Bob Sheak, Jan 25, 2025
Trump intended his second inaugural address to be uplifting and unifying, though it is riddled with questionable claims, downright lies, and is hardly unifying. (See a transcript of the address at: https://nytimes.com/2025/01/20/us/politics/trump-inaugural-speech.html.)
As of Jan. 20, his first day in office, he began implementing many of the policies to which he referred in the address as well as in speeches during the presidential campaign, and, in some cases, over many years. There are some issues that he avoided discussing; for example, whether he will issue a federal ban on abortions. By the end of his first days in office, he issued hundreds of “executive actions,” many of which will be contested in courts (https://apnews.com/article/what-has-trump-done-trump-executive-orders-f061fbe7f08c08d81509a6af20ef8fc0). Here are some examples of Trump’s actions and anticipated actions and the effects. They threaten to destroy the tenuous democracy that we know, and replace it with a authoritarian system that is the antithesis of democracy.
He has not unified the country
He asserts in his inaugural address, for example, “National unity is now returning to America” and “I [Trump] want to be a peacemaker and a unifier.” His rhetoric and actions belie such claims. Rather, his views have been and continue to be disruptive and anti-democratic, more to generate fear and ignorance rather than relief or understanding.
The vote count does not support Trump’s claim that his victory reflects national unity. The 2024 presidential vote indicates that the presidential vote was close and that there are 75+ million Americans who voted against him, 77+ million who voted for him, and, according to data from the University of Florida Election Lab, “an estimated 89 million Americans, or about 36% of the country’s voting-age population [who] did not vote in the 2024 general election” (https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2024-11-15/how-many-people-didnt-vote-in-the-2024-election#google_vignette).
His bizarre notion that he is the country’s savior
With respect to the earlier attempt on his life, he says, “I was saved by God to make America great again.” In Trump’s view, he is America’s savior. If people do what he wants, America will thrive. This pseudo-religious self-characterization is arrogant and even psychopathological. But millions of Americans voted him into the White House. Indeed, the largest segment of Trump’s base are Christian Nationalists who believe America should be viewed as a right-wing evangelical Christian country, disregarding the constitionally-based separation of religion from politics (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/07/christian-nationalists-embrace-trump-as-their-savior-will-they-be-his).
Here’s another report on Trump’s beliefs by Ken Bensinger of the New York Times (https://nytimes.com/2024/01/11/us/politics/trump-god-video-pastors-iowa.html).
“A viral video praising former President Donald J. Trump has offended a key Iowa constituency in the lead-up to next week’s critical Iowa caucuses: faith leaders.
The video, which Mr. Trump first posted to Truth Social last Friday and then played before taking the stage at several rallies in Iowa over the weekend, is called ‘God Made Trump.’ In starkly religious, almost messianic tones, it depicts the former president as the vessel of a higher power sent to save the nation.
“God looked down on his planned paradise and said, ‘I need a caretaker,’ so God gave us Trump,” begins the video….”
Trump wants to increase US production of fossil fuels, ignoring or denying the climate effects
Trump notes in his inaugural address that America “has the largest amount of oil and gas of any country on earth and we are going to use it.” As is well known, he has long rejected the scientifically-proven realty of a growing climate crisis that is caused mostly by fossil fuels (80%). Nonetheless, if he has his way, there will be more fossil fuels extracted and utilized in America and liquified natural gas exports will go up.
In an in-depth article for The Guardian, Oliver Milman and Dharna Noor report on the Trump’s executive orders boosting fossil fuels (https://theguardian.com/environment/2025/jan/22/trump-big-oil-energy-priorities-explained). Here’s some of what they write.
“Through a flurry of executive orders, a newly inaugurated Donald Trump has made clear his support for the ascendancy of fossil fuels, the dismantling of support for cleaner energy and the United States’ exit from the fight to contain the escalating climate crisis.
“‘We will drill, baby, drill,’ the president said in his inaugural address on Monday [Jan. 20, 2025].
‘We have something that no other manufacturing nation will ever have – the largest amount of oil and gas of any country on Earth, and we are going to use it. We’re going to use it.’
Milman and Noor continue. “Trump has promised to cut Americans’ energy costs in half within a year and he claimed removing all restraints on drilling for ‘liquid gold’ will achieve this, even though the US is already producing more oil and gas than any other country in history.”
There is little place for climate treaties, wind or solar energy, and electric vehicles in Trump’s energy plans.
Milman and Noor write: “Climate treaties, wind energy and electric vehicles are not part of this vision, with Trump signing orders to ditch or stymie them.” Trump ignores scientists who say “the world must urgently move away from fossil fuels to avoid the ever-worsening impacts of the climate crisis, as evidenced by last year being the hottest ever recorded and Los Angeles suffering ruinous wildfires.
