The future
Priority numero uno is immigration, where Trump has promised to launch “the largest deportation program in history” and begin a promised legal war against birthright citizenship—the constitutional rule contained in the 14th Amendment that children of immigrants are automatic citizens if born in America.
Both of these are long-term projects. There will be a lengthy legal fight if Trump suddenly declares a constitutional guarantee no longer operable. There will be logistical and legal challenges with attempting to uproot millions of people out of their communities. The first shots in each of these fights, however, will likely come in the form of day-one orders.
But Trump has more urgent business, because he’s a convicted felon who wants to punish/eliminate everyone who can or did have anything to do with his convicted felon status.
Trump told radio host Hugh Hewitt this week, that he would fire Jack Smith, the special counsel currently prosecuting him for a bevy of 2020 election crimes, “within two seconds.”
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“I don’t think they’ll impeach me if I fire Jack Smith,” Trump told Hewitt. Even if they did, what’s a third impeachment when you’ve already beaten two?
And it’s not like firing Smith would open Trump to any new legal jeopardy: “We got immunity at the Supreme Court,” the former president noted. Whether firing him would be enough is another question: In another recent interview, Trump said that Smith “should be thrown out of the country.”
All very healthy and normal and not a bit putinesque.
It’s anybody’s guess whether Trump would include among his “day one” actions the blanket pardons for January 6th rioters he has been pledging for years. Don’t get me wrong: The pardons are definitely coming. But why rush the logistics on such a joyous occasion?
Imagine it: Trump’s favorite insurrectionists, freed from bondage, invited to the Ellipse to receive their long-overdue thanks for their patriotism. They may not have managed to reinstall Trump in 2020, but wonder of wonders: The American people did it for them just four short years later!
To put it another way, we will be a failed state.
Trump has a particular interest in the post of attorney general, where he is determined to find someone with a particular eye toward his personal interests. His last two, he thinks, were no good—Jeff Sessions failed to protect him from the Mueller investigation, and William Barr failed to help him steal the 2020 election.
Someone who actively helped him try in 2020 will be a good start: perhaps Jeff Clark, who as assistant attorney general for the department’s Civil Division worked harder than anyone to help Trump prevent the transfer of power. Clark has since had an ethics panel recommend his law license be suspended and has been indicted alongside Trump in Georgia. He’s perfect
Very very failed.
Trump doesn’t have the authority to fire the special prosecutor, but if no one stops him, how much does that matter?
Trump’s main interest is himself, as the article notes…and as we’ve noted here many times before. He might decide to forgo Central Casting and shoot for buddies instead of people who “look” the part.
rules only work so long as people are willing to abide by them, and someone is willing and able to enforce them. Norms and customs that are not actually rules are easier still to flout and ignore. Passing off the breaking of norms, rules, and laws as just “Trump being Trump” lets him get away with all sorts of shit that would have destroyed any other normal candidate or office-holder. It’s inescapable that his enablers and supporters are fine with this. At least until they’re on the wrong side of his animosity. What good is a Constitution if those charged with upholding it are the ones violating it?
I was going to say that some f those actions might be egregious enough for even some Senate Republicans to vote to convict if Trump were impeached, but then I remembered that that would put Vance in power. Pence was bad enough, but at least he seemed marginally less evil than Trump. But Vance would arguably be even worse.
Vance would/will be an absolute nightmare.