logo
Trump disdains conservatism. His governing philosophy is absolute power

Trump disdains conservatism. His governing philosophy is absolute power

The Guardian27-04-2025

Donald Trump issued his declaration of war against his 'enemies within' at the Department of Justice on 14 March. Thus the president launched a constitutional crisis that encompasses not just a group of migrants snatched without due process and transported against federal court orders to a foreign prison, but a wholesale assault on virtually every major institution of American society.
'We will expel the rogue actors and corrupt forces from our government. We will expose, and very much expose, their egregious crimes and severe misconduct,' he pledged. 'It's going to be legendary.'
Trump's speech condensed his mission to its despotic essence. While he distilled his contempt, Trump also marked his disdain for the traditional conservatism of limited government, respect for the law and liberty. He defined his project, built on his executive orders as substitutes for the law, to crown himself with unrestrained powers to intimidate, threaten and even kidnap. His political philosophy is a ruthless quest for absolute power.
Trump hailed his appointees for being 'so tough' – the enthusiastically compliant attorney general, Pam Bondi, and the irrepressible flunky FBI director, Kash Patel. He attacked lawyers whose firms he would issue executive orders against to eviscerate their work – 'really, really bad people'. He claimed Joe Biden and the former attorney general Merrick Garland 'tried to turn America into a corrupt communist and third world country'. And he described 'people that come into our country' as 'stone cold killers. These are killers like – they make our killers look nice by comparison. They make our killers look nice. These are rough, tough people with the tattoos all over their face.' Trump's accusations are invariably projections of his own malice that he manufactures into politically pliable paranoia.
No staff attorneys within the department were invited to the speech, as people at the justice department told me. The senior lawyers from the Public Integrity Section had already resigned when Trump attempted to coerce them to participate in dropping the prosecution of New York City's mayor, Eric Adams, for corruption in exchange for his support of Trump's coming roundup and deportation of migrants. After Trump, a convicted felon, concluded by comparing himself to Al Capone, the mafia boss convicted of tax evasion – 'the great Alphonse Capone, legendary Scarface, was attacked only a tiny fraction of what Trump was attacked' – Trump's theme song from his political rallies, YMCA, blared out of the loudspeakers in the department auditorium.
The next day, Trump announced his executive order citing the Alien Enemies Act of 1789, a wartime measure, to incarcerate members of the Tren de Aragua gang he asserted were coordinating with the Maduro government of Venezuela to commit 'brutal crimes, including murders, kidnappings, extortions, and human, drug, and weapons trafficking'. (On 20 March, the New York Times reported: 'The intelligence community assessment concluded that the gang, Tren de Aragua, was not directed by Venezuela's government or committing crimes in the United States on its orders, according to the officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity.')
The 238 men abducted were taken without any due process to a maximum security prison operated by the Salvadoran strongman Nayib Bukele, who calls himself 'the coolest dictator' and whose government is being paid at least $6m in an arrangement with the Trump administration.
In a hearing on 24 March before the US court of appeals for the DC circuit, Judge Patricia Millett, criticizing the absence of due process, said: 'Nazis got better treatment under the Alien Enemies Act.' She asked the deputy assistant attorney general, Drew Ensign, arguing the administration's case: 'What's factually wrong about what I said?'
'Well, your Honor, we certainly dispute the Nazi analogy,' he replied.
Trump's assertion of emergency power under the Alien Enemies Act is more than a bit analogous to the ideas of Carl Schmitt, the chief legal scholar and apologist of the Nazi regime, 'Crown Jurist of the Third Reich'. The falsity, according to the intelligence community, of Trump's claim about the men underlines the analogy of Trump's argument to Schmitt's. 'Authority, not truth, produces law,' Schmitt wrote. 'Sovereign is he who decides on invocation of the state of emergency.' And then: 'Der Ausnahmefall offenbart das Wesen der staatlichen Autorität am klarsten' – 'The State of Emergency reveals most clearly the essence of the authority of the state … The exception is thus far more important that the ordinary rule. The normal state of affairs shows nothing; the emergency shows everything; it confirms not only the rule, rather the rule derives strictly from the emergency.'
The ACLU filed a lawsuit on 15 March before chief judge James Boasberg of the US district court of the District of Columbia to halt the flight to El Salvador. The judge issued an order for the planes to return to the US, but the Trump administration defied it.
Trump's defiance has set in motion a flurry of legal challenges and court cases heard in district courts and circuit courts of appeals, as well as the supreme court. On 7 April, the court ruled that the detainees had the right to due process, which they were denied. On 11 April, the justices unanimously ordered the administration to facilitate the return of one wrongly taken individual, Kilmar Ábrego García, a legal resident of Maryland who was identified by his family and had no criminal record. On 19 April, the court temporarily blocked a new round of deportations under the Alien Enemies Act.
CBS's 60 Minutes reported: 'We could not find criminal records for 75% of the Venezuelans.' Bloomberg News reported that about 90% had no criminal records.
On 14 April, Trump welcomed Bukele to the White House. Trump has turned the Oval Office into his small stage with cabinet secretaries and staff seated on the couches as his chorus. Bukele was dressed in black casual wear, but not admonished by JD Vance as he had criticized Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskyy for supposedly showing disrespect to Trump by not appearing in a suit and tie.
