And now, it’s Trump versus the courts

I am glad President Donald J. Trump is acting like a bull in a china shop, which is exactly what most of his acolytes want. 

He was sent to Washington to be a disrupter. He is running amok, stretching the limits of executive power, and stress-testing the Constitution.

They will be writing about this for years. There will be books. There will be movies. Surely, a Hulu series. This is an unforgettable  moment in American history and I am happy, in a masochistic kind of way,  to be a witness to it. I can’t wait to see the ending.

Presidential authority in recent decades has been expanding, like a grease stain on a rug. It is time to call for Mr. Clean? 

Trump joked about being a dictator, but only on Day One. He has joked about being a king. In a video introducing “Trump digital trading cards” in December 2022, shortly after announcing his third run for the presidency, he said he was better than George Washington, better than Abraham Lincoln.

Those are just words. 

Immediately after being sworn in, Trump swung into action, dashing off more than two dozen executive orders on his first day in office, and almost 100 by now. 

Here’s the thing. Not all of them are legal. More precisely, critics say some violate the Constitution. And we are supposed to be a nation of laws.

There have been court challenges to some of them and, under some duress, Trump said he would obey court orders.

But he has not, in at least two cases, according to critics.

If he willfully disregards court orders, we will have a Constitutional crisis. 

The first case was flying 250 suspected Venezuelan gang members to prison in El Salvador. Trump stripped them of their rights to have a hearing by using the 18th Century Alien Enemies Act, previously used only in wartime. A judge ordered the deportation to stop, even demanding planes in the air return to U.S. soil. The Trump administration said the judge had no authority because the airborne deportees were no longer in the United States.

Was Trump justified in using the 18th-Century act? Is he right that a judge’s ruling can’t be enforced on a U.S. owned and operated plane?

Do not think for a moment that I sympathize with the deportees. If they are gang members, I want them gone. My issue is this: The government provided no proof that they were members of Tren de Aragua. 

And we know any government is  capable of making errors. I am surprised that so many on the Right, normally so suspicious of big government with big powers, are willing to let this government lock up, or deport, people on just an accusation. 

In a second case that broke over the weekend, a Lebanese doctor with a green card [legally in U.S.] working at Brown University was deported despite a judge’s order that she not be deported. 

Trump officials claim the judge’s order was not received until after the plane had departed.

In both cases, it is “he said, she said.”

Who’s right? That will be determined in the courts.

 In the first case, Trump invoked the  Alien Enemies Act to circumvent U.S. law that requires people being detained be given a hearing before deportation. [There is a slim exception to this for illegals captured within 200 miles of the border.] 

Established law “entitles aliens to due process,” wrote conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in a 1993 decision. 

This is something a lot of Americans don’t understand. The Constitution, whether you like it or not, applies to everyone who lives here, legally or not, innocent or not. 

I have been opposing illegal immigration for more than 20 years, along with criticizing the mainstream media’s attempt at obfuscation by banning the word illegal. That pretty much started with the AP, whose stylebook is followed by most traditional journalists. In this century it has become a social justice warrior’s handbook. 

But for even longer than 20 years I have believed that for us to remain a sane and united country, we must, in three easy words, Obey The Law.

Even ones we don’t like.

That means people we don’t like are entitled to the same protections, and fairness, as people we do like.

That is one of the things that makes us an exceptional nation.

Donald Trump seems to be subborning the law.

The courts are trying to stop him.

If he flat-out refuses to obey court orders, what happens next?