Startups in Silicon Valley in the early years of their development promoted the idea of moving fast and breaking things as a way to innovate and create rapid change. That idea has been soundly rejected because smart people learned that If we move fast and break things, we are likely to break something important.
Donald Trump just did that. Monday night he put a freeze on federal aid that was supposed to go into effect at 5 pm on Tuesday, January 28th. Federal websites suddenly went dark. Chaos and panic swept across the country. Medicaid was immediately affected. Federal agency websites went dark and Trump’s OMB refused to communicate with state agencies. Programs that were disrupted included programs that fund schools, provide housing, and access to healthcare for low income Americans. Meals on Wheels, Head Start, the VA portal, federal university grants, and other federal websites were inaccessible. Medical research including cancer research was suddenly disrupted which meant that people getting treatment were suddenly uncertain about whether their potentially lifesaving treatment would continue.
Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 of the U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power to spend money for the general welfare of the United States. This is known as the “taxing and spending clause”. The president is not supposed to take over that role and be the decider about a job the legislature is empowered to do under the constitution. Trump thinks he has a mandate for unchecked power. What he just did affected not only Democrats but Trump’s own voters across the country. A federal district judge in Washington, DC temporarily blocked (stayed) Trump’s freeze but the chaos is not over. The head of Project 2025, Russell Vought, is now the head of the Office of Management and Budget. Vought vowed to end or severely curtail Medicaid in his Project 2025 manifesto.
2025 Presidential Transition Project (“Project 2025”), an authoritarian playbook for a new conservative administration. This wide-ranging far-right, anti-science, and anti-democratic agenda includes numerous proposals that endanger the future of Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and health-related civil rights laws and policies. https://healthlaw.org/authoritarian-project-2025-agenda-endangers-the-future-of-medicaid-and-the-affordable-care-act/
Donald Trump began his second term by flooding the zone with a slew of executive orders (EO) that were intended to undo Biden’s so-called “woke” agenda and show that this is HIS America now and he intends to rule like a king. He is moving fast and breaking a lot of things. Some of the things he is breaking will severely damage our country and Trump’s popularity even with his own base. It has become clear that Trump’s immigrant policy is part of a widespread effort to Make America White Again. Americans were fine with removing immigrants with criminal records but 48% of the immigrants being deported in these raids have no criminal record.
In this post I will focus on the birthright citizenship issue but future posts will focus on other ways that Trump is creating chaos, breaking important things Americans rely on and need, and hurting his own voters, not just Democrats and woke liberals.
TRUMP WANTS TO BREAK BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP
One of the EOs that was immediately challenged was his direct assault on birthright citizenship.
The order titled the “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship” states that “the privilege of United States citizenship does not automatically extend to persons born in the United States” when that person’s parents are either unlawfully present in the U.S. or when the parents’ presence is lawful but temporary.
At first glance you might think this EO is bound to fail but, especially given the current Supreme Court, it could succeed.
Trump is challenging the 14th Amendment of our constitution that clearly states that if you are born on American soil you have birthright citizenship. That includes children of immigrants who are not citizens. This principle was confirmed by the 1898 Supreme Court case United States v. Wong Kim Ark, which clarified that children born in the U.S. to immigrant parents are citizens, regardless of their parents’ immigration status.
When Trump’s Dept of Justice lawyers argued in favor of Trump’s EO in federal court, the judge, a Reagan appointee, was derisive, almost laughing them out of court.
- Judge John Coughenour, a Ronald Reagan appointee who sits in Seattle, granted the request by Washington Attorney General Nick Brown and three other Democratic-led states for the emergency order halting implementation of the policy for the next 14 days while there are more briefings in the legal challenge.
- “I have been on the bench for over four decades. I can’t remember another case where the question presented was as clear,” Coughenour said.
- “Where were the lawyers” when the decision to sign the executive order was made, the judge asked. He said that it “boggled” his mind that a member of the bar would claim the order was constitutional.
If Trump’s EO becomes the law of the land, babies of immigrants born on American soil would not be eligible for the basics of citizenship which include a social security number, Medicaid assistance at the hospital where they are born if they are in need of medical help, and they would be born literally stateless — living in limbo, unable to get a passport or birth certificate.
- Judge Coughenour said that President Donald Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship was “blatantly unconstitutional” and issued a temporary restraining order to block it.
