The Week That Was

It’s been an absolutely horrifying week to be an American and it’s only Wednesday.

For those of you who live under rocks or who have somehow managed to remain in a drunken stupor since 2015, on Monday a twice-impeached convicted felon who somehow managed to escape the only proper punishment for treason was inexplicably sworn into office as this nation’s 47th president on a platform of revenge, bigotry, and open Fascism.

He wasted no time in proving the worst fears of patriots true.

He’s decided that he can unilaterally rewrite the Constitution and has announced the repeal of the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of birthright citizenship. For those of you keeping score at home, that was put into the Constitution in 1868 to drive a stake through the poisonous heart of the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision – the one that declared that only white people could ever be citizens of the United States because that’s how the white supremacists liked it. By making American citizenship dependent on the simple observable fact of being born here, the Constitution denies any attempt to make that citizenship dependent on the whims of assholes. Naturally, Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump and his minions, cronies, lackeys, and slaves wish to undo that so they can be the assholes who decide who gets to be an American. In any normal year this would be seen as the steaming bag of horseshit that it is but remember that we currently have a Supreme Court that has already declared that “it’s not illegal if the President does it,” which Richard Nixon would have killed for, so who knows whether their blind partisanship will be enough to give even more absolute power to this authoritarian bigot. It will be a close call, I suspect. This unilateral declaration of absolute authority is the kind of tyranny the Founding Fathers started a revolution over.

Although, there is the fact that the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of citizenship is the only place in the Constitution where American citizenship is defined and thus provides the link that makes the Bill of Rights applicable to the states. And should it be overturned, I expect to see individual states imposing gun bans immediately.

He’s declared that he’s going to use the 1798 Alien Enemies Act – a law that the Federalist Party foisted off on John Adams as a way to destroy the Democratic Republican Party and which Adams was smart enough never to use – as a tool to deport millions of immigrants in violation of the plain text of that law. We are not in a “declared war” with any foreign nation and there is no “invasion or predatory incursion … perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States by any foreign nation or government.” Not that laws ever stopped this guy or are important to his minions, cronies, lackeys, or slaves.

He's decided he’s going to “take back” the Panama Canal because reasons. This would be a war of aggression against a sovereign state very similar to the grotesque violation of international law that Putin’s Russia is engaged with in Ukraine and would serve only to destroy the international order and what good standing the United States may still have across the world.

He’s pardoned over 1500 insurrectionists from the Trump Insurrection of 2021, some of whom murdered cops (so much for the party of law and order, I suppose). This is unbridled lawlessness and a sign of far worse to come. An insurrection that goes unpunished is called a dress rehearsal, after all.

He’s declared that there can only be two genders, as if that’s any of his concern and in blatant disregard of biology. Anyone who has studied biology past middle school knows that sex and gender are far more complicated than that, and it’s not anyone else’s concern what people want to call themselves anyway. Although he and his minions, cronies, lackeys and slaves are sufficiently stupid that the actual text of his executive order means that biologically that all Americans have been defined as female since male sexual organs don’t emerge until at least six weeks into pregnancy and it defines gender to be what it is “at conception.”

He’s removed all of the Spanish language web pages from the White House site, so congratulations all you Latinos who voted for him – you got played. FAFO.

He’s withdrawn from the World Health Organization, a spectacular own-goal in an age where Covid is still thriving and new epidemics are emerging on a regular basis. He understands that his supporters see preventative medicine as the enemy and are happy to volunteer to die in bulk from easily curable problems. They've served their purpose now that he's been elected and are now expendable, after all.

Just in case they prove more resilient than he thinks, he’s rescinded Biden’s executive order capping prices for medications. So enjoy not being able to pay for lifesaving drugs again, I suppose. Did he not get the message last month? Most Americans cheered when a health insurance executive was assassinated in broad daylight, after all.

He’s attempted to fire anyone in the federal government who dares to acknowledge that there are more people in the world besides straight white men.

At his inauguration his co-president gave the Nazi salute not once but twice, prompting exactly zero shame or remorse. When people show you who they are, believe them.

When an Episcopal bishop addressed the issue of mercy in her sermon while Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump was in attendance he responded by howling in outrage and calling for vengeance against her, thus proving her point. Frankly, the fact that Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump set foot in a church and was not instantly reduced to a smoking cinder is fairly conclusive proof of the non-existence of God.

There’s more. Lord above, there’s more.

It is going to be a vile and grotesque four years and I put the odds of the survival of the American republic at about 20% during that period. But I will be damned if I am going to let that asshole and his minions, cronies, lackeys and slaves do it without resistance.

It’s my country. They can fuck off.