Can Donald Trump Be Stopped?
Democrats Are Pushing Back Against Day 1 Executive Orders.
We can say this much of Donald Trump’s first days in office: he is focused on keeping promises he made to his base.
With a remarkable flurry of Executive Orders—reportedly as many as 100—Donald Trump has engaged in a whirlwind of Presidential activity that is clearly meant as a demonstration both of his political power as well as his personal energy and drive.
The flurry of Executive Orders has already sparked a flurry of Democrat pushback efforts, with numerous lawsuits being filed against President Trump’s Administration challenging various Executive Orders.
The flurry of litigation rising to match Trump’s flurry of Presidential activity brings us to a salient question: Can Donald Trump be stopped?
Can the Democrats use the courts and the law to rein in at least some of Trump’s initiatives, or will they left powerless to stop this new onslaught of Trumpism?
Ironically, some of the Democrats’ pushback may end up helping advance Donald Trump’s agenda.
An End To Birthright Citizenship?
Without a doubt, the most controversial of Donald Trump Day 1 Executive Orders is his mandating that children born of illegal aliens not be granted automatic US citizenship.
As is usual within the perennially anti-Trump corporate media, there is a substantial bit of disinformation being circulated regarding both the order and the nature of US citizenship, led unsurprisingly by the propagandists of the Washington Post.
The executive orders include some things that scholars and legal experts say may be out of the reach of the president’s pen and could be tied up in courts or legislatures for years, including ending birthright citizenship, a right embedded in the Constitution and bolstered by a Supreme Court ruling that grants citizenship to anyone born in the United States.
The intellectual slovenliness of corporate media may make for salacious talking points on the left, but it does so at the expense of disregarding what the Executive Order itself actually says:
Among the categories of individuals born in the United States and not subject to the jurisdiction thereof, the privilege of United States citizenship does not automatically extend to persons born in the United States: (1) when that person’s mother was unlawfully present in the United States and the father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth, or (2) when that person’s mother’s presence in the United States at the time of said person’s birth was lawful but temporary (such as, but not limited to, visiting the United States under the auspices of the Visa Waiver Program or visiting on a student, work, or tourist visa) and the father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth.
Several points are immediately clear from this paragraph within the order: 1) It does not “end” birthright citizenship in its entirety, and no honest reading of the order can conclude that it does, contrary to the confabulations of the corporate media. 2) It requires a serious and thoughtful reading of the text of the 14th Amendment, and an understanding of what the language of that Amendment actually means—something which both corporate media and many liberal “experts” over the years steadfastly refuse to do. 3) It addresses a real policy question—i.e., the manipulation of childbirth to “game” the systems within the United States to secure benefits not otherwise available; it is hardly an anti-immigrant or prejudicial stance to argue that “anchor babies” and “birth tourism” are real and present issues within the US immigration system that require serious attention. 4) It puts the burden squarely on the Congress to pass legislation if it wishes to counteract the Executive Order; alternatively, it puts the burden on the Supreme Court to rule conclusively on the language of the 14th Amendment with regards to citizenship.
Contrary to the propaganda put out by the corporate media, the Supreme Court’s ruling on birthright citizenship do not lend credence to claims that all children born in the United States are automatically US citizens. This was true when Donald Trump first proposed this idea in 2018, and it remains true today.
Even scholarly sources will concede that the Supreme Court rulings on this topic are limited to three: the 1884 Elk v Wilkins ruling1, the 1898 Wong Kim Ark ruling2 and 1982’s Plyler v Doe3. As I discussed at the time President Trump first proposed clarifying birthright citizenship in 2018, none of these cases is supportive of extending citizenship to children born of illegal aliens.
The crucial sentence in the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protections Clause is this:
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.
Within that sentence, the most crucial phrase is “subject to the jurisdiction thereof”. Words have meaning, and neither an Amendment nor a law can have any meaning save that of what the words themselves supply. My reasoning from 2018 still stands, particularly in this regard.
While the assertions of many “legal scholars” work to the contrary, their reasoning is open to challenge (as is mine), and I do challenge it.
Unsurprisingly, several Democrat attorneys general are planning to challenge Donald Trump’s reasoning in court.
Corporate media is, of course, full of confidence that Trump cannot win in court.
The fight over birthright citizenship might be one that challengers have a good chance of winning, even with a conservative Supreme Court that includes three justices appointed by Trump.
The vast majority of legal scholars think there is no genuine legal dispute over the guarantee of birthright citizenship as enshrined in the Constitution’s 14th Amendment.
However, what that assessment overlooks is the point I made earlier: There is a paucity of actual case law on this matter. Two cases separated by eighty-four years does not make for a robust body of legal scholarship—in Wong Kim Ark the Court had to reach back into antecedent English law to establish the foundations for its ruling.
The corporate media overlooks something else as well: Donald Trump secured the most votes nationwide in the Presidential Election while campaigning to do exactly what he has just done. This was an explicit promise made in Agenda 47. More Americans are okay with ending birthright citizenship for illegal aliens than are not, if their Presidential votes are any guide.
The presumption that Trump’s arguments in this regard are either absurd or ludicrous thus ignores both the legal and political realities of the issue.