The energy oligarchs invested in Trump’s presidential campaign and are now being rewarded, as Milman and Noor point out.
“It was a good day, though, for the fossil fuel executives who poured tens of millions of dollars into Trump’s election campaign. Some celebrated a few blocks away from the inauguration in Washington at a party where they sipped champagne and nibbled on pastries with Trump’s face on them.
“Trump declared a “national energy emergency” on Monday – part of a spate of actions meant to boost the already-booming fossil fuel industry. Invoked under the National Emergencies Act, the order aims to unlock an array of executive powers to fast-track the production and distribution of energy.”
Manish Bapna, president and CEO of the green non-profit Natural Resources Defense Council, says there is no energy emergency. Rather, there is a “climate emergency.”
And despite the existential threat of fossil-fuel-driven climate disasters, “Trump has again initiated the U.S. exit from the Paris climate deal, a non-binding agreement to avoid the world hitting temperatures that would deliver disastrous heatwaves, floods and storms upon societies and economies already strained by extreme events. In joining just three other countries – Yemen, Iran and Libya – outside the Paris process, the world’s second-largest carbon emitter is walking away from this shared goal while also halting funding for poorer countries at most risk of climate-driven calamities.”
Trump also overturned two of Joe Biden’s attempts to restrict fossil fuel development. One, which the former president put forth earlier this month, meant to withdraw swaths of the US coasts from future oil and gas drilling, including the entire US east coast, the eastern Gulf of Mexico, parts of the Pacific coast and portions of Alaska’s Bering Sea. Another 2023 order limited drilling in nearly 3m acres of the Arctic Ocean in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska….”
Make the U.S. military ever more globally dominant
Trump points out in his inaugural address that America has the world’s ‘strongest military’ and he plans to make it even stronger by increasing military spending. It is well known outside of Trump’s circles that we have an inflated and wasteful military budget that needs to be reduced.
William Hartung, an expert on military spending and its effects, substantiates this point in many articles, including this one in Counter Punch
(https://counterpunch.org/2024/02/28/war-is-bad-for-you-and-the-economy). Here’s some of what he writes.
“…the opportunity costs of throwing endless trillions of dollars at the military means far less is invested in other crucial American needs, ranging from housing and education to public health and environmental protection. Yes, military spending did indeed help America recover from the [1930s] Great Depression but not because it was military spending. It helped because it was spending, period. Any kind of spending at the levels devoted to fighting World War II would have revived the economy. While in that era, such military spending was certainly a necessity, today similar spending is more a question of (corporate) politics and priorities than of economics.
“In [recent] years Pentagon spending has soared and the defense budget continues to head toward an annual trillion-dollar mark, while the prospects of tens of millions of Americans have plummeted. More than 140 million of us now fall into poor or low-income categories, including one out of every six children. More than 44 million of us suffer from hunger in any given year. An estimated 183,000 Americans died of poverty-related causes in 2019, more than from homicide, gun violence, diabetes, or obesity. Meanwhile, ever more Americans are living on the streets or in shelters as homeless people hit a record 650,000 in 2022.
Extending and sealing off US territory
Trump is hardly a unifier or peacemaker in the U.S. or abroad. He wants to acquire Greenland and retake control of the Panama Canal. He wants to rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. He has even said that he would like to annex Canada as the 51st state. And he has toyed with the idea of using the military to invade Mexico to stop the flow of immigrants into the U.S. He will withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Peace Accord. And has opened up the door to removing the U.S. from NATO.
In an article in Foreign Policy, Alexandra Sharp delves into what we know about Trump’s foreign policy (https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/01/21/donald-trump-executive-orders-day-one-us-immigration-who-tiktok). Here’s some of what she writes.
“U.S. President Donald Trump hit the ground running for his first day in office on Monday, signing 26 executive orders and issuing a slew of other promises intended to prioritize Washington’s interests on the global stage. ‘The golden age of America begins right now,’ Trump vowed at the start of his inaugural address.
“Among his first acts, Trump declared a national emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border, fulfilling a key campaign pledge to curb migration. To address border security, he ordered the deployment of troops; resumed construction of the border wall; reinstated the ‘Remain in Mexico’ program, which forces asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico during immigration proceedings; and shut down the CBP One app, a Biden-era program that allowed some migrants to enter the United States legally through an appointment lottery system. Trump also designated cartels and foreign gangs as ‘global terrorists’ in an effort to expand government efforts to combat human trafficking and drug smuggling.”
