to his enemies and not to him. It appears okay under this administration to arbitrarily include in their sweeping up of illegal aliens without the due process our nation affords all people to sweep up those who are here legally but have the temerity to speak out in opposition. It appears okay to give the keys to the nation to a foreign national of immense wealth doing billions in business with our nation and okay to give him unsupervised access to our databases under the guise of exposing government inefficiency.
You have to give Donald Trump credit. He saw into the darkest underbelly of our nation and recognized the people he saw there. They are the people he has in charge now, none with any other qualification than the ability to believe in Trump’s infallibility.
To see what the administration wants the American people to believe, raw and undiluted, visit whitehouse.gov, where you’ll find news releases fit only for Fox and friends, as well as the astonishing list of 103 executive orders issued in just six weeks. By contrast, Joe Biden signed 162 during his four-year tenure. In his first term, Trump signed 220, Barack Obama 277 in his eight years.
Trump is off to a truly prodigious start.
An executive order does not establish law, but serve as a presidential directive ordering the government take specific actions necessary to ensure that the laws of the federal government are faithfully executed. As such, an executive order cannot override, alter or break federal laws and statutes.
One of Trump’s consistent assertions is the “mandate” handed him by the electorate in his “landslide” victory — in actuality a mere 1.5-percent edge over Kamala Harris, neither hitting 50-percent.
“You’re going to see executive orders that are going to make you extremely happy,” Trump nevertheless said the day before his inauguration. “Lots of them.”
Typically, a president with a mandate and a party majority would work with legislators to enact policies to implement or amend federal laws and statutes, as those are more lasting and carry more weight.
Trump has no actual mandate, but what he does have is even better; an emasculated but co-equal legislature whose Republican members are mostly so fearful of Trump and MAGA they’d rather bow in obeisance than exercise the responsibilities established for them in the document they swore to uphold and defend.
So let’s see if we can get an idea of what Trump’s flurry of executive orders do, for surely they must benefit the people who put their trust in him, right?
Not so much. As of a week ago, 53 of Trump’s executive orders have been challenged in the third co-equal branch of federal government, the judicial. That branch is wobbling, chief justice Roberts and the “conservative” majority on the Supreme Court having already capitulated, putting our only convicted president effectively above the law, but it is the only branch offering token resistance to the man who would be dictator.
Ending birthright citizenship, making it easier to fire federal employees, forming DOGE, ending DEI and many more are being challenged for legality.
Now surely this one is welcome news: “Executive Order: Delivering Emergency Price Relief for American Families and Defeating the Cost-of-Living Crisis.”
Let’s see … The heads of all executive departments and agencies are instructed to use their power to deliver emergency price relief through the following actions:
- lower the cost of housing and expand the housing supply
- eliminate administrative expenses and rent-seeking practices that increase healthcare costs
- eliminate requirements that raise the costs of home appliances
- create employment opportunities for American workers and draw discouraged workers into the workforce
- eliminate climate policies that increase the costs of food and fuel …
Huh? I’m not sure, but it appears to me that his bullet points are nothing more than attempts to justify his efforts at tearing down our government — they do nothing to bring about price relief, let alone end an emergency or crisis.
Or, “Executive Order: Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship.”
“Over the last 4 years, the previous administration trampled free speech rights by censoring Americans’ speech on online platforms, often by exerting substantial coercive pressure on third parties, such as social media companies, to moderate, deplatform, or otherwise suppress speech that the Federal Government did not approve. Under the guise of combatting “misinformation,” “disinformation,” and “malinformation,” the Federal Government infringed on the constitutionally protected speech rights of American citizens across the United States in a manner that advanced the Government’s preferred narrative about significant matters of public debate. Government censorship of speech is intolerable in a free society.”
Oh, goody! No more washing mouths out with soap, the president has made it legal to lie, to bear false witness! Woohoo! Thank you Mr. President! Maybe now Ii can be a Lyin’ King just like you!
Many of his executive actions do appear to follow a clear mandate, not of the people, but of the Heritage Foundation, anti-woke, anti-education, anti-free press, anti-conservation, anti-regulations, rules or restraints, pro rich old white male evangelical Christians who remember when they were treated with respect by them who knew and kept to their proper place.
In addition to decimating our constitution, Trump has undermined our nation’s security and standing by turning on our closest neighbors and allies and trying to draw us closer to the dictators of nations that have long opposed us … and been humiliated in the process.
Played like a puppet by his dear friend Putin in his attempt to broker peace after excoriating Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelinski, Trump learned what others have long known, you can’t capitulate, it does not work with Putin.
His haughty attempts at statesman by coercion and trade war, let alone his imperialistic attempts at claiming Canada as our 51st state, of buying or taking Greenland, of taking the Panama canal, his clown-car administration’s unimaginable security breach, signing an illegal executive order invoking the 1807 Insurrection Act in an attempt to allow the deployment of U.S. military personnel on U.S ostensibly to fight an immigrant crisis he himself exacerbated to stir up his white supremacist base.
There are some who say it’s still to early to see the benefits, that it will take time. I have never seen two wrongs, let alone the stack Trump has amassed, ever turn into a right. Good results never grow from bad intentions, bad intentions only get worse.
Some say the liberals will say worse while everyone else says better or undecided. That, too, is by design.
After being a pesky gadfly for all eight years of the Obama presidency, casting false aspersions, demanding to see his birth certificate, implying Obama was from Africa and ineligible for office, screaming to high heaven about anything that would give him a rallying cry — Obama is a radical Muslim terrorist, Benghazi, Hilary’s server ad nauseum, he worked to vilify Democrats and liberals, journalists and brown people and others while usurping words to describe his most radical devotees in words more palatable to those he needed to win, “Republican,” “conservative,” “patriot,” “liberty lover.” In so doing, he created a divide in our nation unlike any since the Civil War.
Then he upended trust in our elections process, fomented an insurrection, got away with it and spent the next four years being a pesky gadfly to the Biden administration.
In 70 days, Trump has: A) Saved the nation from Biden and the liberals. B) Not done much either way, but it’ll be okay. C) Wreaked serious damage on our constitution and shown himself and his administration to be a clear and present danger, a domestic enemy to our constitution.
Let’s hope we as a nation choose the right answer, and choose it soon.