WHAT’S THE MOTIVE?
Trump’s legal team knew that what Trump was ordering was not constitutional. But they think they can win this argument with this Supreme Court.
The majority of Americans polled do not support getting rid of birthright citizenship
The Ipsos poll captures something relevant to the executive order Trump is signing that seeks to overturn the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of birthright citizenship — that anyone born on US soil is American — to the children of undocumented immigrants. A solid 55 percent of the country rejects this.
Maybe then immigrants will think twice before they take the dangerous trek thousands of miles to the southern border and risk their lives to get here. The thinking is, if they can’t get American citizenship for their kids, then they won’t bother to come.
“Anchor Baby” Misinformation
There are many Americans who believe that illegal immigrants deliberately plan to have children on U.S. soil in order to circumvent the immigration system and secure legal status. …[and] there are a number of immigrants who believe this to be an effective pathway to U.S. citizenship. These children have been given the moniker “anchor babies”, because they supposedly stall deportation action against their immediate family members, who now fall under the protective force field of the baby’s legal citizenship status.
However, the truth is that a child’s citizenship status does [little] to improve her parents’ immigration status in the U.S. The parents remain subject to deportation and any other legal consequences of their illegal status despite having a citizen child. In fact, a 2013 report noted that each year 153,000 citizen children could have one or more parent deported if the current detain-and deport policies remain in place.
The result is these children are either left in this country with family members, put into the foster care system, or they return to the home country with their family. These children often have negative mental health consequences from the stress of losing one or both parents, a sharp decline in the family’s income, housing and food security, or facing the unknown, harsh, and oftentimes dangerous environment in the home countries their families fled due to fear or abject poverty in the first place.
Trump and many of his supporters are racists. They believe immigrants will think twice before they take the dangerous trek thousands of miles to the southern border and risk their lives to get here if they can’t get American citizenship for their kids.
Americans support the idea of expelling immigrants who have committed crimes beyond that of crossing the border illegally or overstaying their visas. But Trump, Stephen Miller and the other architects of this anti-immigrant movement are not limiting their expulsions to criminals. So far, half of the immigrants being expelled have no criminal record. Immigrants are being used as Trump’s whipping boy.
Kicking immigrants out of the country will not make Trump voters happier but they don’t know that yet. These voters listened to Trump and believed him when he said immigrants are the reason their lives are not going well. This is what would-be dictators do to get into power. Hitler blamed the Jews.
Even if Trump succeeds in removing birthright citizenship for immigrants and succeeds in expelling millions of undocumented immigrants, that will not get Trump supporters what they are looking for in their lives.
WHAT TRUMP VOTERS WANTED
One of the big reasons Trump won this election is that millions of working Americans were unhappy. For some time now working Americans have been unable to achieve the American Dream. They voted for Trump to fix that problem- fix their unhappiness. If only their egg prices would go down… if their gas prices would go down…they would surely be on the road to economic success and happiness.
Trump told his followers who to blame: The immigrants who are taking your jobs and getting the houses you deserve. The solution, he said, is to shut down the border and round up these disgusting people who are “poisoning the blood of our nation”. Kick them out. To prove he is doing what he promised to help his supporters, Trump is shutting down the border, rounding up these people, and attacking birthright citizenship.
If you want to blame the people who are really making it impossible for you to get ahead in America, look at those billionaires sitting on the dais behind Trump at his inauguration. Those are some of the richest people in the world. Many of them and other rich guys like them are paying off Republican lawmakers to undo your social safety net: kill off the ACA, your health insurance, social security, Medicare, and Medicaid, Veteran support, and they keep the federal hourly wage so low, $7.25/ hr, you can’t live on it.
THE WORLD ACCORDING TO TRUMP
Growing up in New York, Trump always wanted to “make it” with the super wealthy and be one of the guys who was successful. In New York as a failed real estate investor who declared bankruptcy 6 times, the rich guys in real estate snubbed him. He must feel he has come into his own as these ultra-wealthy billionaires kiss his ring now that he is president again. Trump is currently breaking all the rules when it comes to making money by using the presidency. He is violating the emoluments clause of the Constitution right and left. He even created his own crypto currency meme coins and is making a killing with them, some 7 billion dollars already, as he chases everything and anything else he can do to get billionaire status for himself. Trump admires rich guys.