“To drive home his America First approach, Trump renamed the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America,” implemented a 90-day pause on U.S. foreign development assistance, and signaled his intention to leave the World Health Organization within 12 months” [He has already pulled America out of WHO.]
Trump also ordered the United States to withdraw from the 2015 Paris Agreement in a major blow to global efforts to limit climate change.”
Attempting to end birthright citizenship
Sharp continues.
“In addition, Trump directed federal agencies to stop recognizing birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented migrants, a right guaranteed under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. Attorneys general for 18 states, the city of San Francisco, and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit on Tuesday challenging the order.
A Line-by-Line Breakdown of Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Executive Order
Elie Mystal offers a “line-by-line” breakdown of Trump’s birthright Citizenship Executive Order in an article for The Nation, Jan 22, 2025
(https://thenation.com/article/politics/trump-birthright-citizenship-executive-order).
Mystal starts out arguing that “Almost every sentence of the order is wrong, misleading, or flagrantly unconstitutional.” Here’s more.
“I cannot tell you the worst thing Trump did in his first hours—“the worst” is a subjective assessment largely based on how close you are to the people Trump would like to harm. There is, however, one executive order that attempts to nullify an entire constitutional amendment by fiat, so that is the one I have decided to focus on.”
“Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship”—better known as the birthright citizenship executive order—attempts to cancel the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution. Getting rid of constitutional amendments via executive order is new, and, for me at least, “the worst.”
“Nearly every line of this order is wrong, misleading, or flagrantly unconstitutional. To appreciate the depths of racism and lawlessness embedded within it, you need to read every line. Lawyers have done that, and a lawsuit has already been filed attempting to stop the order. But I believe every single person in this country who is not a mouth-breathing racist deserves to understand just how despicable this thing is. I want you to be able to fight the racists in your family, chapter and verse, on this unmitigated piece of trash.”
Mystal considers Trump’s order in depth. Here are highlights.
“Section 1. Purpose. The privilege of United States citizenship is a priceless and profound gift.”
“This is simply wrong. Citizenship is a privilege, but it is not a “gift.” It’s not bestowed by individual benevolent white folks when they happen to be in a good mood. Birthright citizenship is a right, one that has been enshrined in the organizing document of our country.
“There is a legal process for taking away rights, but that process has nothing to do with the bigoted orders of an aging despot. Taking away the right to birthright citizenship requires nothing less than a constitutional amendment. Trump wants you to forget that by pretending that citizenship is a gift.”
“The Fourteenth Amendment states: ‘All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.’ That provision rightly repudiated the Supreme Court of the United States’s shameful decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393 (1857), which misinterpreted the Constitution as permanently excluding people of African descent from eligibility for United States citizenship solely based on their race.”
Mystal continues.
“Even if the courts do get around to ‘stopping’ the order, Trump controls the military. He controls the State Department and the Justice Department. He controls the Social Security Administration. I don’t have a lot of belief that he will follow a court order on this, even if the courts order him to stop.
“All I can do is tell you that the order is unconstitutional, and racist, and obviously so. The people who support this order are wrong, and racist. The journalists who promote and normalize the order are wrong and racist. This order violates one of the fundamental principles of the United States, and people should react to it like it does”.
Pardoning insurrectionists
On January 20, 2025, his first day as president, Trump pardoned 1,500 or 1,600 people who were imprisoned for their violent participation in the Jan. 6 insurrection. This is a reflection of Trump’s “big lie,” that is, despite the overwhelming evidence, he denies that they engaged in destructive actions on Jan. 6 and continues to insist they were wrongly punished and incarcerated.
Dan Barry and Alan Feuer analyze “How Trump Inverted the Violent History of Jan. 6 (https://nytimes.com/2025/01/05/us/politics/january-6-capitol-riot-trump.html).
“In the wake of the attack on the Capitol, Mr. Trump’s volatile political career seemed over, his incendiary words before the riot rattling the leaders of his own Republican Party. Myriad factors explain his stunning resurrection, but not least of them is how effectively he and his loyalists have laundered the history of Jan. 6, turning a political nightmare into a political asset.
“What began as a strained attempt to absolve Mr. Trump of responsibility for Jan. 6 gradually took hold, as his allies in Congress and the media played down the attack and redirected blame to left-wing plants, Democrats and even the government. Violent rioters — prosecuted, convicted and imprisoned — somehow became patriotic martyrs.”
The violence
The facts tell a different story. Barry and Feuer give this well-documented account of events.
“That day [Jan. 6, 2021] was an American calamity. Lawmakers huddled for safety. Vice President Mike Pence eluded a mob shouting that he should be hanged. Several people died during and after the riot, including one protester by gunshot and four police officers by suicide, and more than 140 officers were injured in a protracted melee that nearly upended what should have been the routine certification of the electoral victory of Mr. Trump’s opponent, Joseph R. Biden Jr.
