Trump has found a 'trapdoor' that could 'swallow the Constitution': analysis

The Atlantic's Jonathan Chait says that President Donald Trump's refusal to bring back Kilmar Abrego Garcia from El Salvador is about much more than a wrongly deported immigrant.

As he writes in his latest piece, Chait believes that the Garcia case represents a "trapdoor" that Trump is exploiting that he believes could "swallow the Constitution" thanks to his deal with El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele to permanently imprison both immigrants and potentially American citizens.

"So long as he can find at least one foreign strongman to cooperate, Trump can, if he wishes, imprison any dissident, judge, journalist, member of Congress, or candidate for office," writes Chait. "If this sounds hyperbolic, bear in mind that Trump has expressed his desire to do these things."

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Chait argues that this is the result of pro-Trump activists radicalizing themselves after his loss to President Joe Biden in 2020 and spending years concocting plans to bring down the pillars of American civil society that they find most threatening to their agenda.

This is why, Chait adds, Trump's second term has been so much more radical than his first.

"The previous Trump White House allowed all kinds of kooks and extremists into its ranks, but the new version has pushed the boundaries even further," he explains. "Darren Beattie, who briefly got a job in the first Trump administration before being fired over ties to white nationalism, was welcomed back into the new administration. Marko Elez, a staffer for Elon Musk, lost his DOGE job over recent social-media posts explicitly endorsing racism; Vance intervened to restore him. Laura Loomer, a conspiracy theorist once banished from Trump’s orbit, was able not only to brief the president, but to persuade him to fire half a dozen senior national-security officials."

In conclusion, Chait warns that the "post-liberal right’s ideas about revenge and power are currently the most influential ideas in the world" and "their implications need to be taken with deadly seriousness."