Trump suffered a catastrophic collapse on the world stage at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. His collapse is one of three major stories on Wednesday. But it is instructive for those resisting Trump to reflect on the proximate cause of his ignominious retreat from his plan to take Greenland by force.
All it took to force Trump into a humiliating surrender was for the nations of Europe to unite in resisting his threats of economic coercion. See Vox, The week Europe fought back. By threatening economic and military countermeasures, the EU and NATO won.
As observed by The Economist,
The moral is that, to get America’s president to retreat, you have to convince him that you will impose a price on him. In most of their dealings with Mr Trump, European leaders have treated him with sycophancy truffled by the odd, muted objection. This time, they were more assertive and it worked.
Imagine if Congress could rouse itself to do the same. Or the Supreme Court. Or US business leaders. Or the leading bar associations and law firms across the nation. Or major media outlets.
Trump’s disastrous performance at Davos demonstrates that he is weak, vulnerable, and frightened. The appropriate response is to ratchet up our resistance to leverage our strength against his weakness. It is time for American institutions whose success is the first derivative of a stable democracy to step up to defend the democracy that gives them life.
The American people are doing their part with assistance from federal judges fighting a valiant rearguard action. But we are waiting in hope and frustration for the other stakeholders in democracy to realize that Trump can be stopped by coordinated resistance. It is that simple and that hard.
Trump’s collapse at Davos teaches us that he is a paper tiger who folds in the face of resistance. We are on the right path. We must continue our resistance on a grander scale. If we can do that, we can rein in Trump long before the midterms.
Trump collapses on the world stage at Davos.
Trump embarrassed himself—and America--on the world stage at Davos. In a highly anticipated address, Trump stumbled and slurred his way through an incoherent stream-of-consciousness speech in which he repeatedly referenced Iceland (rather than Greenland), even as he surrendered his delusional quest to conquer Greenland.
Where is Jake Tapper when we need him? I hope he is feverishly working on his next book, which will detail Trump’s descent into dementia, claims that Tapper made about Biden in a wildly profitable book. Or, better yet, Tapper could just use his nightly news platform to report Trump’s rapidly deteriorating mental state. There is no time like the present, Jake. Instead, Tapper dismissed Trump’s multiple mistaken references to Iceland, saying, “Trump clearly said Iceland. It’s not that big a deal. Why lie about it?”
Yes, Jake, it is a big deal. After all, when you are planning on invading a country, you should know its name. If you don’t, it’s time for a family intervention.
Trump’s speech at Davos was widely panned, with multiple outlets raising alarms about Trump’s cognitive health. See, e.g., The New Republic, Ex-Ally Warns Trump’s Decline Is “Significant” After Disastrous Speech; The Express (UK), Trump’s ‘rambling’ and ‘slurring’ Davos speech sparks major health fears - ‘He sounds ill’; Daily Beast, Confused Trump, 79, Forgets His Job in Bizarre Davos Speech.
Conservative opinion columnist Brett Stephens published an article in the NYTimes (behind a paywall) titled, An Unhinged President on the Magic Mountain.
Stephens wrote,
Donald Trump, whose hourlong speech to a packed audience on Wednesday sounded, in places, as if it had been ghostwritten by Mario Puzo. Wrapped in self-aggrandizing boasts and exaggerations, along with ugly jibes, meandering asides and shopworn grievances, lay a premeditated threat worthy of a padrino: “You can say ‘yes’ and we will be very appreciative,” the president said, in reference to his demand for Greenland. “Or you can say ‘no’ and we will remember.”
The most worrisome aspect of Trump’s speech was a lengthy hallucination describing a “conversation” with French President Macron in which Trump (allegedly) forced Macron to raise French drug prices by threatening sanctions on French wines. Even as Trump told the story, it was clearly an instance of fabulism in which Trump is the mythical hero.
The French government immediately published a press release stating that Trump’s story was “fake news.” See AP, France rejects Trump’s comment on drug prices, calls it ‘fake news’.
Per AP, the French government said,
[President Macron] does not set their prices. They are regulated by the social security system and have, in fact, remained stable. Anyone who has set foot in a French pharmacy knows this.
Trump engaged in a second instance of extended hallucination by claiming that he spoke with NATO Secretary-General about Greenland and had reached “pretty much the concept of a deal” that justified removing the threatened sanctions from eight European countries.
The NATO Secretary-General was later asked if he and Trump had spoken about the US desire to take control of Greenland. The Secretary-General said, “The issue had not come up.” A NATO spokesperson later said that “Trump was referring to [an agreement that] would focus on ensuring Arctic security through the ‘collective efforts of allies.’” See The Guardian, Trump declaration of Greenland framework deal met with scepticism as doubts persist.
In other words, Trump is fabricating conversations with world leaders on important topics. It doesn’t get much worse than that. But the major media is largely ignoring Trump’s lies, even though the rest of the world knows that Trump is hallucinating, lying, or confused. None of those options is acceptable.
In sum, Trump’s performance at Davos was pathetic, largely because he was in full retreat while trying to sound like a tough guy. He is fooling no one. And we should not allow ourselves to be fooled by his bluffs and threats. Stand up to him, and he will back down.
Speaking of standing up to Trump, the reactionary majority on the Supreme Court has just realized that the near-dictatorial powers they are handing to Trump will be exercised by the next Democratic president—an epiphany that is giving some of the justices pause. Read on!
Supreme Court justices express skepticism over Trump’s claim that he can fire members of the Federal Reserve Board.
