On January 20th, Donald Trump once again swore the oath of office from the comfort of the Capitol Rotunda to become president of the United States. This time, however, he very peculiarly did not rest his hand on the bible. Prior to this, Carrie Underwood, a woman famous for a song about taking revenge on cheating men, sang acapella (due to sound system issues) for a man who cheated on all three of his wives.
You might say that I am being petty and vindictive, and you’d be half right. I am being petty, but after last week’s events, I cannot help but feel that I am more than justified in asserting that this ceremony was indicative of the new (and definitely not improved) Trump administration.
For anyone tuned into politics, it’s been a long week mired with baffling executive orders, horrifying immigration policy, and … a Nazi salute?
I pride myself on being a patriot who believes in the American Dream, no matter how outdated it might seem. However, I am frankly embarrassed that this is the America we’ve chosen.
The last week has been filled with a slew of executive orders that range from blowing hot air up his supporters’ asses to downright horrific for the state of the country and global stability.
While not explicitly written in the Constitution or any Congressional legislation, executive orders are a commonly accepted method the President uses to order and direct the various agencies of the executive branch. These directives don’t have unilateral control because they must still abide by the separation of powers with the other federal branches of government and the Constitution.
These orders are often how a president will pursue their policy agenda despite congressional gridlock. Suffice it to say, it is completely normal for the president to use executive orders to get what they want, but not all orders are created equal.
On his first day, Trump broke the record for the largest amount of executive orders signed in one day with 28 that were already written for when he took office.
The most controversial order he signed attempts to redefine birthright citizenship (which is guaranteed by the 14th Amendment) to exclude the children of undocumented parents.
The Citizenship Clause Doctrine of the 14th Amendment states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
Many Republicans have attempted to argue that this new interpretation of the 14th Amendment is valid because the framers did not intend for it to apply to undocumented immigrants but that interpretation is dishonest at best. For once in a Constitutional Amendment, the language is clear and easy to understand without any misinterpretation. Unless they are the child of a foreign diplomat, anyone born in the United States is a citizen of the nation. Say all you want about how it should be changed, but birthright citizenship is clearly protected by the Constitution.
Furthermore, Harvard Law Professor Gerald Neuman points out that this order violates not only the Constitution but also several citizenship statutes.
“The president has no authority to change the citizenship rule at all. Congress can change the rule, but only to the extent of making it broader. Neither Congress nor the president can reduce it below the constitutional minimum,” he said in an interview with Harvard Law Today.
In addition, Trump has signed a plethora of immigration-related executive orders that aim to restrict legal and illegal immigration. These include declaring an invasion at the southern border, authorizing the military to act as immigration and border enforcement, denying federal funding to sanctuary cities, halting refugee arrivals, and ending family reunification programs that allowed families of US citizens from certain countries to come while their visas were pending. Here is a full list of Trump’s immigration orders.
If you want a snapshot of how Trump’s immigration policy is going, on January 23, ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) raided a seafood store in Newark, NJ, without a warrant and arrested a US military veteran for being a suspected illegal immigrant because he didn’t have a passport or driver’s license on his person. Spin this how you want, there is no denying that this is unequivocally an act of overt racism that was enabled and encouraged by Donald Trump.
If you want to continue to insist that Trump is going after only criminals, take a look at the three citizens who were illegally detained by ICE agents and had their Fourth Amendment rights violated for the sole reason of not being white. There has been no word from ICE or the Trump administration on this.
But hey, at least Trump is lowering prices! Right?
Let’s see here, he repealed a Biden executive order capping the price of insulin to $35. He restricted research and communication on the bird flu epidemic which is causing egg prices to skyrocket. Is threatening 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico which experts say will increase the price of food, gas, and cars along with sending both key US allies into recessions.
Tariffs are essentially a tax on foreign goods that are imported into the country which are paid by the companies bringing the products in. Trump claims that tariffs are paid by the country of origin for the goods but that is simply not true. The increased price of importing the goods is then offloaded on the consumer.
By most accounts, the 2024 election was decided by inflation and the price of goods, but here we see that not only is Trump doing nothing to improve those prices, but, in fact, is doing the exact opposite. If he gets what he wants, his policies will increase consumer prices even more than before.
I would say buyer’s remorse is going to set in real soon, but most people won’t even be able to afford to buy in the first place.
He also continues to suggest that he might get rid of income taxes and offset that with tariffs instead. YAY! That sounds awesome, right? No more taxes and the government stealing my hard-earned dough to fund useless crap like cancer research or whatever.
If only.
In reality, this would essentially kill the lower and middle class and sink them into destitution while the rich profiteer off of their work and labor. The US imports $3.7 trillion in goods per year while we only raise around $2.5 trillion from income taxes annually. This means we would need to have around a 75% tariff on ALL foreign goods coming into the country according to Brian Riedl, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
This idea assumes that people would still buy those foreign goods at the same rates despite the exponentially high prices. So, when consumers stop paying for those goods, the government is screwed out of a pivotal portion of its income, sinking the US further into debt. Even assuming consumers would continue to buy those goods, it would only make things worse for the lower and middle classes as they will be paying exorbitantly more money compared to rich people for basic goods and necessities. This idea would only strengthen the burden on the middle class, not relieve it.
This is all only the tip of the ICE-berg for everything Trump has done in his first week. He has made a plethora of shocking and disastrous executive orders such as pardoning thousands of violent terrorists who attacked the US Capitol on Jan 6, 2021, withdrawing us from the Paris Climate Agreement, and setting environmental policy back decades.
Should you be scared? Yes. More than that, however, you should be angry, you should be outraged. In his attempts to Make America Great Again, he is selling out hard-working Americans so he and his billionaire buddies can make a quick buck.
