Trump Moves To Abolish Rights And Freedoms

Well the Americans have elected what most of them will find difficult to handle as the hours turn into days and weeks. President Donald J.Trump has hit the road running, passing orders with a speed that suggests determination and action. Or at least is intended to as people find that his promises to deport migrants, to curb freedoms and rights, to threaten and intimidate have found expression in a seemingly endless series of Executive Orders.

Dancing beside him is X owner Elon Musk, adding to a pantomime that seems to have left America in awe and shock, as the Constitution is violated not just in word but in action. The Bishop who spoke so gently at Trump’s inauguration ceremony asking him to have mercy on hapless people such as LGBTQ and immigrants has been asked to apologise now along with her Church. No less a person than the President of the United States has tweeted against Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde as “nasty, accusing her of being “a radical Left hard line Trump hater” as if that is a crime.

The intimidation and threat environment has been given a huge boost as Trump makes it clear that he will follow his words with action. There is not much to be heard from the Democrats who seem to be still recovering from the Joe Biden term, and perhaps even a little mesmerised by the Republican man now in power. He has passed executive orders, more perhaps even as one writes, that restrict birthright citizenship, abolish the Equal Employment Opportunity Act, and in the process dealt a big blow to diversity, equity and inclusion that were the hallmark of the American Constitution.

The 1965 Equal Employment Opportunity order for instance prohibited federal contractors from discriminating against race, colour, religion, sex or national origin in decisions of employment. It provided for affirmative action to help disadvantaged persons, with women and minorities in focus as well. This is now scrapped allowing employers to reject persons on the basis of gender, colour, race.

The Trump Birthright Citizenship Order directs federal agencies to deny citizenship to children born in the US to parents who are not citizens. However, in a quick retaliatory move a federal judge in Seattle has temporarily blocked this order for 14 days while the court considers a preliminary injunction. This is the first legal setback for Trump, with the Judge describing the order as “blatantly unconstitutional.”

The orders are being passed amidst strong remarks by the US President on all these issues, as he makes it clear that his administration has no space for equality and such freedoms even as US troops reach the Mexico border to give teeth to Trump’s immigration crackdown. India has of course reached out to the new President and offered to help deport 18,000 ‘illegal’ migrants as part of its sincerity to help him cleanse his country of such persons. The fear within has been noted by alternative American media channels as the accepted American democracy is being turned upside down rapidly. And given the reach and power of the US, this will have an impact on the world.

Domestic policy feeds into foreign policy and Trump has started his term with threats to all –Canada, Greenland, Panama, NATO - and pulled out of the Paris Climate talks. He had promised to end the war in Ukraine and has threatened Russia with sanctions and tariffs that does not seem to have moved Moscow at all. He exerted pressure on Netanyahu and the Palestinians to reach a deal for a ceasefire, and while this has now come into effect, the Israelis seem to have got a green signal to train their guns at Jenin in the West Bank from where deaths and arrests are being reported every day.

In short everything is topsy-turvy as the Americans and the world are glued to Trump television, watching his every action that is threatening to dismantle the national and international order. Alongside Musk jumps around with glee, and the men and women the new President has surrounded himself with turn into an echo chamber promising little by way of freedom and rights to their people and the peoples of the world. This, as they say, is only the beginning. The four year term has just begun.