The second major story on Wednesday concerned the cold reception Trump received from the Supreme Court over his claim that he can fire members of the Federal Reserve Board. See WSJ, Supreme Court Balks at Trump’s Push to Control the Fed. (Gift article, accessible to all.)
The hostile reception in the Supreme Court was not a surprise. The Court had previously telegraphed its view that the Federal Reserve was unique among federal agencies in its claim to independence from the president.
What was unexpected was Justice Kavanaugh's statement suggesting another reason for limiting Trump’s powers in this case. See Slate, The Supreme Court Sounds More Frustrated With Trump Than Ever Before.
As reported by Mark Joseph Stern and Dahlia Litwick, Kavanaugh expressed concern that the extreme powers being claimed by Trump would be available to future presidents if the Supreme Court adopted Trump’s view in the Federal Reserve case.
Kavanaugh said to the US Solicitor General (who was arguing for Trump),
If this were set as a precedent, it seems to me, just thinking big picture, what goes around comes around. All of the current president’s appointees would likely be removed for cause on Jan. 20, 2029, if there’s a Democratic president. … Once these tools are unleashed, they are used by both sides and usually more the second time around.
Kavanaugh raises a cogent point—one that should have given the Court pause before it granted Trump immunity from any crimes committed during the course of his presidential duties. While the Trump justices may not be bothered by their patron’s criminality, they may not like what comes next.
In any event, the point is that the Supreme Court is finally thinking beyond the immediate demands being made by Trump. This augurs well for democracy in other cases in which Trump is claiming expansive presidential authority inconsistent with the Constitution's checks and balances.
ICE breaking into homes without a warrant and seizing children
It is difficult to believe that the situation in Minneapolis could get worse. But it has.
A whistleblower revealed on Wednesday that an internal ICE memo authorizes agents to enter residences without a warrant. See AP News, Memo tells ICE officers they can enter homes without a warrant.
Per the AP article,
Federal immigration officers are asserting sweeping power to forcibly enter people’s homes without a judge’s warrant, according to an internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement memo obtained by The Associated Press, marking a sharp reversal of longstanding guidance meant to respect constitutional limits on government searches.
The memo authorizes ICE officers to use force to enter a residence based solely on a more narrow administrative warrant to arrest someone with a final order of removal, a move that advocates say collides with Fourth Amendment protections and upends years of advice given to immigrant communities.
Here’s the problem: The memo contradicts the Fourth Amendment, which states:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Two centuries of judicial precedent have affirmed that the warrants must be issued by a court after a finding of probable cause. ICE cannot override the provisions of the Fourth Amendment by issuing an internal, secret, unlawful memo. The lawyers who drafted the memo should be disbarred.
For clarity, the memo claims that ICE officers can use administrative warrants to enter homes. But administrative warrants are not issued by a judge or magistrate; instead, they are signed by ICE supervisors. As such, they cannot provide constitutional authority to enter a home without consent. See MinnPost, Do administrative warrants allow ICE to enter your house? (“No. An administrative warrant does not allow ICE or any other law enforcement agency to enter or search your house.”)
The practice of warrantless entry into homes by ICE agents will undoubtedly be challenged in court in short order, given the revelations in the whistleblower lawsuit.
It is worth pausing to note that no state, local, or federal law enforcement officer would assert the right to break into someone’s home without a judicial warrant, absent exigent circumstances not relevant here. The fact that ICE agents are deputizing themselves with extra-constitutional authority to break into homes is the very definition of fascism.
This must stop. It will stop when enough of us say “No.”
Finally, ICE agents have ratcheted up their cruelty by seizing, detaining, and separating children from their parents—a throwback to a practice in the first Trump administration. The abject cruelty of that practice resulted in a massive public outcry that brought an immediate end to so-called “family separations.”
See CBS News, ICE has arrested 4 children in same Minnesota school district.
School district officials in Columbia Heights, Minnesota, say their sense of security is shaken and their hearts shattered after four students from the district were recently taken by officers with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. [¶]
Then in the afternoon, 5-year-old Liam Ramos was taken with his father while in their driveway after just arriving home from his preschool classroom. School officials say the child was used as bait to knock on the door and ask to be let in, letting officers see if anyone else was home.
Let that sink in for a moment. ICE agents used a five-year old child as “bait” to knock on the door at his home to lure family members in the home to the door. What kind of sick person would stoop to such inhumane tactics? Answer: ICE agents. An article in the Guardian features a photo of the 5-year-old boy who was used as part of an ICE “sting” operation against his family. The Guardian, ICE detains five-year-old Minnesota boy as he came home, say school officials.
ICE has crossed many lines in the last year. But the new focus on children is grotesquely cruel and will cause the American people to rise in revulsion and disgust to stop ICE’s inhumane practices.
Trump’s ratings will plummet to depths not experienced by any president, ever. And as cowardly Republicans stand by Trump’s side, the fate of the Republican Party will be sealed—forever.
Concluding Thoughts
Trump hasn’t relented on his delusional desire to invade Greenland. Or Iceland, Cuba, or Venezuela. When his drugs wear off, his feelings are hurt, or he gets “hangry,” he will say something stupid again. But the EU and NATO have learned a valuable lesson: Trump can be stared down.
That is the lesson of the Davos Debacle: Trump can be stared down. The only way to handle Trump is through disciplined, unyielding resistance. We have bigger fights ahead, but our tactics must not change. We must resist, persist, and repeat. That is the path to victory!
Talk to you tomorrow!