Trump and Bukele played the scene as a buddy movie, kidding each other, but not kidding, about repression. 'Mr President,' said Bukele, 'you have 350 million people to liberate. But to liberate 350 million people, you have to imprison some. That's the way it works, right?'
'The homegrowns are next, the homegrowns,' said Trump. 'You've got to build about five more places.'
'Yeah, we got the space,' Bukele said.
When the question of Ábrego García was raised by a reporter, Bondi said: 'That's not up to us,' and that it was 'up to El Salvador'.
'Well, I'm – supposed you're not suggesting that I smuggle a terrorist in the United States, right?' Bukele replied. Trump reassured him: 'It's only CNN.' Bukele called the question 'preposterous'.
'Well, they'd love to have a criminal released into our country,' said Trump. 'These are sick people. Marco, do you have something to say about that?' It was another test of the secretary of state's sycophancy. Marco Rubio rose to the occasion. 'No court in the United States has a right to conduct a foreign policy of the United States,' he said. 'It's that simple. End of story.'
Standing behind Rubio, Trump's most influential aide and the architect of his immigration policy, Stephen Miller, chimed in: 'To Marco's Point, the supreme court said exactly what Marco said. That no court has the authority to compel the foreign policy function in the United States. We won a case 9-0. And people like CNN are portraying it as a loss, as usual, because they want foreign terrorists in the country who kidnap women and children.'
But a reporter attempted to point out that the court had in fact ruled it was illegal to deprive the captives of due process. 'Well, it's illegal to, so I just wanted some clarity on it,' he asked. Trump jumped in: 'And that's why nobody watches you anymore. You have no credibility.'
On 17 April, the day the supreme court ruled on Ábrego García, on Trump said, 'I'm not involved in it,' though he had signed the executive order that authorized his kidnapping. Trump was reverting to the tactic of denial, however patently ludicrous, that he had been schooled in originally by Roy Cohn, the Republican power broker and mafia lawyer who had been his private attorney. The Trump administration continues to claim it has no control over the captives in the Salvadorian prison and they cannot be returned.
Trump's disavowal of responsibility made the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem's, visit to the prison to tape a video on 26 March problematic on several levels. If Trump has no control, then how was Noem allowed the run of the place? If the prisoners were combatants under the Alien Enemies Act, then their status made her appearance a violation of the Geneva convention's Article 1 that outlaws 'outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment', and Article 13 that prohibits 'acts of violence or intimidation' and 'insults and public curiosity' – that is, using prisoners for propaganda purposes.
If Schmitt's argument is not Trump's argument, the difference has certainly not confused the judges handling the cases. Boasberg ruled that the Trump administration had acted with 'willful disregard' for his order and, while contempt proceedings were paused, threatened to appoint a special prosecutor if the Department of Justice declines to do so.
The Maryland federal judge Paula Xinis, who ordered the administration to return Ábrego García, said on 15 April she had seen no evidence of progress. She ruled on 22 April that such stonewalling 'reflects a willful and bad faith refusal to comply with discovery obligations … That ends now.'
She also stated: 'Defendants must supplement their answer to include all individuals involved as requested in this interrogatory.' That discovery process might range into stranger precincts of Maga depths than imagined. The New Yorker reported on 'a Maga salon' at a tech billionaire's Washington residence to which a Republican lobbyist, Andrew Beck, brought Trace Meyer, self-described as the 'Babe Ruth of bitcoin', where they discussed with state department staffers the 'work-in-progress plan' for abducting migrants to El Salvador. The officials had reached 'an impasse in the negotiations. Meyer, through his crypto connections, was able to help reopen the conversation.' Add to the discovery list: Beck, Meyer and the state department officials.
In denying the Trump administration's motion for a halt in the Xinis ruling, Judge J Harvie Wilkinson III, of the court of appeals for the fourth circuit, issued a thunderous opinion on 17 April, marking a historic break between principled conservatism and Trump's regime. Wilkinson is an eminent conservative figure within the judiciary, of an old Virginia family, a clerk to Justice Lewis Powell, and a Ronald Reagan appointee revered in the Federalist Society.
'The government,' Wilkinson wrote, 'is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order. Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done. This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear.'
Wilkinson concluded with a siren call about Trump's threat. 'If today the Executive claims the right to deport without due process and in disregard of court orders, what assurance will there be tomorrow that it will not deport American citizens and then disclaim responsibility to bring them home? And what assurance shall there be that the Executive will not train its broad discretionary powers upon its political enemies? The threat, even if not the actuality, would always be present, and the Executive's obligation to 'take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed' would lose its meaning.'
Wilkinson has defined the stark conflict headed toward a unstoppable collision. Against Trump's appropriation of Schmitt's authoritarian logic, the conservative jurist has thrown down the gauntlet of American constitutional law. Trump's disdain for that sort of conservatism moves the cases again and again toward the conservative majority of the supreme court, which must decide its allegiance, either like Wilkinson, to the constitution, or instead to Trump's untrammeled power that would reduce the court itself to a cipher.
Sidney Blumenthal, a former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, has published three books of a projected five-volume political life of Abraham Lincoln: A Self-Made Man, Wrestling With His Angel and All the Powers of Earth

