Trump Declares War on Knowledge

 

Donald Trump has declared war on knowledge.

Two institutions crucial to any democracy are a free press and education. Both are targeted by Donald Trump for demolition. And both will certainly succumb to his heavy hand, giving up their rights, if they do not each unite with others in their fraternities.

No society can remain democratic and free without a free press. When authoritarians take power, their first act is to control the media. From Lenin sending in Bolsheviks with bayonets to seize control of Russia’s radio stations, to Mussolini shutting down Italy’s newspapers, to Donald Trump who had attempted to cripple the Free Press during his first term by discrediting the media as “fake news” and casting himself as the only person the public could trust for their information. Now in his second term, he’s going for the jugular. He is attacking on multiple flanks: intimidation with billion-dollar lawsuits; threats to jail journalists and producers; threats to scuttle media business ventures; threats to remove their licenses to operate.

He tested the waters with ABC, filing a multi-million dollar lawsuit against ABC, with ABC backing down and settling for $15 Million hoping it would send a sign of cooperation to Trump. Trump liked the flavor of that, and now he is pulling lawsuits out of his holster like a villainous  gunslinger. CBS - a $10 Billion lawsuit. The Post - $3.8 Billion. The Des Moines Register is being sued for simply publishing their poll in 2024 showing that Trump was losing.

The ABC domino effect is causing media executives to make decisions that are not in the best interest of the press nor, as will be the ultimate consequence, American democracy.

CBS is pulling back on their coverage and potential criticism of the Trump administration. The controlling shareholder of their parent company Paramount Global, Shari Redstone, is nervous that Trump will use his influence to scuttle her sale to Skydance Studios which requires FCC approval. The resulting message to the news department to take off their journalistic gloves and put on mittens has resulted in the longtime producer of 60 Minutes to resign.

Paramount and CBS should not join ABC in the bunker. The American press must hold hands, unite and refuse to allow none of Trump’s threats to dictate their reporting of events. America already suffers from Right Wing propaganda networks such as Fox News and Newsmax masquerading as news agencies polluting their audiences’ minds with false information, but for the legitimate press to possibly not share the full story of events will deny the public all the facts they need to help them fully understand what is happening in our country. Incomplete news is as bad as fake news.

Equal in necessity for democracy to thrive is education. Like the press, authoritarians lunge at public schools and higher education to mold them into their likeness; to discipline them into following the teachings of the authoritarian government. Like authoritarians before him, Trump has targeted our schools – from supporting the banning of books in public schools and abolishing the Department of the Education, to dictating specific doctrine that universities must incorporate.

“I love the uneducated,” Trump once smiled. And he means it.

In this battle, Columbia University stepped into the shoes of ABC. The private university was told to adopt nine new policies which included restrictions on departments that address Middle Eastern, South Asian and African studies; abolish the University Judicial Board transferring their authority to punish students to one individual; immediate expulsion or multi-year suspension of any student who participated in Anti-Israeli demonstrations; allow greater police authority to arrest future demonstrators; and changing their admissions procedures. If Columbia fails to implement these policy changes, Trump will order the termination of $40 Million in federal funding for research.

Columbia caved. But like in a “B” Western, when the local population first fails to stand up to the greed of the guys dressed in black, a hero rides into town and motivates the townsfolk to stand up to the bad guys. Harvard rode in on their white horse.

Harvard refuses to fall prey to extortion. They said no. Harvard standing tall inspired other universities to circle their wagons.  Hundreds of colleges signed a letter informing Trump that they will not give in to his authoritarian demands and they stand united. Trump responded to Harvard by freezing $2 Billion in funding. That money, said Harvard, goes to researching treatment for cancer, Alzheimer’s Disease, Parkinson’s Disease, Multiple Sclerosis and other diseases.  That money, said the Trump administration, “is a gravy train.”

