This is the third in a series in these pages under the initial title “He will be my president too”. I wrote the first installment before the inauguration. I invoked the late John McCain’s gracious words saying “He will be my president too”. My point was not just to be gracious and welcoming, but rather to assert that whatever actions were now taken in the name of the United States were, in essence, ‘on our watch’. I did not shy from invoking the specter of 1933 Germany in pointing out events that could herald the onset of totalitarianism. I expressed the hope that my fears were paranoid but insisted that should they come to pass, we should be on notice.
I published the blog, but I did not publicize it. I thought it would be, in a way, akin to ‘poor sportsmanship’ to invoke a clearly prejudicial and ugly allusion to national socialism even before the new president had, what Hillary Clinton had once called “an open mind and the chance to govern”.
By late February I wrote again to cite actions taken within the first month of the administration which flirted with, if not surpassed the boundaries of law our founding fathers had intended to be used to protect us against tyrants. I talked about the balance of politics, the relation between protest and resistance, and politics, supporting candidates was still a primary goal. I touched on the possible need for public demonstrations, speaking out and even economic activities such as blackouts and boycotts might still be appropriate.
Again, I published but did not publicize the blog. It was still only one month into the administration, an administration which was still testing its boundaries and there were still a very large number of observations, analysis and criticism in the usual circles, radio, television, talk shows, etc. I thought it still not quite justified to put out with fanfare a point of view that asked, in effect, if we were becoming a totalitarian state.
In the last days, it appears to me, and to many, that the feared slide into totalitarianism is occurring at a more rapid rate, and demanding more and more that those who can say something.
This has come to a head with the administration’s decision to depart a cohort of migrants which is labeled Venezuelan gang members, but more crucially, to do so in what appears to be direct and specific defiance of a court order. Herein would be a clear indication of totalitarianism, in which the executive branch, the single leader, intentionally ignored and defied a branch of government designed by the founding fathers as equal, and meant to serve as a check and balance on any executive who wanted to run outside of its boundaries.
“First they came for…”
The administration is very clever in its defiance of the court. In my first published but unpublicized blog, I argued that one bright ‘red line’, for which actual resistance on the street might be called for would be the arrest of political enemies. As they called it in Germany, “Nacht und Nebel”, night and fog, when social democrats who did not embrace the new Chancellors’ policies heard a knock on their door and simply disappeared. That has not happened. To public figures. So far. So far no one has tried to arrest Jamie Raskin, Adam Schiff, Liz Cheney, Hillary Clinton, and so on. Being clever, they are taking their first “test cases” out on people who are already quite unpopular.
This puts the opposition in the uncomfortable position of having to defend the rule of law and the ‘rights of the accused’ in defense of people whom most people find odious already. No one really wants to be seen as standing up for a bunch of accused South American gang members, so one who wants to stand for the Constitution is put into the the uncomfortable position of either acquiescing to a violation of the constitutionally mandated separation of powers or standing up for people everyone thinks are criminals.
But think about it. Are these so-called Venezuelan gang members convicted criminals? If they were, the president would not have to invoke a law from the 19th century designed to protect the US from the internal working of people who were citizens of countries with whom the US was at war. If these alleged gang members were convicted alien criminals, the law would already have them ready to deport, as even Biden deported aliens convicted of felonies.
Perhaps the Trump administration has every legal right to deport illegal aliens who have not been convicted of a crime other than undocumented entry. That is its policy and the administration was elected to do that. Perhaps it has every right to prioritize certain groups and gang members would be one of them. However, when the law is enforced in cases of clear crimes, the rights of the state with respect to the rights of the accused are asserted, adjudicated, and balanced. It is the Judge, and the judicial system, not the prosecutor, or the executive branch, who decides whether the law is being appropriately and legally applied.
It appears that the Trump administration may have clearly violated a court order to desist and allow a court to review his application of the Enemy Aliens Act . To determine if that is the case, a judge has ordered a hearing. The administration appears to have defied the hearing.
If true, this is a clear violation of the role of the courts in drawing the boundaries between legal and not. As such it would be a clear step, perhaps the first clear step into the realm of literal totalitarianism.
However, the administration is smart. If the administration broke the law, if they defied a valid court injunction, they did so in violation of the rights of a detested minority. Who is going to stand up and fight for some Venezuelan “gang members”? Who is going to insist each have their ‘day in court’? Not such a popular stand.
We might remind ourselves of the words of German Pastor Martin Niemoller. Worth reading and taking to heart.
“First, they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me.”
Leaning outside of the boundaries of the law
Our laws are meant to protect even those we detest. If it turns out, on a legal hearing, that each of these individual Venezuelans are criminals who can by right be deported, then so be it. But the Judge has asked a simple thing, that their cases be adjudicated. That is called due process. If the administration is allowed to simply “disappear” individuals, like the South American dictatorships of the previous times in Chile, Brazil, and Argentina, then we have crossed the line. If individuals are allowed to disappear into the night, in a Nacht und Nebel operation, then we have embarked down the path which Germany started to tread in the thirties. Where can that path lead?