Trump has said the system is rigged. He is an example of how rigged it is.
Without the guardrails more moderate Republicans provided in his first administration, we are getting Trump unleashed and unfiltered. One of his deeply held beliefs is that poor people including immigrants are worthless and disgusting. “Poisoning the blood of our nation,” as he says. That’s also what Hitler said about the Jews.
FROM ANNE FRANK’S DIARY
“Terrible things are happening outside. Poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes. Families are torn apart. Men, women, and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared.”- Diary of Anne Frank, January 13, 1943.
UNCHRISTIAN BELIEFS
The idea that poor people are less worthy runs counter to Christian values as well as core ideas of a democracy. Jesus himself was a poor man and preached in Matthew 19:23-26
Verily I say unto you, It is hard for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven. It is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.
Christian beliefs about the value of a person NOT based on their net worth is way closer to what research shows DOES affect our happiness. Being rich is not the answer.
ANTI- DEMOCRATIC BELIEFS
When it comes to our democracy, remember the inscription on the Statue of Liberty about immigrants?
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Turns out, democratic ideals get you closer to a recipe for real happiness.
TRUMP BLAMES THE WRONG PEOPLE
These generous ideas are nonstarters for Trump. Millions of Americans share a worldview Trump is peddling that reveres rich people and denigrates poor people. Americans would do better to stop envying all those supposedly happy, rich celebrities, sports stars and billionaires. They are not having better lives just because they are rich or famous. They are not better people. They are just people. Some are good, caring, empathic human beings. Some are living fulfilling lives. Some are not. Some are happy. Some are not.
But rich people, because they are rich, can have outsized influence, which means they can also have a huge negative impact on the world. Trump is a case in point. So is Elon Musk. How about Mark Zuckerberg? They could also have a huge positive impact if they put their minds to it. There are billionaires trying to make the world a better place: Bill Gates, George Soros, Mark Cuban. That’s a good thing. But it doesn’t mean they don’t have messed up lives themselves: divorces, stress, children who have rejected them as some of Musk’s own offspring have done. Contrary to popular belief, money and fame do not make people happy.
You will not hear this from Trump, but immigrants in fact help our economy (including the lives of Trump supporters) because they take low wage jobs that no upwardly mobile American wants because the wages employers are paying immigrants are not “living wages”. Immigrants are caring for our elderly in nursing homes, doing tough construction jobs, filling potholes at night on bridges, picking fruit and signing up for dangerous low paying work. The truth is that immigrants are hard working, don’t break the law (they risk deportation if they do!), pay taxes, and are not taking jobs Americans want. They work just as hard as a lot of the rich guys sitting behind Trump at his inauguration, but they don’t get the financial windfall. Yes, the system is rigged. We know that. And Trump and all of those billionaire buddies of his are exhibit #1.
WHAT REALLY MAKES PEOPLE HAPPY?
People who have studied what really makes people happy have learned some interesting things. They report, for example, that Millennials generally think that they will be happy if they have wealth and fame. I don’t think Millennials are the only people who believe that. Many Americans think that if they could be rich and famous they would be magically happy. But what really makes people happy is something altogether different. It’s social connection and support, good health, freedom of choice, opportunities to be generous, trust relationships, and at least $75,000.00 (more than that amount does not improve happiness!). Connection to people we love and care about, the quality of our relationships, good health, community engagement, a mission that matters, helping others: these are the things that actually bring you happiness in life. Retribution, revenge, vindictiveness and hate are not on the list. Read: The Good Life and How to Live It: Lessons from the World’s Longest Study on Happiness by Waldinger and Schulz.
And what makes people unhappy? Isolation, loneliness, and a lack of meaning in their lives. The pandemic and the internet have created a lot more unhappy people in our country than immigrants have. Trump made millions of supporters feel better by creating a community of other Trump supporters they could join and have fun with especially because the pandemic created so much isolation, fear and loss.
But Trump’s worldview is not one that will bring his supporters true happiness. If Trump voters want to be happier they might try taking a page out of Matthew or remembering what our democracy is fundamentally about. Be generous. Be empathic: Walk a mile in someone else’s shoes. Find ways to make the world a better place in your own community. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. And how about this crazy idea: Find opportunities to be generous by helping an immigrant family have a better life in America. Hate will not make you happy.