If we don’t all unite and become active, not only joining the press and educational institutions but uniting as one to denounce the entire laundry list of Trump’s unconstitutional actions, our silence and apathy will in essence have held the door open for an autocracy with Ronald Reagan’s shining light on the hill having gone dim.

 

A Constiutional Crisis

 

And so, it has happened. The Constitutional crisis has landed.

Two of the most important people responsible for overseeing the security and fairness of our elections during Trump’s first term are officially at risk of going to jail for doing nothing more than acknowledging that there was no fraud in the 2020 election and for pointing out issues within the Trump administration.

 Sebastian Gorka,  Trump’s current Senior Director of Counterterrorism, is calling for jailing any who oppose Trump.

The conservative Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that Trump must facilitate the return to the United States an innocent Marylander who was arrested and packed off to a dangerous prison in El Salvador by ICE. Trump has folded his arms and refuses to comply.  

These are the acts of an authoritarian. This is not just the beginning of a Constitutional crisis, it is a Constitutional crisis

Donald Trump is seeking the arrest and potential imprisonment of two members of his first administration because they had confirmed that they told Trump in 2020 that the election was not rigged; that the election was fair; and that Trump lost to Biden.

Trump’s targets are Chris Krebs, Trump’s Director of Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security, and Miles Taylor, his former senior aide at the Department of Homeland Security.

It was Krebs’ job in 2020 to oversee the election to make sure it was conducted fairly. After claims by Trump that the election was stolen, Krebs conducted an investigation. Krebs arrived at the following conclusion:

“…in every case of which we are aware, these claims (of fraud) either have been unsubstantiated or are technical incoherent.”

 It particularly infuriates Trump that Krebs testified before Congress during their investigation of the January 6 attack on Congress. Krebs not only repeated that the election was absent of fraud, but he also took public exception to Trump inflaming his supporters with his allegation that it was stolen before he sent them to ascend upon the Capitol. “Republican officials, senior officials, including the former President, lied to the American people about the security of the 2020 election.”

Ouch. Krebs is going to suffer for that candor.

Taylor is facing the same consequences. He not only vouched that in his position at Homeland Security he is positive there was no fraud, but he also later wrote an OpEd and a book highly critical of Trump. You can’t get away with both undermining Trump’s narrative about the election and criticize Trump. That’s more than he can stand. He too must be investigated and punished. Directly referring to Taylor’s criticism, Trump labeled Taylor’s examples as “all lies” and justifying police action against Taylor because “I think he’s guilty of treason.”

Under any authoritarian regime, to be critical of the authoritarian or to challenge that leader’s version of events is a crime. It is in North Korea. It is in China. It is in Russia. It once was in Germany and Italy. It is now in America.

While Krebs and Taylor’s personal liberty are at risk, Kilmar Abrego Garcia has already lost his. Inappropriately arrested and deported under false charges of being a member of the gang MS-13, he sits in the foreign prison under contract by Trump to accept deportees due to – the Trump administration admitted – an administrative error. This should be an easy fix. It would be…if it didn’t turn out that Trump is happy that he subtracted one more Hispanic from our population.

The Supreme Court came to the rescue. A conservative Court consisting of three Trump appointees ruled 9-0 that Trump must facilitate the return of the victim. But Trump won’t comply. Despite Constitutional requirements that he must comply as an essential part of our system of checks and balances, Trump instead is willing to go to war with the Constitution.

Beginning in his first week in office Trump has fired warning shots that a battle with the Constitution was imminent.   Trump threatened the Freedom of the Press by seeking to remove their right to operate, to jail journalists and producers, and filing lawsuits; he began action to end the Right to Assemble for those who demonstrate against his positions; has done away with due process; intimidates and makes threats against attorneys who challenge his positions; and seeks jail for citizens who either dare to be critical of him, release facts that contradict his narrative, or attempted to hold him accountable for crimes that evidence demonstrates that he committed.