Trump explains away the violence on Jan. 6, 2021, pardons the insurrectionists, and wants to punish those who investigated those who were incarcerated
“But with his return to office,” Barry and Feuer write, “Mr. Trump now has the platform to further rinse and spin the Capitol attack into what he has called ‘a day of love.’ He has vowed to pardon rioters in the first hour of his new administration [which he has done], while his congressional supporters are pushing for criminal charges against those who investigated his actions on that chaotic day.”
When asked about the reframing of the Capitol riot, and whether Mr. Trump accepts any responsibility for what unfolded on Jan. 6, his spokeswoman, Karoline Leavitt, instead referred in a statement to the “political losers” who tried to derail his career and asserted that “the mainstream media still refuses to report the truth about what happened that day.” She added, “The American people did not fall for the Left’s fear mongering over January 6th.”
“The Republican-controlled Senate acquitted him of incitement, but its leader, Mitch McConnell, declared him ‘practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day’ — a sentiment apparently shared by most Americans, with nearly 60 percent saying in polls that he should never hold office again.”
The denial
Barry and Feuer write, “Before the Capitol had even been secured, Representative Paul Gosar, Republican of Arizona, was asserting on Twitter that the events had ‘all the hallmarks of Antifa provocation.’ Hours later, the Fox News commentator Laura Ingraham was telling viewers that ‘there are some reports that antifa sympathizers may have been sprinkled throughout the crowd.’ And by morning, Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, was claiming on the House floor that some rioters ‘were masquerading as Trump supporters and in fact were members of the violent terrorist group antifa.’ (Mr. Gaetz would become President-elect Trump’s first choice for attorney general before being derailed by scandal.)
“According to M.I.T. Technology Review, this fabrication was repeated online more than 400,000 times in the 24 hours after the Capitol attack, amplified by a cast of MAGA influencers, Republican officials and members of Mr. Trump’s family.”
Through the spring and summer of 2021 [and into the present], Mr. Trump’s Republican allies sought to sow doubt and blame others.
Glorifying the rioters
“Amid the conspiratorial swirl of antifa agitators and deep-state plots, a related narrative was gaining traction: the glorification of those who had attacked the Capitol. Instead of marauders, vandals and aggressors, they were now political prisoners, hostages, martyrs. Patriots.”
“At a mid-January rally in Florence, Ariz., he [Trump] described the Jan. 6 defendants as persecuted political prisoners. Later that month, in Conroe, Texas, he promised that if he was re-elected, and if pardons were required, ‘we will give them pardons because they are being treated so unfairly.’”
“His efforts seemed to be working. By mid-2022, an NBC News poll found that fewer than half of Americans still considered Mr. Trump ‘solely’ or ‘mainly’ responsible for Jan. 6.”
Indictments
“In August 2023, Mr. Trump was indicted twice on charges of interfering with the 2020 election results: at the state level, for illegally seeking to overturn the results of the election in Georgia, which he had narrowly lost; and at the federal level, for conspiring to impede the Jan. 6 certification of Mr. Biden’s election.
“A subsequent court filing by Jack Smith, the special counsel leading the federal investigation, cited Mr. Trump’s steadfast endorsement of the rioters and of the prison choir, ‘many of whose criminal history and/or crimes on January 6 were so violent that their pretrial release would pose a danger to the public.’ The former president, it continued, ‘has financially supported and celebrated these offenders — many of whom assaulted law enforcement on January 6 — by promoting and playing their recording of the national anthem at political rallies and calling them ‘hostages’”
Promising Payback
“An emboldened Mr. Trump has already indicated that his presidential agenda will include payback for those who declared him responsible for the Capitol attack. He has said that Mr. Smith ‘should be thrown out of the country,’ and that Ms. Cheney and other leaders of the House select committee — ‘one of the greatest political scams in history,’ his spokeswoman, Ms. Leavitt, said — should ‘go to jail,’ without providing evidence to warrant such extreme measures.
Creating a paramilitary force
Joan Walsh reports in an article for The Nation on Jan. 23, 2025 on how Trump liberates his own paramilitary force (https://thenation.com/article/politics/trump-january-6-pardons-paramilitary-force).
She writes: “Convicted felon Donald Trump, also known as our 47th president, unleashed such tyranny, cruelty, and idiocy on his first day in office that I can’t tell you which of his moves is ‘worst.’
