The First 10 Days

I’ve missed the last few days, which have been just as terrible as the days that preceded them. We’re now 10 days into this Presidency, and Trump is every bit the monster he promised he would be. We have an outright Constitutional crisis, and I can only pray that the judiciary serves as the check it’s meant to be. So here’s what’s happened since last I wrote:

January 26th – 29th

1. In order to pay for the border wall, the White House floated a tariff on Mexican imports. Many pointed out this would not result in the Mexicans paying for the wall, but would result in Americans paying for it instead. Additionally, a number of American industries rely on factory parts made in Mexico, and concerns were voiced about rising costs as a results of this relationship. Realizing that they were starting a trade war, the Trump administration walked back the border tax, but they’ve yet to explain how they plan to pay for this wall.
2. Trump signed another order to hold back money from sanctuary cities (this was done on the 25th, but I didn’t list it yet). In combination with the other executive order on immigration, these orders dramatically broaden the definition of criminal. According to these orders, anyone who has been charged with a crime – regardless of whether or not he/she has been convicted – will be targeted for deportation. Additionally, the orders also allow immigration officials to extra-judiciously target anyone they perceive to be a threat.
3. Reports released Thursday showed that immediately following his inauguration, Trump pressued the US Parks department to find photographic evidence to prove that the media had lied about the size of his inauguration crowd. His press team defended the call he made to the head of the parks department, saying it was an example of how accessible Trump is.
4. On Thursday, there was a mass exodus from the State Department, which appears to be the single largest departure of institutional knowledge in State Department history. Later in the day, it was reported that this was not a mass resignation, but instead, the Trump State Department removing senior department officials. That’s right. The Trump administration seems to think it doesn’t need institutional knowledge to keep its foreign policy running smoothly.
5. Steve Bannon, in a statement to the press, told them that they should feel humiliated for getting the election results wrong, that they were the “opposition party” in America, and threateningly told them they should, “keep their mouths shut.” I don’t know any way to interpret this than as a threat on the media, which is fundamentally fascist and destabilizing to our system of government. This is not ok.
6. In what I can only assume was a move to be as cruel as humanly possible, President Trump used Holocaust Remembrance Day to sign a ban on immigrants from 7 Muslim-majority countries, which is purportedly a ban on countries engaged in terrorism. Interestingly, the list of countries banned does not include any of the countries where Trump does business, despite the fact that the countries not included were home to ALL of the 9/11 hijackers and plotters. Rudy Giuliani told Fox News that Trump had created a commission to study how to implement a ban on Muslim’s “legally.” Despite this, (and despite the fact that the ban does NOT include non-Muslims from those countries), Trump insists it’s merely a counter terrorism measure. It’s interesting, then, that counterterrorism experts worry that this will weaken our efforts, worries that seem to be founded as the targeted countries are now banning Americans, which will ostensibly include national security and counterterrorism officials.
7. In response to the order on travel from Muslim majority countries, US Border patrol agents began detaining all arriving citizens of the banned countries in airports, and in many cases, turning those passengers around. This despite Trump’s chief-of-staff saying after the fact that the order was not meant to affect those in transit, and insisting that permanent residents would not be subjected to the order. Those detained in the airport have been held – in most cases – keeping them apart from lawyers and members of Congress trying to gain access to them. In response to this, the ACLU filed a habeas petition on behalf of several detainees and won a temporary stay on detaining those in the airports. Despite this stay, detainees are still being held without access to attorneys, family, or members of congress. Those held have had their social media posts reviewed and have been asked their views on Trump. This is a fundamental constitutional crisis.
8. Speaking of terrorism, since that’s  supposedly a priority of Trump’s, he’s made some changes to our National Security Council. Trump downgraded the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (the highest ranking commissioned military officer and primary military adviser to the President) and the director of national intelligence and creates a position for Steve Bannon, who holds a political position that is supposed to have no national security role. The Trump administration defended this because Bannon was once a Navy officer, but this still seems a little concerning.
9. As previously mentioned, Friday was Holocaust Remembrance Day, but the Trump administration’s statement was conspicuously lacking any reference to the millions upon millions of Jews who perished as the targets of ethnic/religious cleansing that was the hallmark tragedy of the Holocaust. When called out on this omission, the Trump team said it was an intentional one, and that they did not regret it because, “everyone suffered,” and, “it was incredibly sad.” Democrats and Republicans have decried this response, but it’s not that surprising given Steve Bannon’s openly anti-Semitic past.
10. Only 5 hours after he was sworn in, Donald Trump filed official FEC paperwork to register as a candidate for the 2020 Presidential Election. By way of comparison, President Obama filed for his 2012 re-election campaign in April of 2011, well over 2 years after his inauguration. This matters for a number of reasons. First, no non-profit organization can “campaign against” a candidate for office, which limits the ways in which organizations can counter Trump’s harmful policies. Second, his candidate status allows him to curry favor with and take donations from PACs and businesses, and further muddies the waters of what’s for personal or financial gain versus public interest.
11. In further action attacking the media, Trump has repeatedly singled out the New York Times by name on Twitter, along with the Washington Post, falsely referring to them as “failing” and falling apart in his criticisms of their reporting. Perhaps most dangerously, Trump suggested that someone buy the Times to kill it. This is, again, not ok. It is a hallmark fascist strategy. This is un-American.
12. In addition to many of his senior staff using private email, Trump is continuing to use his unsecured Galaxy 3 phone. Androids are known for being insecure, and this particular phone is outdated on top of that. This phone could be hacked to record conversations or to steal data.
13. Trump met with British Prime Minister Teresa May, and the two held a joint press conference. In this press conference, Trump falsely claimed he had predicted Brexit when he arrived in Scotland (he arrived after the vote), and he mentioned his Scottish golf course by name, again using his office to enrich himself.

