Elon Musk’s attacks on the federal government are so unpopular that Tesla stock and sales are tanking, and anti-Tesla demonstrations have erupted all over the world.
Trump is clearly triggered. Calling demonstrators ‘domestic terrorists’ and ‘sick terrorist thugs,’ he is threatening “20 year jail sentences for what they are doing to Elon Musk and Tesla,” while suggesting demonstrators could be sent to “prisons of El Salvador, which have become so recently famous for such lovely conditions!"
It isn’t a joke, but it is sick. Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a statement promising to pursue investigations that “impose severe consequences on those involved in these (Tesla) attacks, including those operating behind the scenes to coordinate and fund these crimes,” and added that the DOJ had already charged several people with crimes involving five-year mandatory sentences.
Most Tesla demonstrators, like most Gaza protestors, are not violent and have no violent intentions. Intimidating peaceful protest organizers who neither engage in nor encourage physical violence violates the 1st Amendment and chills the free speech of every American watching.
Clearly that is Trump’s intention.
In the past ten days, Trump has attacked protestors, declared a false ‘national invasion,’ invoked war powers in time of peace, ignored federal court orders, and sent people to an El Salvador labor prison without due process, a hearing, or review. These are the hallmarks of tyranny.
Trump’s use of wartime powers
By now, anyone outside the Fox News bubble knows that Trump has openly disregarded federal court orders. Trump recently invoked war powers during time of peace to remove Venezuelan immigrants without due process, in direct defiance of a federal court order not to.
Hearings on the removal have not yet reached the merits of the case, but the facts are alarming. Trump used the Alien Enemies Act, a rarely invoked wartime law from 1798, to send Venezuelan immigrants to a forced labor prison in El Salvador. In 230 years, the Act has only been invoked three times: during the War of 1812, during WWI, and after Pearl Harbor was bombed in WWII. The Act can only be used under “a declared war between the United States and any foreign nation or government, or any invasion or predatory incursion.” We are not at war with Venezuela, and there has been no “invasion” as that term is rationally understood
Trump called forth these rare war powers to send people to an El Salvador prison, unilaterally claiming they were members of the dangerous drug trafficking gang Tren de Aragua without evidence, hearings, or independent review. For these reasons, Judge James Boasberg issued an order to block the removal flights until he could review the ancient statute, a review that has still not occurred because Trump flouted the non-removal order, setting up a Constitutional crisis with potentially disastrous consequences.
Trump expands his authoritarian rule
Trump officials knew about the court’s order and charged ahead anyway, commanding the flights to leave the country while the hearing was still underway. After Judge Boasberg demanded answers, Justice Department attorneys tried to game him. They tried to get the hearing he scheduled canceled, then refusedto answer his questions, then tried to get him removed from the case.
At hearing, Justice Department lawyers argued outrageously that because the judge did not put his verbal command to return the planes to the U.S. in his written minute order, the government did not have to follow it.The judge was incredulous: “Your first argument is when I said those things, because I didn't say it in a minute order that the plaintiffs didn't have to turn around, you didn't have to comply? You're saying that you felt you could disregard it because it wasn't in a written order?" Yes, and yes.
When El Salvador’s self-described dictator president mocked the judge’s order on X, with, a sarcastic “Oopsie . . . too late,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio retweeted the slam.Tom Homan, Trump’s chief border official, piled on, telling Fox viewers, “We’re not stopping. I don’t care what the judges think — I don’t care what the left thinks. We’re coming.” AG Pam Bondi also attacked Judge Boasberg, accusing him, outrageously, of “supporting Tren de Aragua terrorists over the safety of Americans.”
Trump and his unqualified hacks are deliberately fomenting public hatred toward federal judges who are now, as a result, experiencing threats of violence. These actions will cause such irreparable harm to the rule of law that in any functioning democracy, where legislators honor their Constitutional oaths, they would result in Trump’s impeachment and removal from office.
Trump’s continuing tyranny
Trump openly manufactured an invasion to imprison people. His ‘invasion’ declaration was as lawless as it is dangerous. After calling Tesla protest organizers ‘domestic terrorists and thugs,’ it’s only a matter of time before anyone who criticizes Trump becomes an ‘enemy of the state’ targeted for imprisonment.
None of this is hyperbole. We are on the cusp of irreversible terror, sleepwalking into danger.
Americans who value freedom must urgently speak up now. Support the judiciary on your social media- while imperfect, there is no better legal system in the world. Take to the streets, go to as many protests as you can. Go to Telsa protests. Paint those signs, call your representatives and senators on the daily- calls are counted. Demand, and attend, town halls.
Speak up peacefully and forcefully, but speak up now. Trump can only turn America into Russia if we let him.
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Sabrina Haake is a 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense.Her columns are published in Alternet, Chicago Tribune, MSN, Out South Florida, Raw Story,Salon,Smart News and Windy City Times. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.