Dictator for a Day… a Month… Years?
A president who doesn’t believe in checks and balances is no president at all.
In an NPR interview yesterday morning, Ty Cobb, one of Donald Trump’s first-term White House attorneys, was asked what he thought about when he heard the FBI had searched John Bolton’s home last Friday.
“Well,” Cobb replied, “I went down and locked my door.” Happy Tuesday.
The Business of a Wannabe Strongman
by William Kristol
Yesterday was an ordinary day at the White House. The president issued some executive orders, made a personnel announcement, and hosted a foreign leader. Along with carrying out these executive duties, he took questions in the Oval Office. In the course of answering them, he praised the success of his policies, condemned crime, and waxed patriotic as he praised the American flag.
Pretty much business as usual.
But of course, the business of this president is not fundamentally like that of his predecessors. The business of this president is subverting our free government. And yesterday was another day at the office for carrying out that business.
President Trump’s most notable executive order sought to further bolster his claim that he could call on state National Guard troops, regardless of whether state authorities wanted him to, to “assist in quelling civil disturbances.” Trump was straightforward about what he was doing. When asked, “Are you prepared to order National Guard troops into American cities if those governors don’t request the federal deployment,” he answered, “I am.”
And since the military will have to be prepared for its new role of domestic law enforcement, the president also ordered the secretary of defense to “begin ensuring that each State’s Army National Guard and Air National Guard are resourced, trained, organized, and available to assist Federal, State, and local law enforcement in quelling civil disturbances and ensuring the public safety and order whenever the circumstances necessitate.” Indeed, “the Secretary of Defense shall ensure the availability of a standing National Guard quick reaction force that shall be resourced, trained, and available for rapid nationwide deployment.”
So the National Guard is being slowly—or not so slowly—turned into the president’s own rapid domestic deployment force, to be used at his unchecked discretion. Its deployment, regardless of the wishes of local authorities or any real showing of emergency, was once presented as exceptional in the cases of Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. Now, it is to become the rule.
As is the firing of any federal official who stands in the way of the president’s power. Last night, the president announced a personnel action, the removal of Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. No president has ever removed a Federal Reserve governor. And a Supreme Court case from earlier this term had seemed to cordon off the Federal Reserve from Trump’s Article II-rationalized stampede over legal and administrative barriers in the service of getting complete and personal control of the federal government.
But, no matter. Trump claimed he had cause to remove Cook, as the statute requires. But the cause consists of allegations that Cook falsified records to obtain a mortgage, an allegation that has not been adjudicated or even legally charged. It also involves a filing that is rarely prosecuted and that happened before Cook joined the Federal reserve and has no relationship to her job performance.
In fact, what happened here is basically no different than what’s happened in the Pentagon, with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s unprecedented widespread firings of general officers. Trump wants a compliant Fed and a compliant military. The firings are less about the individuals getting the axe than about the chance to replace them with people loyal to him. Trump doesn’t want anyone in senior positions in the federal government who might not be subservient to him, our Dear Leader.
Speaking of dear leaders, I should note that another one came up yesterday in the course of President Trump’s meeting with South Korea’s new president, Lee Jae Myung.
With the press in the Oval Office at the beginning of the meeting, Trump did not take the opportunity not to praise our historic and close relationship with our ally South Korea, whose democratically elected leader was seated beside him. Instead, he chose to brag about his “great relationship” with the dictator of North Korea, Kim Jong-un. “Look, I get along great with Kim Jong-un.”
Of course he does. Why wouldn’t he?
Jail for a Year?
by Andrew Egger
Justice Antonin Scalia—a conservative hero of another, vanished age—once had this to say about flag-burners: “If I were king, I would not allow people to go about burning the American flag. However, we have a First Amendment which says that the right of free speech shall not be abridged. And it is addressed, in particular, to speech critical of the government. . . . Burning a flag is a symbol that expresses an idea. . .”