But in defying the Supreme Court, he has fired the most devastating shot at our Constitution since the firing at Ft. Sumter. When he goes to war against the Supreme Court, he is going to war against the Constitution. When he goes to war against the Constitution, he has gone to war against our democracy.

 

If You're Brown, Get Out of Town

 

It started out – and least in campaign rhetoric – to be an energized response to those breaking our laws, be it failing to legally enter our country, or be those violations actual crimes committed in the United States.

But the reality under Donald Trump has become something different. In the most diplomatic of terms, it is gross overreach. In more direct terms, it is the actions of a police state who itself is ignoring laws and the US Constitution.

Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia is, by a 2019 court order, legally residing in the United States. That year was the beginning of law enforcement’s efforts to deport Abrego Garcia who had in fact crossed into the US illegally to escape threats he received in El Salvador by the gang Barrio 18 who were attempting to muscle in on his mother’s business. However, the court ruled the El Salvadorian with an American wife and an American-born child should not be deported to El Salvador where he faced possible torture and death at the hands of Barrio 18 and gave Abrego Garcia protected status.

Despite this, while driving with his special needs son, ICE stopped and arrested him. He was accused of being a member of the gang MS 13 which ICE has been active in rounding up. There is no evidence of any kind that Abrego Garcia is a member of MS 13. The only argument presented by ICE is that he was wearing a Chicago Bulls cap, a black hoodie and had a tattoo. In my opinion, they left out another factor they surely considered: he has brown skin. (the tattoo is a tattoo supporting autistic children).

Without due process, he was handcuffed, jailed and packed off to a El Salvadorian (CECOT) prison  that a US Judge has said is “notorious…for human rights violations”.

The Trump administration admits now that he should have never been deported. They refer to it as an administrative error. But, they claim, it is what it is, and they cannot remove him from a prison where his safety is in danger. Abrego Garcia just needs to get accustomed to his new home.

A judge disagrees with Team Trump’s claim, and ordered that Trump return him to the US. Trump refuses. They are appealing the ruling, even though their representative in court conceded they have no proof of his MS 13 affiliation and that they imprisoned him in error.

JD Vance has gone on the offensive, campaigning against Abrego Garcia with the lie that “he is a convicted MS 13 gang member and not legally in the United States.” Lies on both counts – he never was charged with being a gang member and the courts gave him protected status in the US. Vance knows the truth. It appears then that Team Trump is content that an innocent man rotting in an infamous prison is justified as long as another brown-skinned individual has been subtracted from the US population.

Judge Paula Xinis seems to acknowledge that when she concludes that Trump’s argument that it is impossible for them to have the means to return Abrigo Garcia is untrue and that instead, it is Trump’s administration’s “lack of desire” to see the victim returned to the US.

I would be the first to cheer the removal of dangerous gang members from our cities, but I have equal enthusiasm for the right of due process under our Constitution and a concern that in casting their net so wide and so indiscriminately, ICE is grabbing innocent people and condemning them to the same fate as the guilty.

Tren de Aragua is a violent Venezuelan gang operating in the US and rightfully targeted for deportation and incarceration. But of 238 tagged by ICE as being gang members and now sitting in CECOT, families of 27 of them claim they have no gang ties and records show that these 27 all have been working with immigration and have pending cases to determine their applications for legal asylum.

Detaining people in the country illegally is the main function of ICE and they have been active in this pursuit. However, even higher numbers of those who are following legal procedures to work in the US are being arrested by ICE than those innocents suspected of gang activity. The estimate is 8-10% with many detained when responsibly checking in with the immigration office as they are required to do. In the prior month, seven American citizens were arrested and detained. The red flag? Brown skin.

A nation’s laws and borders should be respected. Following a country’s procedures for immigration and asylum should be followed. But there’s a right way and there’s a wrong way to enforce our laws, and the tactics used by Trump through ICE are those of a police state, not of a democratic government.

Trump Deserts and Bullies Our Allies

 

Pop quiz: who recently proclaimed America as his country’s “colleagues and partners”?

