Trump is still demonizing others for a reason

Only a handful of media outlets have used the term, but America is under siege, in the throes of Trump’s second coup attempt. So far, Trump’s plan to subvert the rule of law and destroy the federal government has been administrative and largely nonviolent, but it’s early days.

By firing JAGS whose sole duty is to assert Constitutional guardrails, and by politicizing the military and all federal offices that possess the power of force, Trump has laid solid tracks to execute wildly unconstitutional orders. I fear these orders are coming, in some iteration or other, and predict that they will follow a series of declarations, first of manufactured and well-hyped national “emergencies,” then of martial law. Fox News, OAN, and the rest of the more than 2000 right wing media outlets will amplify the danger perpetually to keep martial law in place, because it will financially benefit the oligarchs who own them, at least in the short term.

For the first time in my life, I am considering leaving the US permanently, not because I dread the door-knock in the middle of the night, but because I can no longer relate to a country that would trash its values and abandon its allies. Relinquishing my American citizenship is not a light consideration- I’ve spent my life in the law, adjacent to politics; I even ran for Congress not long ago. But wow, as the saying goes, change happens slowly, then all at once. This is not the same country it was when I ran for federal office in 2020, and, judging by my own wariness in reading the news, I am not the same person either.

Trump is still demonizing others for a reason

Back in the distant past of January, I thought Trump would limit his use of military force to showy videos of ICE agents roughing up immigrants, something special for Fox News viewers to enjoy. That was distressing and heartbreaking enough-- distressing that it was happening, heartbreaking that Trump supporters, like Trump, enjoy causing pain. Some days, I can find compassion for the level of cruelty and suffering they must have endured in life to have reached that level of inhumanity.

But reading Trump’s address to Congress, I started to get the queasy feeling that he’s thinking larger, much larger than immigrants. Using his personal military to abuse one group of people won’t satisfy him. After barking his foundational “I have a mandate” lie, (a blatant lie because he won only 1% more of the popular vote than Harris), he spewed one deliberate falsehood after another. He then pivoted to disparaging Democrats for refusing to thank him for the abuse:

“I look at the Democrats in front of me and I realize there is absolutely nothing I can say to make them happy or to make them stand or smile or applaud – nothing I can do. I could find a cure to the most devastating disease, a disease that would wipe out entire nations or announce the answers to the greatest economy in history, or the stoppage of crime to the lowest levels ever recorded, and these people sitting right here will not clap, will not stand and certainly will not cheer for these astronomical achievements.”

Just as he and JD Vance ambushed President Zelensky then demanded that he thank them for it, Trump is trying to dehumanize Democrats for failing to praise his heartlessness. It’s made-for-tv cruelty on a perpetual feed loop while the world is forced to watch.

Trump lawyers are flirting with disbarment

As the New York Times reported, the Trump administration is “curtailing the ability of lawyers to raise internal objections to the president’s use of power.”

Trump is acting outside the law, and while his unqualified lackeys may not know it, real lawyers working under the administration surely do. Trump’s lawyers cannot possess a true “good faith belief” that five justices on SCOTUS will support Trump’s destruction of the entire federal government, Musk’s access to our most private data, or Trump’s traitorous consortium with the enemy. Although Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh are all in with the oligarchic takeover, that still leaves Roberts and Coney-Barrett, each of whom has given mixed signals.

Just as they did in the USAID case, Roberts and Coney-Barrett could end up protecting the Constitution over Trump. So when Trump’s lawyers to assert to the media, District Court judges and on appeal that what Trump is doing is “legal,” they are acting under something other than good faith. Rule 11, under which federal lawyers can be disbarred for filing false pleadings, is more than a suggestion.

My personal takeaway

I came away from Trump’s speech with an intuition so sickening, so compelling, I keep confusing it with certainty. The reason he’s insulting allies and dehumanizing people who don’t like him is the same reason he doesn’t care about the fate of the Republican party: Public opinion doesn’t matter to him because he’s planning to stay in power forever, by force.

Trump has made repeated references to staying in power past his expiration date, and lusts openly for China’s presidential power “for life.” After he lost the 2020 election he tried but failed to stay in power by force, but now he has the US military at his disposal. Anyone who doesn’t see where this is going is lying to themselves.

Trump has bragged that there will be no more elections, and is circulating a meme of himself as a king.

He is mentally unfit, unwell, and dangerous, an ignorant force loosed upon the world by 90 million Americans who didn’t bother to vote. On a good day I relish the fight. Today is not a good day.

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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.