“Trump demands that government actors pledge loyalty to him, as opposed to the law or to the Constitution”
Rick Pildes
Donald Trump’s rants claiming undocumented immigrants are all recently released criminals from foreign prisons and mental institutions and “poisoning the blood” of Americans and declaring of Haitian immigrants, “They’re eating the dogs. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there,” and we need to send “them back to Venezuela” can be dismissed as silly and unhinged nonsense.
More menacing is the former president’s belief if re-elected he would have “every right” to use the justice system to go after his political enemies.
High on his list are members of the House January 6th Committee whom he believes should be “indicted,” “prosecuted” and “jailed”, despite their Article I Section 6 protections as members of Congress.
Media journalists he dislikes and he deems “unfair” to him and labels an “enemy of the people” (a phrase originally coined by Joseph Stalin), is another priority target which he believes the government should censor or shut down; notwithstanding the First Amendment guarantees of “freedom of speech” and “the press.”
Despite having spent more time than any other modern-day politician attacking judges and others involved in the judicial system, Trump has upped his rhetoric about criminalizing dissent, suggesting any criticisms of judges and SCOTUS justices either is, or should be, illegal and that people who do so “should go to jail;” again reflecting his ignorance of or disdain for that pesky First Amendment.
Trump’s language echoes that of autocratic world leaders he so admires; Putin, Xi, Orban, Erdoğan and Kim Jong Un, each of whom has prioritized eliminating a free press, controlling their justice systems and silencing their political opposition … measures totally incompatible with the presidential oath to, “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
If his history and his campaign rhetoric are reflective of how he would govern in a second term, Trump represents a clear and present danger to our Constitution, our Republic and the personal liberties of those across the political spectrum.