That’s enough for tonight. I’ll continue to do these every day or two. If you have anything you think I should include, please leave it in the comments!

Day… 5? 6? How is it only that few?

Today’s probably been the worst day yet. Again, there have been some terrible policy related things that aren’t necessarily related to undermining the Constitution. I’m skipping those. This is just the stuff that fundamentally undermines our government, American values, and our way of life.

1. Trump did indeed issue an executive order to build a border wall today, as he had suggested he would in a Tweet last night. In addition to that, he will be doubling the border patrol work force, and is threatening to withhold federal funds from any city that fails to adhere to his immigration round ups. He also ended the Syrian refugee program, and is scheduled to halt immigration from a number of Muslim-majority countries tomorrow. Additionally, he has plans to cut the annual number of legal immigrants in half. “Bring me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free…” and we will mock them, call them criminals, and send them back to you, apparently.
2. In a change of course from yesterday, Trump now says he will launch a “massive investigation” into his alleged (non-existent) voter fraud. This despite the fact that these allegations have been condemned by members of Congress from both parties, and despite the fact that Trump’s own attorneys have determined that the results were valid. Free and fair elections are fundamental to our government, but calling something “rigged” or “fraud” doesn’t make it so. The author of the study that Trump cites says that he’s misunderstanding it and the numbers. One of the complaints Trump has raised, including in a Tweet today, is that people move and end up on voter rolls in multiple states. That’s true, though voter fraud almost never results. In fact, Trump’s daughter Tiffany is registered in both Pennsylvania and New York, his advisor Steve Bannon is registered in Florida and New York, and his Treasury Secretary nominee Steve Mnuchin is also registered in New York and Pennsylvania. Oops.
3. In continued news of Trump using his office to enrich himself, his club at Mar-a-Lago doubled its initiation fee from $100,000 to $200,000. Given that Trump has repeatedly referred to this as his “Winter White House” (not at all reminiscent of the Imperial Russian Winter Palace or anything), potential members are certain to pay to try to get close to and court favor with the President. While he has nominally named his son President of Mar-a-Lago, Trump is still the controlling agent on all paperwork, and still receives money and profit from the company. Furthermore, the increase was put into effect on January 1, when Trump had not yet made his son President of the company.
4. Trump has penned (but not yet signed) an executive order to review and authorize the reopening of “black site” prisons overseas. These prisons exist in order to torture detainees (or used “enhanced interrogation” in coded language). This proposal also authorizes sending newly captured prisoners to Guantanamo, which would be the first time we’ve done that since President Obama took office. This order has been circulated for comment and was leaked, but President Trump did say that intelligence officials have told him that torture absolutely works. (It doesn’t. See also: Alternative Facts.).
5. Trump has continued adding to his gag orders from yesterday. In a mandate to the EPA, he is requiring that any data or research from the organization be sent to political analysts before the public sees it. This is public research paid for by us, but now we don’t get to see it until it undergoes a political scrub. Also, the climate change page was ordered to be taken down. Again, this seems to be in violation of open records laws, and is fundamentally facist.
6. Other Trump drafts leaked today include one ending DACA, which basically allows people who were brought here as children (when they had no say or agency in the matter) and who have known no other home, to receive permits and stay here.
7. Still further leaked orders would reduce, if not eliminate, our participation in the United Nations, as well as in the International Criminal Court. It calls for eliminating funding to both – which, we don’t fund the ICC – but we do provide about a quarter of the funding to the UN’s peacekeeping operations, so, that’s cool. I guess if there’s too much peace, we can’t start new wars and stuff.
8. In particularly ironic news, it was revealed today that members of the Trump senior staff are using private emails that are housed on a private server (that’s housed in TN, actually). These people include Jared Kushner, Sean Spicer, Kellyanne Conway, and Steve Bannon.
9. Finally, because for sanity’s sake I need to stop here, the EIU (Economist Intelligence Unit) generally tracks the strength of democracies around the world as well as global tendencies towards more or less democratization. The trend, globally, has been against democratization in recent years, and that trend has continued, as, for the first time, the EIU has downgraded the United States from a “full democracy” to a “flawed democracy.” What was that about making America great again?