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Democrats have a dirty secret - they actually like some of the tax cuts in Trump's ‘big beautiful bill'
Democrats have a dirty secret - they actually like some of the tax cuts in Trump's ‘big beautiful bill'

The Independent

time38 minutes ago

  • The Independent

Democrats have a dirty secret - they actually like some of the tax cuts in Trump's ‘big beautiful bill'

Some of the sweeping tax cuts proposed in President Donald Trump 's massive spending package have found support among Democrats — even as they are expected to oppose the legislation over proposed cuts to Medicaid and other government services when it comes up for debate in the Senate later this month, according to a new report. The gargantuan budget package, which House Republicans and the White House have dubbed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, passed the House by a single vote last month and is now drawing heat from fiscal hawks in both chambers as well as Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who was fresh off his months-long stint as a special government employee when he began threatening to back challengers to any legislator who votes for the bill. Still, there are facets of the proposal that have appeal for some Democrats, the New York Times reports. Virginia Rep. Don Beyer, a Democrat who is also a wealthy car dealership owner, told the Times his party is 'in general very much in favor of reducing taxes on working people and the working poor' when asked about Trump's plan to end taxes on service workers' tips. 'Those people are living on tips,' he added. Trump's tip tax cut plan has also attracted attention from Sen. Jacky Rosen of Nevada, a state where service workers make up a large and powerful voting bloc that has traditionally supported Democrats but shifted to Trump in large numbers during the 2024 presidential election, handing him the Silver State's electoral votes. Rosen, a Democrat, took to the Senate floor last month to advance a bill approving Trump's 'no tax on tips' plan. It passed unanimously even though the measure was largely symbolic because the U.S. constitution requires tax laws to originate in the House 'I am not afraid to embrace a good idea, wherever it comes from,'. she said at the time in remarks on the Senate floor. Yet despite the support for some of the individual tax provisions in the plan, it's highly unlikely that it will be able to muster enough if any Democrats to ease the way to Trump's desk, even under a Senate procedure known as budget reconciliation, which fast-tracks some types of spending legislation without subjecting it to the upper chamber's de facto 60-vote threshold for passage. Democrats are expected to unanimously vote against the legislation in the upper chamber, where it has also attracted opposition from some Republicans who've complained that the cuts to spending in the package don't go far enough to offset the reduced revenue caused by provisions meant to enact Trump campaign promises to end taxes on tips for service workers, as well as taxes on overtime pay for hourly workers and on social security benefits for seniors. Nonpartisan experts such as those at the Congressional Budget Office have warned that the reduced tax receipts would blow a massive hole in the federal budget and jeopardize America's long-term fiscal outlook, but that hasn't stopped some prominent Democrats from getting behind the individuals tax cuts. Trump and his allies hope the prominent tax cut proposals will blunt Democrats' efforts to paint the One Big Beautiful Bill Act as a giveaway to wealthy GOP donors that will gut government services while only providing limited relief for working-class voters. To that end, the president and others in his camp have routinely taken to social media to argue that anyone who votes against the bill is effectively voting for tax increases because the legislation makes permanent a number of temporary tax cuts enacted in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which Trump signed into law during his first term. Democrats, meanwhile, remain opposed to the bill's massive cuts to Medicare and other measures that make it harder for people to claim tax credits meant to boost lower-income Americans' bottom lines. Rep. Brad Schneider, an Illnois Democrat, told the Times that the whole bill had to be considered rather than any individual provision or provisiosn. 'Any one thing — a tax credit or a tax cut — might make sense, but you've got to take a look at the whole picture,' he said.