What is absolutely certain is that, one way or the other, the question of birthright citizenship will be decided during Donald Trump’s term of office. If Trump’s reasoning and mine are the proper appraisal of the 14th Amendment, then the Democrat attorneys general and their anticipated lawsuits are going to be the vehicle by which that reasoning is clearly established as the valid interpretation of that Amendment.
Irony abounds.
Do They Even Know Who To Sue?
In a somewhat more comical vein, President Trump is already being sued over the “Department Of Government Efficiency” initiative being spearheaded by Elon Musk.
Advocacy organizations and public interest groups quickly filed a handful of lawsuits in the US District Court for the District of Columbia targeting the agency known as DOGE.
Three of four lawsuits filed argue that DOGE violates the transparency requirements of the 1972 law called the Federal Advisory Committee Act. DOGE, the lawsuits say, is not a federal department and should be considered a federal advisory committee subject to the FACA law.
What makes these lawsuits—and the corporate reporting of them—rather comical is that none of them apparently bothered to read the actual wording of Donald Trump’s Executive Order:
Sec. 3. DOGE Structure. (a) Reorganization and Renaming of the United States Digital Service. The United States Digital Service is hereby publicly renamed as the United States DOGE Service (USDS) and shall be established in the Executive Office of the President.
(b) Establishment of a Temporary Organization. There shall be a USDS Administrator established in the Executive Office of the President who shall report to the White House Chief of Staff. There is further established within USDS, in accordance with section 3161 of title 5, United States Code, a temporary organization known as “the U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization”. The U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization shall be headed by the USDS Administrator and shall be dedicated to advancing the President’s 18-month DOGE agenda. The U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization shall terminate on July 4, 2026. The termination of the U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization shall not be interpreted to imply the termination, attenuation, or amendment of any other authority or provision of this order.
In other words, Donald Trump did not create any new advisory board or committee, but is repurposing an existing agency which has existed since the Obama years.
Whatever work Musk and departing DOGE head Vivek Ramaswamy might have done prior to Donald Trump’s inauguration cannot apply, because, prior to Trump’s inauguration, those actions were by definition not done by either a government agency or by an advisory board or committee. That alone calls the applicability of FACA into question, unless the lawsuits intend to challenge the work of the US Digital Service during the Biden years as well.
That means these are lawsuits by liberals contesting the work of an Obama-created agency carried out during the (Biden-)Harris Administration because liberals want to “resist” Donald Trump.
Irony abounds. Apparently, so does lunacy.
Is Trump Making Government Actually Work?
We should note that, for decades now, the sentiment of the US electorate has been that the United States is not heading in a good direction.
It is hardly a remarkable statement to say that people in this country do not regard the US government as “working for the American people”, or even “working” at all. Quite the contrary, the average American’s assessment of the US government is most likely the precise opposite of that.
Donald Trump’s Agenda 47 is above all an agenda of change. Regardless of whether that change should prove to be good change or bad, change is unquestionably the driving force behind his election to a second term as President. The voters voted for change when they voted for Donald Trump.
Are these Executive Orders the change for which people voted? Some Democrats and corporate media mouthpieces will argue otherwise, and other Democrats and corporate media mouthpieces will condemn voters for daring to want something other than the government’s status quo. However, virtually every one of Donald Trump’s Day 1 Executive Orders are in furtherance either of an Agenda 47 bullet point or in support of a promise made by Donald Trump on the campaign trail.
At a minimum, Donald Trump is keeping his campaign promises to his voter base.
In the best outcome, Donald Trump is making changes which will make this country stronger and more prosperous for everyone, Democrats included.
Yet Donald Trump is also assuring that the nature and direction of change in this country will be a talking point not just for politicians and pundits, but for everyone. Whether one loves or loathes Donald Trump, it is impossible to ignore Donald Trump.
It’s hard to see energizing people to talk about issues as a bad thing. Even if all people have to say is “Orange man bad”, when people are at least talking there is the beginnings of a debate, and a true national conversation on what manner of change this country truly wants.
That is very much a good thing.
The Democrats would like nothing more than to stop Donald Trump from carrying out Agenda 47. However, just by reacting to Trump’s Executive Orders, Democrats are helping to further the very process of change they want to stop. Willingly or unwillingly, they are being dragged aboard the Trump Train 2.0.
Irony abounds. So does change—and that is a very good thing!
Elk v. Wilkins, 112 U.S. 94 (1884)
United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898)
Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202 (1982)
There is a small correction to be made: there are three cases touching on birthright Citizenship rather than two. There is also the 1884 case Elk v Wilkins (112 U.S. 94 (1884)). It also works against the claim of birthright citizenship.
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/112/94/
Once again I say: I am in AWE of your mind, Peter!
It looks as though ‘lawfare’ is going to be ramped up again by the Democrats, and then the Trump administration will be compelled to do counter-lawfare. Fine. Hash it all out in the courts for years, get clarifying Supreme Court rulings, have the Truth get dragged out into the open and our Constitution reaffirmed. It will take years, but you are CORRECT in your reasoning, Peter, and I trust that our system of checks and balances will ultimately get our nation back on track. Thank you, Founding Fathers!