Day 5 – January 24th

It’s been a busy day of undermining our republic. Buckle up. On a quick side note, I’m going to try to start citing my sources for this, so you can go read the original reports if you have time/are so inclined. I’ll get up to speed by the weekend.

1. In today’s press briefing, Sean Spicer reiterated that President Trump is continuing to state the lie that millions of illegal votes were cast. Despite this seemingly major flaw in our voting system, Spicer also stated that Trump will not investigate the illegal votes. Don’t be distracted; this is nothing more than a way for Trump to comfort himself for his bruised ego and to signal to Republicans that they should continue with racist voter suppression initiatives. He doesn’t seem to care that he’s fundamentally undermining our electoral process to send that message.
2. Trump issued orders to a number of federal agencies, requiring them to limit their communications with the public (seemingly in violation of public records laws). This includes the EPA, who has been ordered not to post on social media (including information about taxpayer funded research), the USDA, which, same, and many national parks. Someone at the Badlands National Park went rogue on Twitter today after the bans came down, and he/she began posting climate change facts. After a few hours, all those posts were deleted. Data is disappearing and gag orders have been issued. A secret tip is the only way the public knows about the gag orders. Let’s be clear; this is what fascism looks like.
3. Trump signed executive orders to move forward on the Keystone Pipeline and the Dakota Access Pipeline. Regardless of your feelings on these particular policies, this is problematic because President Trump has stock in the banks financing these projects. Basically, Trump literally just used his office to enrich himself.
4. Trump threatened to “send in the Feds” to Chicago if they don’t stop the “carnage.” Basically, he’s talking about sending in the National Guard and creating a domestic war zone. Nothing to see here. Everything is fine. It definitely has nothing to do with Chicago being President Obama’s home city.
5. Trump has officially announced (via Tweet) that he will issue orders to “build the wall” on the Mexican border. Additional information released suggests he will also be targeting “sanctuary cities” that refuse to seek out undocumented immigrants. More domestic occupations in the future?
6. Leaks from Trump’s team today also confirm that he will be ending a decades-old refugee program and suspending visas for citizens of Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Yemen, and the Sudan. A registry for Muslims has also been discussed.
7. Georgia and Mississippi were hit by deadly tornadoes over the weekend, and their states have suffered widespread destruction. The republican governors of both states have asked for on-the-ground assistance and federal disaster declarations. So far, the Trump administration has not responded at all.

