Two events over the past few days mark what sure seems like an dramatic declaration of dictatorship on the part of the Trump administration: DOGE employees “breaking into” the offices of the US Institute of Peace, which is not a government agency; and the blatant ignoring of a judicial order to halt clearly illegal shipping of Venezuelans to El Salvador, backed by a “legal” argument that would essentially let the president disappear anyone, at any time, for any reason.
The USIP was created by Congressional statute in 1984, but it is, again, not a government entity. It is an independent organization “dedicated to protecting U.S. interests by helping to prevent violent conflicts and broker peace deals abroad,” and it owns and manages its own headquarters in Washington, DC. DOGE staff showed up there and demanded entry, and, in a very grim and very “the history books have some thoughts about this” development, when USIP employees called the DC police for help with the attempted break-in the cops showed up and ushered the intruders inside.
“USIP is a congressionally chartered nonprofit. It is not a federal agency,” Democratic House Rep. Don Beyer of Virginia told CNN. “We think it’s clearly illegal and unconstitutional for DOGE to be taking it over.” But with the police, and apparently the FBI as well, somehow on board with such jackbooted tactics, who knows where it goes next.
Meanwhile, the administration sent hundreds of Venezuelans who they claimed were part of a gang called Tren de Aragua — but some of whom were very clearly not, with no criminal history whatsoever — on planes to El Salvador, where that country’s now friendly dictator said they would be locked up with no due process “for a period of one year (renewable).” The supposed backing for this is the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which is as absurd as it sounds, and DOJ lawyers then argued in front of a federal judge that the judicial orders to stop the disappearances — not “deportations,” of course, because they are not being sent back to their country of origin but to indefinite detention in a prison in an entirely different country — did not apply once the planes crossed the border and were over international airspace. “Absurd” doesn’t do that bit justice.
The end result, if this is allowed to stand, is that nothing would stop the president from deeming literally anybody an enemy, and as long as they are quick enough to get you out over an ocean before a judge can respond (assuming they even feel like listening to judges when they do jump in in time) then you might end up in whatever foreign gulag the plane touches down at — and nothing done in domestic courts could bring you back. Trump’s border czar made it explicit on Fox News on Monday, saying: “I don’t care what the judges think. I don’t care what the Left thinks. We’re coming.”
The judge in this case, and many of the other cases where the judicial branch attempts to use its Constitutional authority to reign in an out-of-control executive, now faces a call for impeachment from that actual executive. The judiciary are facing death threats, Twitter psychos masquerading as pundits now openly declare that the branch’s authority does not exist, judges’ faces and names appear on Fox News to be excoriated by other psychos openly rooting for the collapse of the constitutional order.
The administration’s legal arguments, and its actions through Musk and DOGE’s extralegal rampage, are careening toward a clear conclusion: The president and his lackeys can do literally anything, to anyone, at any time, and nothing a judge or the Constitution says can change that. Rolling Stone reported that an administration official makes clear why they think this is the case: “the judiciary does not command an army, while the president of the United States does.” If that’s true, it is the most authoritarian position any US president’s office has ever taken, and he’s not the president; he’s a king.
The question for the people with the power to stop this, Republicans in Congress is, again, how much is too much? Are they just 100-percent on board with this burgeoning malevolent monarchy? They have already seen that the drastic and indiscriminate cuts cascading across government will come for their constituents just as readily as for those in blue states, and they are forced to beg for dispensations from their newly crowned kings. Why would this be any different? Why wouldn’t thugs show up at non-government offices in their home states, demanding access and kicking out or arresting the employees? Why wouldn’t sweeps of legal residents who have the wrong tattoo mistakenly (or not) pick up their employees, or neighbors, or friends?
Accurately describing all this in the terms that quite obviously apply — fascism, dictatorship, authoritarian, lawless — is still largely beyond legacy media. The only bright spot to consider now is that the vast bulk of the country still likely has no idea these sorts of things are happening, and might not believe it if they heard the details. Though yes, some people out there literally did vote for this, many, many people likely voted on the most successful lies of the last century (“The Republicans are the good-at-economy party” and “Donald Trump is a good businessman”), and would be legitimately horrified about, say, disappearances of legal residents without any due process, or the decimation of pediatric cancer research, or the removal of safe drinking water regulations. In short, it would all be very unpopular, if we could convince people it was happening. That is the central job, at this point, of anyone who would rather live in a country without dictators or kings.
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