Newsom mocked for posting 'war room' photo during LA protests
Newsom mocked for posting 'war room' photo during LA protests

Daily Mail​

timean hour ago

  • Daily Mail​

Newsom mocked for posting 'war room' photo during LA protests

California Governor Gavin Newsom is under fire after posting a 'war room' style photo of officials meeting while Los Angeles was being torched by rioters. Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of LA for a third day on Sunday to protest President Donald Trump 's crackdown on illegal immigration. Rioters looted downtown businesses, blocked off a major freeway, set self-driving cars on fire and wreaked havoc on the city. Newsom, however, was meeting with state emergency officials, LA police and the LA County Sheriff's Department as the chaos unfolded. Sharing a photo of the meeting on social media, he said authorities had gathered to 'respond to protests provoked by chaos from Washington'. The Democrat further blamed the president for the riots, saying: 'We're here to keep the peace - not play into Trump's political games.' But his remark was quickly met with backlash as outraged citizens branded him a 'clown' and begged him to 'stop escalating the situation'. But social media users blasted Newsom and his war room crew for seemingly doing nothing while the city descended into chaos. 'Looks like you're there for the photo op,' one posted to X. 'This clown thought it was a good idea to show him in his control room with two televisions broadcasting his streets on fire,' echoed another. 'You probably have no idea what to do so "let's take a photo and release it",' added another. Newsom was also slammed for placing blame on Trump when state and local officials were 'absolutely failing at keeping the peace'. 'Blaming ICE for the riots for simply doing their job? You're a disgrace,' one X user wrote. Another echoed: 'People choose to commit crimes. DC didn't make them do it. That's the problem with Democrats. You never accept responsibility for your actions.' 'You are trash. This isn't the result of "Washington." This is the result of your failed leadership and failed policies. You have destroyed California!' added another. 'If you're not here to play political games, why the bit about "protests provoked by chaos from Washington"? Sounds like you're playing political games,' one said. Others urged Newsom to 'resign immediately', with some even going as far as calling for his arrest. 'Says he's not here to play political games, plays political games,' on X user wrote. 'Gavin you should be in jail.' Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass also blamed the Trump administration for inciting tension by sending in the National Guard and condemned protesters who became violent. 'I don't want people to fall into the chaos that I believe is being created by the administration completely unnecessarily,' she told a press conference Sunday. Trump has demanded that both Newsom andBass apologize for the riots, insisting that those involved were not 'peaceful protesters' as the duo had claimed. Newsom said he requested the Trump administration to withdraw its order to deploy 2,000 troops in Los Angeles County, calling it unlawful. He said in an interview with MSNBC that Trump 'has created the conditions' around the protests and accused the president of trying to manufacture a crisis and of violating California's state sovereignty. He called Trump's order 'serious breach of state sovereignty' and demanded the president to rescind the order and 'return control to California'. He urged protesters to stay peaceful and warned that those who instigate violence will be arrested, saying on social media: 'Don't take Trump's bait.' Newsom also accused Trump of 'putting fuel on this fire' and vowed to to sue his administration over the deployment. 'Commandeering a state's National Guard without consulting the Governor of that state is illegal and immoral,' he said on X. 'California will be taking him to court .' Earlier on Sunday, about a dozen National Guard members, along with Department of Homeland Security personnel, pushed back a group of demonstrators outside a federal building in downtown Los Angeles, video showed. The US Northern Command said 300 members of the California National Guard had been deployed to three spots in the Los Angeles area. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told CBS program 'Face the Nation' that the National Guard would provide safety around buildings to people engaged in peaceful protest and to law enforcement. Police declared all of downtown Los Angeles to be an unlawful assembly area Sunday night and ordered protesters to go home after a third day of violence. The unrest in Los Angeles has become a major flashpoint in Trump's signature effort to clamp down on illegal immigration. He calls the protesters insurrectionists. The president has pledged to deport record numbers of people who are in the country illegally and to lock down the US-Mexico border, setting the border enforcement agency ICE a daily goal of arresting at least 3,000 migrants. Several self-driving cars from Alphabet's Waymo were set ablaze on a downtown street on Sunday evening. Los Angeles police said some protesters had thrown concrete projectiles, bottles and other items at police. Police declared several rallies to be unlawful assemblies and later extended that to include the whole downtown area. Officers on horseback tried to control the crowds, but demonstrators shouted 'shame on you!' and appeared to throw objects at the officers, footage showed. One group even blocked the 101 Freeway, a major downtown thoroughfare. McDonnell said Sunday evening that people had a right to protest peacefully but the violence he had seen by some was 'disgusting' and the protests were getting out of control. Police said they had arrested 10 people on Sunday and 29 the previous night, adding arrests were continuing. In a social media post on Sunday, Trump called the demonstrators 'violent, insurrectionist mobs' and said he was directing his cabinet officers 'to take all such action necessary' to stop what he called riots. Despite Trump's language, he has not invoked the Insurrection Act, an 1807 law that empowers a president to deploy the US military to suppress events like civil disorder. Asked on Sunday whether he was considering doing so, he said, 'It depends on whether or not there's an insurrection.' Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Saturday the Pentagon is prepared to mobilize active-duty troops 'if violence continues' in LA, saying Marines at nearby Camp Pendleton were on high alert.