Another example where the law may be being ignored or circumvented can be seen in the case of the Palestinian activist, Mahmoud Khalil, who was arrested and is likely to be deported despite being a green card holder, with a student visa and married to a pregnant American wife. He is being deported, arguably, for making remarks that the administration finds offensive. I can sympathize with the offense. Hamas is a terrorist organization, and by no means popular. I have no interest in seeing them prosper. Still, our nation is founded on the principle that one has the right to say unpopular things. More importantly, those who are accused of breaking the law have to be afforded the right of due process. If Mahmoud Khalil can be shown to have incited violence, then let that charge be brought and defended in court. That is what our country is – or until now always was – about.
And in another clear violation of our nation’s norms , the current president is trying to void the pardons the prior president gave when in office. Rich, after the blanket pardons of over a thousand violent lawbreakers.
And now the crisis, the administration appears to be explicitly flaunting a direct court order. The court ordered a stop, the administration refused, and is refusing to account for its refusal. A clear violation of the role of the judiciary.
Think about this. The Administration has taken a step, arresting, deporting and sending to prisons in foreign lands a group of individuals, many of whom admittedly have not been even accused of a crime, much less convicted. And when a judge attempts to investigate whether the law has been misused, the judicial authority is ignored and mocked by no less than our Attorney General, who one might hope would be considered about the rule of law.
In short, we are now at, or coming damn close to a critical juncture where the current administration either has stepped over or has walked right up to the wall protecting the rule of law and leaned over.
The administration thinks it can run roughshod over the law because the people they are sending to foreign prisons, quite fairly called concentration camps, are not popular.
If he can violate the law for one group, why not another? Like Pastor Niemoller’s poem, what about when they come for you?
Who can and can’t be treated outside of the law?
If the administration can round up one group, why not another? Why not progressive activists, transgender activists, and advocates of boycotts? Why not ‘lunatic liberals’, or articulate trade unionists? Why not Hispanics? Recent documented immigrants from Muslim countries? Canadians? Why not Jews?
The fact that he couldn’t just round up trade unionists, progressives, transgender activists, Canadians and Jews is because, like everyone else in this country, all of these groups, disliked by someone, have certain rights. All of these groups, as it should be for everyone in this country, have the right to avoid illegal search and seizure, and non-warranted arrest, and in any case, have the right to due process. To a hearing. To confront their accusers and present evidence in their defence. Those are fundamental rights.
The rights of non-citizens, even undocumented non-citizens are different than they are for citizens, of course. But there is still a body of laws about these people.
Where do those rights come from? Well, of course, we all know that the Declaration of Independence says that they come from God, that they are inalienable, and that we are all born equal with him. And, of course, we also know, as did the 3/5 person slaves and the women who couldn’t vote and now can’t get elected and the George Floyds of the world still know that we are not all created exactly equal. We can still, or at least until recently could, turn to the Constitution. And by the Constitution, I don’t just mean a piece of paper, but the norms, standards and processes, the judicial habits and conditions that have to the best of our ability always stood solid.
If those norms and standards and processes no longer stand, if the government can target whomever it finds convenient, expedient, and popular to target, and can with impunity deny them the rights they are guaranteed by the constitution, then there becomes no reason why Donald Trump or any future present could not simply round up the Jews. Or the Hispanics, or the transgenders, gays, progressives, or the Democrats. Niemoller’s words ring all too frightening prescient – if we cannot stand up now, then we may never stand up again.
I don’t know what a genuine legal review would say about these particular deported Venezuelan tattoo wearers. Perhaps closer legal scrutiny would in fact have revealed that they had every basis to be deported. Perhaps they have committed crimes for which they should be imprisoned. But there are laws to govern that, and systems by which the laws and the facts get sifted, and the Judge wished to use these laws and processes to investigate these actions. Our system has always said he had the right and duty to do so. If this stands unchallenged, then perhaps it might have been a nacht und nebel operation and we are truly facing a thirties Germany situation.
Which brings us back to the question I have tried to address in each of these series of three blogs.
What can we do in the face of what appears to either have become, or about to become an authoritarian state, operating beyond the limits of the law?
When does acceptance become conformity, and conformity become compliance, and compliance become complicity? And finally, when does complicity become culpability?
Where are the lines to be drawn between politics and protest, protest and passive resistance? When must passive resistance morph into a more active resistance?
Unfortunately, there are no clear and easy answers, and any answer carries the risk of failure and the risk of harm. I do think there are some principles.