President Trump seems to agree—but only with the first sentence. Yesterday afternoon, he signed an executive order at the White House titled “PROSECUTING BURNING OF THE AMERICAN FLAG.” The order states that burning an American flag is “uniquely offensive and provocative,” a “statement of contempt, hostility, and violence against our Nation,” a possible incitement to “violence and riot,” and an act “used by groups of foreign nationals” to “intimidate and threaten violence against Americans.”
It’s the sort of thing conservative Trump foes—back when there were any—used to decry as a star-spangled, jingoistic version of the speech-policing of the left. If it’s offensive to MAGA, it should be illegal to say it.
The order is notable for several reasons, not least because of the wide gulf between what its text actually purports to do and how Trump himself is talking about it. As written, the flag-burning order attempts to find creative ways to skirt around Texas v. Johnson, the 1989 case in which the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that burning a U.S. flag was indeed protected political speech. It instructs the Department of Justice and other agencies to scrutinize instances of flag-burning to find other laws under which such acts might be prosecuted, like municipal burning restrictions or laws against disorderly conduct or destruction of property.
That’s all bad and silly as far as it goes, and not necessarily uniquely Trumpian. Other politicians have sought to sweep civil liberties aside when it comes to prosecuting perceived offenses against the dignity of Our Great Nation. But Trump added his own special sauce at the order’s signing ceremony, where he proclaimed: “What the penalty is going to be, if you burn a flag, you get one year in jail. No early exits, no nothing. You get one year in jail.”
It was flatly made up; nothing like that exists in the text of the order. Yet rather than clarify Trump’s embarrassing ignorance of the order he was signing at that moment, the White House messaging apparatus immediately fired up as though his off-the-cuff utterance was the new policy of the United States. White House comms staffers tweeted out the moment, echoing the “burn a flag, get one year in jail” line. The official White House X account shared a slickly produced video of flag-burners with a similar caption: “Actions have consequences. Burn the American flag, disrespect our nation, incite violence: ONE YEAR IN JAIL. No excuses.”
In the real world—the world of laws and judicial precedents—all this is deeply stupid. Setting aside the other un-American nonsense they’re doing, the White House would be crazy to believe that threatening illegal penalties for flag-burning won’t spark a surge in protests involving the very flag-burning they claim to want to prevent. The spectacle is likely what they want. And, sure enough, a man who described himself as a U.S. veteran burned an American flag in front of the White House yesterday afternoon in protest of Trump’s order. He was detained by the Secret Service and turned over to the Park Police, who arrested him for violating a statute against lighting a fire in a public park.
But in the online fever-swamp where Trump’s base spends much of their time, all this plays very differently. There, such things as constitutional precedents matter not at all; the fact that the White House is wasting the time of its own law enforcement agencies and America’s courts by sending them haring after the protected speech of flag-burners doesn’t faze them. All that, after all, plays out later, somewhere far from the cameras. In the meantime, they’ll still get their video content of Trump’s personal law enforcement officers arresting the hated flag burners, interspersed with clips of Trump proclaiming they’ll go to jail for a year. What a rush.
AROUND THE BULWARK
Candace Owens to Trump: Save Me from the Macrons… The right-wing podcaster is staring down some hefty legal bills—and merch sales alone might not cut it, reports WILL SOMMER in False Flag.
Frank Meyer, the Ex-Communist Known for ‘Fusionist’ Conservatism, Finally Gets a Biography… JOSHUA TAIT’s review of Daniel J. Flynn’s new book concludes that it is a detailed, exhausting, and ultimately too-gentle treatment of the midcentury writer and editor.
Trump Puts Out Dictatorship Feelers and Dean Cain Embarrasses Himself! On the latest FYPod, TIM MILLER and CAMERON KASKY break down Trump’s latest “dictator” trial balloon, his schoolyard-bully tactics, and even rumors of war with Mexican cartels.
Will Trump Solve Homelessness? On The Mona Charen Show, FREOPP's MICHAEL TANNER joins MONA CHAREN to discuss homelessness causes and potential cures.
