DCUM Weblog

Peoples lives are being shattered and destroyed by a mere allegation. Some are true and some are false. Some are old and some are new. There is no recovery for someone falsely accused - life and career are gone. Is there no such thing any longer as Due Process?

  - Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump, February 10, 2018

Lately, choosing a topic that demonstrates the threat to democracy and the rule of law posed by cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump is difficult, not because no such topics exist, but rather because there are too many, making the selection difficult. Why then, did I lead off today with a statement by Trump in which he appears to be correct? Because that tweet is an almost perfect rebuttal to the position taken by Trump and Department of Justice lawyers with regard to the deportation to a notorious prison in El Salvador of accused members of a violent Venezuelan gang. Contrary to Trump's position in 2018, Trump and the DOJ lawyers now argue that those being deported do not deserve due process.

As I said when I announced my new plans for this blog, I may not have much of a voice, but what little voice I do have, I want to use to document the autocratic behavior of cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump. Make no mistake about it, Trump is a serious threat to democracy in the United States. I have been writing about various specific aspects of Trump's attacks on our political system, but it occurred to me that I might be missing the forest for the trees. Therefore, today I want to take a step back and review the breadth of Trump's actions and the broad impact that they are having on the rule of law, civil society, and fundamental democracy in our country. Looking at the big picture, it is really quite astonishing.

Congress

Trump has launched a direct attack on our system of three co-equal branches of government. The easiest branch for Trump to neutralize was the legislative branch. This was primarily because the Republican majorities in the House of Representatives and the Senate were willing participants in the institution's emasculation. Trump has used three tactics to control Congress. The first of these has simply been to ignore the institution. Instead of working with Congress to pass legislation, Trump bypasses the legislative branch and simply signs executive orders. Despite Trump's contention, these EOs cannot create law. Yet, Trump acts like, and much of the country goes along with the charade, that these EOs are imperial diktats. The second tactic is fear and intimidation, relying on his own political strength and the threat to fund opponents posed by Shadow President Elon Musk. Elected Republicans know that if they step out of line, they are risking their political futures. Third is the use of carrots. Trump has quelled some Republican opposition by promising to use the powers that they concede to him for their benefit. The most clear example of this was how Trump managed to convince all Republican Members of Congress except one to vote in favor of the recent continuing resolution. A significant number of Republicans demanded budget cuts in order to vote in favor of a CR. Trump told those members that they needn't worry, that he had no intention of spending all the authorized funds. This is blatantly illegal and violates the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974. However, illegal actions are not a bug of the Trump administration, but rather a feature.

After a week of writing pretty dark posts about cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump's efforts to establish autocracy in the United States, I wanted to write something a little more lighthearted today. Unfortunately, inspiration for such a post never arrived. In an effort to clear my mind of the torrent of depressing news that normally engulfs me these days, last night I sat down to listen to a new album by the Drive-By Truckers. It wasn't a new album, exactly, but rather an old album to which they added some live recordings, slapped the label "Deluxe" on, and re-released it, convincing people like me to hand them our money. I found myself enjoying the song titled "Ramon Casiano" even though the lyrics were uncomfortably close to the news headlines from which I was seeking temporary escape. This got me wondering about exactly who was Ramon Casiano and why there is a song about him. That, dear readers, led me down a rabbit hole which, if you are kind enough to follow, I will take you down with me.

Yesterday I described how cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump has been attacking law firms that have been involved in legal action to which the President objects. This is a clear attempt to undermine one of the foundational principles of the legal profession: that everyone is entitled to legal representation. By punishing law firms that represent his political enemies, Trump is weakening the ability of those opposed to him to seek legal remedies through the courts. But Trump's attack on the judicial system has not stopped there. Trump has also targeted judges themselves. This is not new, of course. Trump routinely criticized Judge Juan Merchan, who presided over Trump's criminal trial on 34 felonies. Trump was found guilty on all counts and also found himself held in criminal contempt of court at one point during the proceedings. More recently, Trump has been attacking federal judges who have ruled against his actions as President. Trump appears to be hoping to delegitimize the courts in order to justify ignoring their rulings and, perhaps, trying to intimidate judges into ruling in his favor.

Cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump is systematically attempting to remove any obstacle to his autocratic rule. Congress is prostrating itself at his feet. He requires very little from the legislative branch in any case. A spending bill here or there and maybe an occasional debt limit increase. Otherwise, it is an irrelevant sideshow. Both traditional media and new media have largely welcomed their new Trumpian overlords. The Washington Post, which once took down a president, is now owned by a man whose primary goal seems to be to suck up to Trump, or perhaps test just how scantily his girlfriend can dress for state events. The courts have been a bit of a problem for Trump, but he is prone to ignoring rulings that he doesn't like and has expectations that the Supreme Court, dominated by conservatives including three justices who are his nominees, will eventually do his bidding. Still, the courts remain the best avenue for confronting and even stopping Trump. However, to go to court, you need an attorney. So, Trump seems to have come up with a solution for that. He is attacking the lawyers. Trump may well be hoping to intimidate law firms to the extent that they are unwilling to take the risk of challenging him.

In what seems to be turning into a trend, I woke up with plans to write about one topic this morning but changed my mind before I actually sat down to start the post. Today there was even a further complicating factor. So much is happening that I couldn't actually decide between topics. Therefore, I am going to touch on a few different items from the news. Collectively, these developments are warnings about the authoritarianism taking over the United States.