The United Kingdom? Canada? France? Australia? Japan?

None of the above. It was Putin.

Now consider the following concerns expressed by nations who have forever been our allies:

“It is clear that the Americans…do not care about the fate of Europe.” – German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

French President Emmanuel Macron is distraught that America can no longer be relied on to fill its historical role as the defender of democratic nations, casting doubt that America “will remain on our side.”

Outgoing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is even more distraught that America’s president is “seeking the total collapse of our economy” and fears that it is part of a long-term plan for Donald Trump’s America to rob Canada of its sovereignty and absorb Canada into the US.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is serving as the Paul Revere of Europe, crying out that “…the international Far-Right” is threatening both Europe and the Middle East, which he implies America under Trump has, well, in Putin’s own words, become “partners.” He clearly implies Trump’s America when he says, “There are those who want to dismantle global trade and international institutions.”

Since the end of WWII, America has been not one of the leaders of the free world, but in fact the leader of the free world. It is America who not only represents true democracy, it is America who is the global defender of democracy. It is America that other democracies looked up to. We had the world’s trust, the world’s respect, the world’s admiration.

But no more…America’s friends and allies are now being treated as the enemy, while a fascist military aggressor has become Trump’s - and thus perceived as America’s - “partner.” Parades and demonstrations critical of Trump have emerged across the European continent, from the streets of Switzerland to Britian’s capital. They paint anti-Trump graffiti on walls and street signs. Italians compare him to Mussolini; Germans compare him to Hitler.

They feel betrayed. Trump has sided with Putin on the war in Ukraine, offering Putin 1/5 of Ukraine in exchange for what is supposed to be an end to the fighting as he reads from Putin’s script on justifying Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He has told European leaders that should Putin ever invade other European states, “I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want.”

In declaring an economic war on Europe, he played hide-and-seek with the truth accusing the European Union of being created to do economic harm to the US and having treated the US “very badly” ending with “now it’s our turn”….which reminds one of Hitler claiming Poland had been abusive to Germany creating the Germans need to respond with aggression.

Canada is our brother nation. Americans love Canadians and vice versa. But now they boo at our national anthem as Trump pounds them with unjustified tariffs and continues to argue for US annexation of Canada.

Canada isn’t the only country on Trump’s menu. He wants the Panama Canal. He wants Gaza. He wants Greenland. He wants half of Ukraine’s mineral resources. They call this imperialism.

Trump has called on forcing the entire Palestinian population of 2 Million to leave their homeland so he can develop and profit off of Gaza, creating what he dreams could become “the Riviera of the Middle East.” Some call this ethnic cleansing.

“We don’t understand what we have done to deserve this,” was a question duplicated by both an EU spokesperson and a Canadian citizen interviewed on the streets of Montreal.

Many in the field of politics suggest Trump has a 19^th Century view of what makes a country great – to expand its territorial reach. To copy Victoria’s “the sun never sets on the British Empire” would, in his mind, insure his place as a great president.

I have an additional theory:

Trump is thin skinned, petty and vengeful. Remembering that his declaration to run for president was triggered by Barak Obama embarrassing him at a Correspondent’s Dinner, consider that in 2019 he discovered that Trudeau was mocking him behind his back to Europe’s key leaders at a NATO conference. Those leaders all joined in. As soon as he saw video of this, he canceled his NATO schedule and flew home humiliated. Now in his second term, he has declared economic war on each of those nations that laughed at him. He now openly mocks Trudeau. He cursed Trudeau in phone conversations. And now he wants Trudeau’s country.

“Trump is always looking for a way to exact revenge and retribution against people who have criticized him…and certainly Trudeau would fall into that category,” says Geoffrey Kabaservice, vice president of political studies at the Niskanen Center.

Be it imperialism; be it a partnership with Putin; be it for profit; or be it revenge.…No matter his motivations, the end result is America is no longer a trusted ally and defender of democracy. In short, America is no longer America anymore.