January 23rd List

1. In a meeting with top lawmakers, Trump repeated the false claims that illegal voting was the reason he lost the popular vote. In fact, he claims up to 5 million illegal ballots were cast. This is not only a lie, it undermines confidence in our elections (in case Russian interference wasn’t successful enough at that).

2. Trump signed an executive order freezing federal hiring, ignoring that this will leave vital jobs unfilled. In a press briefing, known liar and Press Secretary Sean Spicer stated that this would counter “dramatic expansion of the federal workforce in recent years.” The federal workforce was 2.79 million when President Obama took office. Today, it is 2.8 million. The number of federal employees in fact peaked during the Reagan administration at 3.15 million.

3. Reports today announced that one of Trump’s first executive orders was to officially declare and name his inauguration day a “National Day of Patriotic Devotion.” It doesn’t get much more North Korean sounding than that.

4. Trump named Ajit Pai as his new FCC chair. Pai is strongly against net neutrality laws, a frightening prospect for an already authoritarian-appearing regime. For example, without strong net neutrality laws, internet providers can require payment from sites in order to ensure that internet users can access them. Without net neutrality, there is also the possibility that the government could ensure that critical coverage and sites are throttled or blocked. This is a fundamental threat to free speech.

5. Sean Spicer held a press briefing today, which he referred to as his “first briefing.” That’s fair, it’s the first official one. In it, he doubled down on his claims that the inaugural crowd was the largest (though he qualified that he meant that had watched around the world… still not true), he lied about having paid Trump staff at Trump’s speech to the CIA, and he went on a 7-minute rant about how “demoralizing” it is to have people be critical. For real.

The List

I’m planning to keep a running list of the acts that President Trump takes that are fundamentally undermining to our system of government. While I may occasionally mention policy here, I mostly plan to highlight his actions that are so far outside the rules and norms of our country as to be alarming. While I am confident I will overlook things or leave them out, I think it’s important not to lose sight of all of these violations, even as they become so numerous as to be overwhelming.

Here’s the list from days 1 and 2 (starting from his first full day in office on January 21).

Day 2: January 22, 2017

1. Trump’s advisors defended sending their Press Secretary out to lie from the podium, suggesting that they adhere to quintessentially Orwellian “alternative facts.” This is a page straight out of Putin’s anti-democratic playbook.

2. Trump has definitely not taken any steps to turn over control of his businesses as he pledged to do in his press conference with stacks of empty folders. He encouraged the Kuwait Embassy to move an event to one of his hotels as well. Lawsuits have been filed in Federal Court (though standing may be hard to show).

3. Ivanka Trump has also not taken any steps to relinquish control of family businesses. Her husband works in the White House, so she must divest.

4. Michael Flynn was sworn in as National Security Advisor around 4:00 today. Around 8:30 this evening, reports surfaced that his contact with the Russian government is officially under counterintelligence investigation, particularly focusing on calls made the day President Obama expelled Russian diplomats from the country in response to the Russian government interfering with the election process. His job centers on being trustworthy. If the military and intelligence officials lose trust in him, he cannot do his job.

5. Other countries have announced they are watching the Trump/Putin relationship and may cease sharing intelligence with us because of the uncomfortably close relationship.

6. Trump staff announced he will never release his tax returns. While not surprising, it confirms that his “audit” line has been a lie all along.

 

Day 1: January 21, 2017

1. His nominees for Cabinet have not filled out required forms giving their financial conflicts, yet confirmation hearings are being allowed to continue on them anyway.

2. Trump has not divested of his known businesses, putting him in direct conflict with the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, which forbids him from taking any payment or gift from a foreign government. The largest tenant at Trump Tower is a state-owned agency of the Chinese government. This is impeachable.

3. Trump deleted a Tweet containing a misspelling, which is illegal, as his tweets are now public records that must be archived.

4. In the first press conference, his Press Secretary directly LIED, and then threatened the media for reporting the truth instead.

5. Trump spoke to the CIA, promising to be a big supporter, while apparently still working to undermine their investigation to the Russian government’s efforts to ensure he was elected.

6. While speaking to the CIA this afternoon, Trump said, “I have a running war with the media.”