Mexican president responds to LA riots
Mexican president responds to LA riots

Daily Mail​

timean hour ago

  • Daily Mail​

Mexican president responds to LA riots

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum fanned the flames of the ongoing riots in Los Angeles , calling Mexican migrants living the US 'heroes' while blasting the immigration polices of President Trump. Violent clashes broke out in LA after dozens of undocumented migrants were arrested Friday in raids carried out by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. 'We disagree with this approach to the migration phenomenon,' Sheinbaum said during a press conference Sunday afternoon in San Andrés Cholula, Puebla. 'It's not about raids or violence, but rather working on a comprehensive reform that takes into account the Mexicans on the other side of the border,' she added. 'Mexicans living in the United States are good, honest men and women who left to seek a better life for themselves and to support their families,' she said at her press conference. 'They are not criminals.' The president also lauded the contributions of Mexicans in the Los Angeles area. 'We call for a ban on violence,' she said. 'Consuls are instructed to stay in touch with the 35 detained Mexicans and their families, and above all, to acknowledge the work of their fellow Mexicans there.' Tensions worsened in Los Angeles on Sunday as demonstrators took to the streets after Trump ordered the deployment of 2,000 National Guard troops. Protesters marched across highways and set vehicles on fire as law enforcement used tear gas, rubber bullets and flash bangs to control the crowd. California Governor Gavin Newsom took to X on Monday to say that he would file a lawsuit against Trump for deploying the National Guard. 'This is exactly what Donald Trump wanted. He flamed the fires and illegally acted to federalize the National Guard,' the Democrat wrote. 'The order he signed doesn't just apply to CA. It will allow him to go into ANY STATE and do the same thing. We're suing him.'

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store