The first news item that I want to address is not actually happening in the United States. In yesterday's blog post, I explained how cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump, who had been elected partially because he was believed to be anti-war, has launched a war against Yemen on behalf of Israel. While we slept, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu initiated his own war by breaking the ceasefire in Gaza and launching massive attacks on the territory. At least 350 Palestinians, as usual mostly women and children, have been killed already.

One of the main reasons that MAGA posters in the DCUM Political Discussion forum gave for supporting cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump was that former President Joe Biden had started multiple wars and that Trump would not only end those wars, but not start any new ones. Trump, according to these posters, would put America first and not spend American blood and money on foreign military adventures. This was always a strange way of thinking because Biden didn't actually start any wars. To the contrary, it was Biden who withdrew U.S. troops from Afghanistan. Ironically, this was an endless source of criticism of Biden from the allegedly peace-loving MAGAs. Nevertheless, while MAGAs may have voted for an isolationist president who would keep our troops at home, the president that they actually got has proven to be almost the exact opposite. Since his inauguration, Trump has threatened military aggression against Canada, Greenland, and Panama. He has even proposed that U.S. forces take over Gaza and expel its Palestinian population. Now, Trump has launched an unauthorized and illegal war against Yemen. Moreover, far from this being an "America first" policy, Trump has put Israel's interests first and is putting members of the U.S. military at risk in defense of the genocidal policies of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

While the vast majority of the governance problems facing this country are a result of the actions of cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump, the Democratic Party is not without its share of responsibility. For the most part, the party is a leaderless, rudderless organization lacking both a purpose and a cause. Succinctly put, it is an opposition party that doesn't want to oppose. It is governed much more by fear rather than courage. Unless things unexpectedly change, today the Democrats will rubber-stamp efforts by Trump and Shadow President Elon Musk to continue their destruction of the federal government. Today on the Senate floor, Democrats will simultaneously warn of the threat that Trump and Musk pose to our country and vote to allow them to proceed.

At issue is a six-month continuing resolution that will fund the government until the end of the fiscal year. Without passage of this resolution, the government will not have funding and have to shut down as early as tomorrow. The resolution passed the House of Representatives with all Democrats but one voting against it. In the Senate, the vast majority of Democrats also oppose the bill. However, only a handful of Democratic votes are required to invoke cloture and, therefore, end the ability of Democrats to filibuster the resolution. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has announced that he will vote for cloture, and enough Democrats are expected to join him to allow the legislation to advance. Schumer and the other Democrats will then vote against the resolution, but since it only requires 50 votes to pass, their "no" votes will not matter. The Democratic enablers will likely hope that voters are uninformed enough not to know that, on the crucial vote, these Democrats — despite their rhetoric warning of the dangers of the legislation — will have voted to allow it to pass.

I woke up this morning with a blog post all planned out, but before I sat down to begin writing, I changed my mind. I was inspired by a tweet I read on X that got me thinking. I will quote that tweet in full because I think it nails something that hasn't gotten enough attention: "The government are going to spend billions contracting an AI that doesn't work, fire a bunch of people, and then hire a bunch more people whose job is to make it look like the AI works." This was written by someone named Tom Whyman of whom I have previously never heard. I believe that he is writing about the United Kingdom (he is Northumbrian), but the tweet very much fits our likely future here in the United States.

As is often the case, I feel the need to start with some caveats. I am just a guy who owns and operates a parenting website. I am not a philosopher, a technologist, or anyone with any special insight. I have thoughts and I have a platform on which to publish them. Readers are free to take them or leave them. With that said, it is impossible not to notice that we are currently at a critical point for artificial intelligence. Billions of dollars have been plowed into the technology and expectations raised, with no exaggeration, as high as Mars. But, AI has not been delivering. Sure, it can undertake a few remedial tasks. Maybe write a poem in the style of a famous poet or provide an error-filled response to a question that someone has asked on DCUM. But the technology has not yet reached world-changing functionality. Based on what I read in the press, the main use of AI these days is by college undergrads cheating on their assignments and college professors catching the students cheating, with the technology making errors in both cases. Welcome to our mistake-filled future.

Cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump has never been shy about using his presidency to enrich himself or his family. He relentlessly exploits his office to extract every penny possible for his own personnel benefit, even overcharging the Secret Service to stay at Trump properties while providing protection for him. But yesterday, Trump took things to a new level, turning the White House lawn into a new car showroom and his social media feed into the Home Shopping Network. But this effort was not for Trump's own financial gain, but rather for the benefit of Shadow President Elon Musk.

In an event fully covered by the White House press corps, Musk lined up examples of various Tesla models in front of the White House. Trump, who the day before had promised to buy a new Tesla, gave what amounted to an infomercial extolling the virtues of Teslas before settling on a red Model S. Trump emphasized that he is not allowed to drive due to Secret Service restrictions. However, former President Joe Biden frequently drove various vehicles during his term. It might be the case that Trump doesn't know how to drive. While sitting in the Model S, Trump needed confirmation that one of the two pedals was the brake pedal. At any rate, it is apparent that Trump is not really in the market for a new car and that the entire event was meant to promote the sale of Teslas, an unethical if not surprising violation of presidential practices.