“Trump’s quick move to pardon or commute the sentences of roughly 1,600 January 6 prisoners has to be at the top. It’s like he just liberated his own paramilitary force. Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, convicted of seditious conspiracy and sentenced to 18 and 22 years in prison, respectively, got out Tuesday. They and others who helped plan the violent insurrection [of Jan. 6, 2021] are now back on the streets.”
If I were being charitable, I might say this is one rare example of Trump showing loyalty to others. Just as Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts made sure Trump didn’t have to pay for inciting the January 6 riots, so did Trump bestow his own special form of ‘immunity’ on his followers who were charged for that bloody day. He continued to call them “hostages.”
Trump declared at a Tuesday night news conference, “they have already served years in prison and they’ve served them viciously,” Trump declared at a Tuesday night news conference. “It’s a disgusting prison. It’s been horrible. It’s inhumane. It’s been a terrible, terrible thing.”
Walsh continues her report. “At least three Jan. 6 defendants pleaded guilty to assaulting Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) officer Michael Fanone, who reportedly “suffered a heart attack and a traumatic brain injury during the attack” and was forced to retire from the police force. Daniel Rodriguez pleaded guilty on Feb. 14, 2023 to tasing Fanone, as well as other charges. Another defendant, Kyle Young, pleaded guilty on May 5, 2022 to assaulting Fanone, as he ‘held the officer’s left wrist’ and ‘pulled’ Fanone’s arm away from his body.’ During the attack on officers in a Capitol tunnel, Young also ‘held a strobe light toward the police line and pushed forward a stick-like object.’ A third man, Albuquerque Head, pleaded guilty to dragging Fanone into the crowd of rioters, yelling ‘I got one!’ Rodriguez was subsequently sentenced to more than 12 years in prison, while Young received more than seven years and Head was sentenced to 7.5 years in prison.”
“The Fraternal Order of Police and the International Association of Chiefs of Police… criticized the pardons and commutations, not only those of the January 6 prisoners but also of individuals whose sentences President Joe Biden commuted, saying they were “deeply discouraged” by both presidents’ actions. “The IACP and FOP firmly believe that those convicted of [killing or assaulting law enforcement officers] should serve their full sentences,” the groups said in a joint statement.
Maybe the most poignant testimony on Tuesday came from former Capitol Police sergeant Aquilino Gonell, who shared the messages alerting him when every convicted felon he’d testified against got released.
“Each email and call log is a different violent rioter who assaulted me in the tunnel. If you are defending these people who brutally assaulted the police, maybe you ARE NOT a supporter of the police and the rule of law to begin with. If you did you would want accountability.”
“On Patriots.Win, a Trump-boosting website, at least two dozen people hoped for the executions of Democrats, judges, or law enforcement linked to the January 6 cases, Reuters reported. “They called for jurists or police to be hanged, pummeled to death, ground up in wood chippers or thrown from helicopters.
“Gather the entire federal judiciary into a stadium. Then have them listen and watch while the judges are beaten to death,” one wrote. “Cut their heads off and put them on pikes outside” the Justice Department.
“Jacob Chansley, known as the Q-Anon shaman, had already served his three years in prison. But he celebrated his pardon this way: ‘NOW I AM GONNA BUY SOME MOTHA FU*KIN GUNS!!!’”
Concluding thoughts
We are now at a moment in history, when Trump and his allies are in control of many of the pillars of government, both houses of the U.S. Congress, many courts including the Supreme Court, and the White House. He has even been bestowed by the Supreme Court with legal “immunity” while he is president. Trump and his allies can, so it seems, act with impunity and not suffer any penalty. It remains to be seen whether they will succeed.
In his book, The Reactionary Spirit, Zack Beauchamp suggests that Trump’s forces can be stymied, diverted, or slowed down. He writes:
“The contest for democracy’s future is…different in some respects from the one previous generations faced, but at its heart the struggle is the same. It is a conflict over whether democracy’s champions are as committed to equality as its rivals are to hierarchy. Previous generations of democrats showed that they were up to the challenge. The great question facing all of us today is whether we are” (p.246).
Examples of genuine reforms
Timothy J. Heaphy also offers a hopeful statement in his book, Harbingers.
“To fix our broken democracy, we should pursue three basic goals. First, we should do all we can to encourage people to participate and make it easy for them to vote, stay informed, and voice their concerns.
“Second, we need to find ways to teach and model constructive engagement, giving people the tools to sift information, pursue and consider alternative points of view, and listen to and learn from their fellow citizens. This should start early in public schools that help young people navigate the systems by which they receive information and encourage them to pursue the first goal of participation.
“Finally, we need to create systems for Americans to come together in common purpose – working together in service to their communities and finding ways to help one another” (p. 226).
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