Principles which might govern politics, protest and resistance
I believe we have to carefully discern between that which is odious from that which is illegal. It might be odious to fire thousands of workers. But if the administration follows certain procedures, it is probably not illegal. It might be in the long run economically ruinous, and certainly damaging to all of our alliances, but it is not illegal to impose whatever tariffs he thinks fit – that is legally the president’s right. It might be odious to betray a hitherto ally amid a fight for its survival in favor of a butcher and dictator, and it might risk making meaningless American commitments to its allies, friends, and principles. As disgusting as it is, however, the President must have some broad rights within the realm of foreign policy, and it is probably not illegal to humiliate a wartime ally. Disgusting perhaps but probably not illegal.
It is not illegal to deport undocumented immigrants provided one follows the legal guidelines to do so.
It is, however, illegal to violate court orders. That is what appeals courts and the Supreme Court are made for. And when an administration intentionally and deliberately defies a court order, it is defying and defiling the rule of law which has made this country great and stable for so long.
And it is not helpful to pretend that what is happening is not happening. When the executive branch violates the law and defies the courts this is authoritarianism leading into fascism. Maybe not all the way there yet but clearly on the road. Let us not try to evade and redefine and waffle and pretend it is not.
It remains never appropriate to use force as a means of protest. AND That includes setting fire to Tesla dealerships and throwing eggs at Tesla Drivers. That is never appropriate.
Not only would violence never work, because the government’s control of arms would be vastly greater than the citizenry would ever be. Violence is almost always immoral, serving only to cause mayhem and destruction.
Most importantly, violence might inevitably invoke the very transformation we wish to avoid. After all, the Nazi “enabling” law which granted the powers of dictatorship took place after the Reichstag fire. Without trying to litigate who started that fire, I think it would not be helpful for any protest to, by analogy, start fires – that would only invite, and to some justify, the violence in return we wish to avoid. We can march, we can boycott, we can swear never to drive a Tesla, but we can’t in any kind of conscience burn them.
I think another guiding principle is that short of violence, all forms of protest may be justified. It might be marching. It might be writing letters. It might be avoiding buying certain products.
I have spoken to and heard of Europeans who wonder why millions of us are not out in the streets?
Perhaps the best form of resistance remains vigorous politics. Find and support the right people. Try to speak and listen.
I write this blog as one form of protest. It is meant to aim my tiny little flashlight on what, appears more and more to me to be happening in broad daylight in front of our eyes. Writing it continues to be done in the hopes that, as the blog’s masthead states so plainly, the “center” should hold.
If protest becomes violence then we take a step towards the chaos of totalitarianism. And if protest becomes impotent acceptance, we take a step towards the imposed order of totalitarianism. I still hope that there is, at some point in the future, a return, or perhaps a step forward – to normalcy in which the principles and processes that have governed our nation for so long return and are promulgated and celebrated. But they are not so now, and we MUST speak out.
I don’t do it without fear. I believe there is some possibility, small, but not zero, that my speaking out, and likely with no effect, may end up damaging me personally. It is in taking some action despite that fear that I proceed.
No, I don’t believe I am likely to be tortured to death in a concentration camp, nor to fall out a high window. I am not important enough for that, even if we were there, which thankfully and obviously we are not. Yet. Still, the fact that such an idea has to occur at all in my mind in the (so far still) United States of America is troubling. Perhaps I will be stopped at the border trying to return from a vacation abroad to be denied entry. Just like the legally visa-protected Lebanese physician. Or deported like the legal visa activist. Or my taxes audited like the former FBI directors. ( they won’t find anything, we are like goody two shoes when it comes to tax compliance!) I hope that doesn’t happen, of course, but we have an administration that makes it a point of pride to respond to its critics in as forceful a manner as possible. (Perhaps I should be glad that the readers of this blog probably number in the single digits, keeps me from being anybody’s threat)
What can anyone do? Well, whatever you think to do, you can do. Read the news critically, listen if you wish to Fox, but also to CNN, and MSNBC, and national news. Do not, as much as it is tempting to, just tune out. Now when you are needed most. Listen to NPR, and contribute money if you can. Contribute, although it seems fruitless, to those democrats, or even if that suits your more to moderate republicans who are trying to hold power to account. Protest, on the streets, when necessary, against the truly odious.
Most centrally, to the core, we have to recognize and accept that whether any one of us voted for the current president or against him, we are all in this together now. Ask yourself if the daily assault on court orders, the rule of law, or our alliances is where you want this nation to go. If the destruction of those norms and processes, and those laws that have kept this nation moving forward for two hundred and fifty years is a good thing.
Ask yourself if you think a president whose first address to our nation’s pre-eminent law enforcement agency best serves us by dwelling on personal grievance and repetition of a baseless conspiracy targeting trust in our most precious gift, our vote. As yourself if you want those who assaulted police to go free. If you think legal visas and green cards should be rendered meaningless.
Then try to find any way you can, and try, although it will always be hard, to do, peacefully always, what you can do.
Because in the end, each of us will not be asked whether we voted for the national socialists or the social democrats. We will be asked what we did when things started to change, to preserve the nation’s historical commitment to law and the Constitution.