Quick Hits
THE ABREGO GARCIA CHRONICLES: With Kilmar Abrego Garcia back in ICE custody, the government’s case against him is proceeding along two tracks. He is still facing criminal charges, to which he has pleaded not guilty, for allegedly working as a driver ferrying other illegal immigrants around the country. His lawyers continue to argue these charges were brought in a vindictive political prosecution and should therefore be dismissed.
But for Abrego Garcia to even see the inside of a criminal courtroom, he first would need to fend off the White House’s latest attempt to deport him. Steps in that direction began on Monday with his re-detainment and the Department of Homeland Security’s announcement that he “will be processed for removal to Uganda.”1 Hours later, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis of Maryland temporarily barred the White House from putting that plan into action until she can be sure his due process rights will be upheld. But it’s an uphill battle: The Supreme Court partially cleared the way earlier this year for the White House to deport migrants even to countries where they have no ties.
MY ‘NOT A DICTATOR’ SHIRT HAS PEOPLE ASKING A LOT OF QUESTIONS: Donald Trump wants you to know he does not want to be a dictator even if the American people are clamoring for one.
“They say . . . ‘He’s a dictator, he’s a dictator,” Trump said in the Oval Office yesterday, mimicking his critics. “A lot of people are saying, ‘Maybe we’d like a dictator.’ I don’t like a dictator. I’m not a dictator.”
It’s the same song and dance Trump rolled out on the campaign trail last year, when he repeatedly claimed that he wanted to be a dictator—but only on his first day in office, and only to close the border and “drill, baby, drill.” It’s intended both to tweak his critics and wink at those members of his coalition who do thirst for Trump to be a strongman.
Because evil or not, Trump isn’t wrong that a significant chunk of Americans want exactly that. As JVL noted earlier this month, a major coalitional shift of the Trump era has been that America’s most authoritarian-coded voters, who previously had been distributed between both parties, have clustered more and more into the GOP tent, where they now sit as some of Trump’s most ferociously loyal defenders. Comments like these are Trump’s way of showing his appreciation.
I’LL POST TILL I’M DEAD: John Bolton has broken his silence on the Trump Justice Department’s search of his home—and done so in the most bizarre and John Bolton-esque way imaginable: With a scathing op-ed on the White House’s Ukraine policy that mentions Friday’s raid in passing. Here he is, writing in the Washington Examiner yesterday:
President Donald Trump’s Ukraine policy is no more coherent today than it was last Friday when his administration executed search warrants against my home and office. Collapsing in confusion, haste, and the absence of any discernable meeting of the minds among Ukraine, Russia, several European countries, and America, Trump’s negotiations may be in their last throes, along with his Nobel Peace Prize campaign.
The rest of the piece never mentions the search again. What can you say? He’s a quirky guy if nothing else. Still, he shouldn’t have to endure a criminal vengeance campaign from an unhinged megalomaniac in the White House.
Cheap Shots
True to form, DHS’s increasingly flashy X account also spent the day tweeting jeering memes about the suffering they intended to inflict on Abrego Garcia as soon as possible.
Morning routine:
1. Coffee.
2. Read Morning Shots.
3. Swear audibly, under breath.
4. Resume trying to live life amidst the fall of the republic.
This morning I ordered up a deep dive on Lisa Cook from Chat GPT. She is an expert in economics and history: e.g. banking in Russia. Also, among other interesting facts, I found this, as summarized by the program:
"Lisa D. Cook’s scholarship is deeply and specifically connected to the lynching database efforts: She helped critique, refine, and extend data quality in academic discussions on lynching. She applied those refined datasets to quantify the economic impact of racial terror, especially on Black innovation. And she explored the structural relationship between segregation and lynching, enriching how we understand the spatial — and societal — drivers of racial violence."
Her sin might be bringing to light aspects of American history not deemed "bright" by the White House