It’s official. Trump, with all his baggage, is president. And right out of the chute, he’s doing what presidents do — issuing a blizzard of executive orders to get his change of course firmly in place a quickly as possible. They all do it, both as a symbolic show of the new authority and often to rebuke the policies of his predecessor.
There is a pretty short window to try to make a change of direction before the inevitable whittling away of presidential power begins. It really wouldn’t do if a newly inaugurated president had lunch at the Capitol and then went back to the White House for a good nap. Besides, his rooms weren’t ready for check-in yet because somebody deported the housekeeping staff.
It largely seems like the normal process, made unusual because it’s carried out with the usual Trumpian TV flourishes. Above all, he is a performer. He will issue orders which will be met with lawsuits challenging them before the ink is dry. In a matter of a few weeks, it will all be mired in litigation.
Our system seems built on impeding action, and depending on your view of the actions, that’s either a good thing or a bad thing. The sure thing is that it will grind to a crawl eventually. He has a very compliant Congress, so he might get more through than otherwise, and there are huge areas where he can sell policy favors to the highest bidder through control of regulatory agencies, but even those changes are subject to existing legislation. Slow and inefficient as it is, the process does have some checks built in.
At least that’s what I tell myself when trying to fall asleep.
And then I wake up an hour later and think this is Kristallnacht. So far, the ICE raids have not begun in any visible way, but if you are an immigrant family, it can’t be business as usual.
Do you put the kids on the school bus in the morning not knowing whether Mom or Dad will have been hauled away before they get home? What about the workplace, where businesses that rely on immigrant labor will have a mix of people with different and unique legal status?
The guy in charge of border control now, a sort of cartoonishly thuggish character, has no qualms about “collateral effects.” People. They might have a specific person in mind to arrest for violating a prior deportation order, and if they pick up co-workers, spouses and kids in the process, so what? It’s really unclear how our economy can function without them.
It has a nasty, racist smell to it. The Spanish language version of the White House website is gone. They have shut down the federal diversity, equity and inclusion programs, putting those employees on administrative leave until they can figure out how to formally terminate them. The Democrats had fetishized DEI to the level of parody. Now it will swing to the other extreme, and only white Christian men who can pass the Pete Hegseth push-up test need apply.
Pardoning or commuting the sentences of the insurrectionists from Jan. 6 is appalling. Defenders point to protesters in the streets of other cities and ask why aren’t those people in prison? (They are.)
They ignore the very material difference between tossing a trash can through the window of Walgreens, and attempting to prevent the implementation of the election and the constitutional function of the U.S. government. Vandalism is not even the same genre as insurrection. But they are pardoned.
He can’t amend the Constitution by executive order but is attempting to end birthright citizenship that way. How did I become a citizen if not by being born here? My parents were citizens — also by being born here.
At some point in the lines of ancestry, people came from other countries. Some were in Vermont before there was a United States. Others came when Utah was part of Mexico, and later. I have no idea what any of their status was. You don’t sort that in a couple of paragraphs.
But here we are. He won the election and is going to try to do what he told us he was going to do. And cash in along the way. Nobody should be surprised. And frankly, it’s not all bad.
The question is what we do about it. I’m pretty sure that pulling the covers over my head is not enough. Push back. Show some empathy to our immigrant neighbors. None of us can fix their legal status, or fully understand the anxiety they are feeling. We can respect their humanity.
Let our members of Congress know that clean air and water, and a livable climate all matter. Cabinet positions should be held by competent people. A president and his family getting rich selling policy decisions and meme coins (whatever the hell that even is) is not OK. Encourage them to stand up on issues that matter, even while the normal election policy swings take effect. Write to your members of Congress. Nag.
On the farm, where successful years are few and far between, we always find comfort in reminding ourselves that there is always next year. It’s both a threat and a blessing, but it works.
Tom Clyde practiced law in Park City for many years. He lives on a working ranch in Woodland and has been writing this column since 1986.
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