Trump’s Abnormal Events

Students of authoritarian regimes suggest keeping a list of abnormal events after a demagogue is elected, as a way to remind yourself that this isn't normal and to keep from being overwhelmed into acceptance by the onslaught of attacks on our rights.

Those of us who attempted to do that gave up a long time ago, overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of outrageousness. A few diehards, such as Amy Siskind, are doing the hard work for us, via her Weekly List. She compiled her first year’s collection into “The List,” published in March 2018.

Siskind, along with Karen McRae, has also organized a We the People March in Washington, D.C., for Sept. 21. Check the website for other marches across the country and travel information.

A couple of us started listing the outrageous actions (and the reactions) within the first eight days of his administration.

As one writer says, "When you see all of this in one list, it is easy to get overwhelmed, at first – it is also easy to see a pattern and to finally, finally recognize that none of this is normal, nor is it OK."

Unfortunately, some 950 days into trump’s pseudo-presidency, his cruel behavior and uniformed policies are becoming all too normal and many of us are exhausted and numb.

We’re comparing here tRump’s first week in office, in January 2017, to the last two weeks of August 2019. There are 14 months left in his term. Thus far, Congress has been impotent in holding him accountable. Despite the House winning a Democratic majority in the 2018 mid-terms, Mitch McConnell has been holding legislation hostage and the Senate majority will prevent any follow-through on impeachment actions; as of the end of August, 136 Democrats (and one former Republican) called for tRump’s impeachment. 

Speaker Nancy Pelosi continues to bide her time as Congress abandons D.C. for its summer vacay. Does she have a plan?

Sure, there’s been the anticlimactic release of the Mueller report and Mueller’s anticlimactic testimony before Congress, convictions of tRump associates, investigations ad nauseam.

The bottom line is that he remains in office, creating chaos each and every day.

From January 2017

Jan. 19, 2017: DT said that he would cut funding for the
• DOJ’s Violence Against Women programs.
• National Endowment for the Arts.
• National Endowment for the Humanities.
• Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
• Minority Business Development Agency.
• Economic Development Administration.
• International Trade Administration.
• Manufacturing Extension Partnership.
• Office of Community Oriented Policing Services.
• Legal Services Corporation.
• Civil Rights Division of the DOJ.
• Environmental and Natural Resources Division of the DOJ.
• Overseas Private Investment Corporation.
• UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
• Office of Electricity Deliverability and Energy Reliability.
• Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.
• Office of Fossil Energy.

Jan. 20, 2017: DT ordered
• All regulatory powers of all federal agencies frozen.
• The National Parks Service to stop using social media after RTing factual, side by side photos of the crowds for the 2009 and 2017 inaugurations.

Jan. 20, 2017: Roughly 230 protestors were arrested in D.C. and face unprecedented felony riot charges. Among them were legal observers, journalists, and medics.

Jan. 20, 2017: A member of the International Workers of the World was shot in thestomach at an anti-fascist protest in Seattle. He remains in critical condition.

Jan. 21, 2017: DT brought a group of 40 cheerleaders to a meeting with the CIA to cheer for him during a speech that consisted almost entirely of framing himself as the victim of dishonest press. 

Jan. 21, 2017: White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer held a press conference largely to attack the press for accurately reporting the size of attendance at the inaugural festivities, saying that the inauguration had the largestaudience of any in history, “period.”

Jan. 22, 2017: White House advisor Kellyann Conway defended Spicer’s lies as “alternative facts” on national television news. 

Jan. 22, 2017: DT appeared to blow a kiss to director James Comey during a meeting with the FBI, and then opened his arms in a gesture of strange, paternal affection, before hugging him with a pat on the back.

Jan. 23, 2017: DT reinstated the global gag order, which defunds international organizations that even mention abortion as a medical option. http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/trump-makes-the-global-gag-rule-on-abortion-even-worse 

Jan. 23, 2017: Spicer said that the US will not tolerate China’s expansion onto islands in the South China Sea, essentially threatening war with China.

Jan. 23, 2017: DT repeated the lie that 3 to 5 million people voted “illegally” thus costing him the popular vote.

Jan. 23, 2017: It was announced that the man who shot the anti-fascist protester in Seattle was released without charges, despite turning himself in.

Jan. 24, 2017: Spicer reiterated the lie that 3-5 million people voted “illegally” thus costing DT the popular vote.

Jan. 24, 2017: DT tweeted a picture from his personal Twitter account of a photo he says depicts the crowd at his inauguration and will hang in the White House press room. The photo is of the 2009 inauguration of 44th President Barack Obama, and is curiously dated January 21st, 2017: the day AFTER the inauguration and the day of the Women’s March, the largest inauguration related protest in history.

Jan. 24, 2017: The EPA was ordered to stop communicating with the public through social media or the press and to freeze all grants and contracts.

Jan. 24, 2017: The USDA was ordered to stop communicating with the public through social media or the press and to stop publishing any papers or research. All communication with the press would also have to be authorized and vetted by the White House. The gag was lifted.

Jan. 24, 2017: HR7, a bill that would prohibit federal funding not only to abortion service providers, but to any insurance coverage, including Medicaid, that provides abortion coverage, went to the floor of the House for a vote. 

Jan. 24, 2017: Director of the Department of Health and Human Service nominee Tom Price characterized federal guidelines on transgender equality as “absurd.” References to discrimination against LGBT removed from State Dept. website. 
 
Jan. 24, 2017: DT ordered the resumption of construction on the Dakota Access Pipeline, while the North Dakota state congress considers a bill that would legalize hitting and killing protestors with cars if they are on roadways. 

Jan. 24, 2017: It was discovered that police officers had used confiscated cellphones to search the emails and messages of the 230 demonstrators now facing felony riot charges for protesting Jan. 20, including lawyers and journalists whose email accounts contain privileged information of clients and sources.

Jan. 25, 2015, Trump orders building the wall at the Mexican border and curtailing immigration.

Jan. 25, 2017: DT said he believes waterboarding works and would consider reinstating it as an interrogative technique.

Jan. 25, 2017: DT signed an executive order to create the Office for Victims of Crimes Committed by Removable Aliens.

Jan. 25, 2017: DT included the compilation and publication of a weekly comprehensive list of criminal actions committed by aliens as a part of America's new anti-immigration strategy.

Jan. 25, 2017: We learned the United States is preparing to reduce its investment in and influence on the world and is preparing a draft order titled “Auditing and Reducing U.S. Funding of International Organizations,” which calls for “at least a 40 percent overall decrease” in U.S. funding of international organizations. “If President Trump signs the order and its provisions are carried out, the cuts could severely curtail the work of United Nations agencies, which rely on billions of dollars in annual United States contributions"

Jan. 26, 2017: The Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto canceled his meeting with DT, planned for next week.

Jan. 26, 2017: DT signaled a retreat from America’s international commitments in a draft executive order titled “Moratorium on New Multilateral Treaties.” “The [order] calls for a review of all current and pending treaties with more than one other nation. It asks for recommendations on which negotiations or treaties the United States should leave,” according to the New York Times. “An explanatory statement that accompanies the draft order mentions two United Nations treaties for review: the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. 

Jan. 26, 2017: DT indicated his administration is going to let the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals {DACA) program, which provided protections onundocumented immigrants who arrived as children, expire.

Jan. 26, 2017: We learned that in an unprecedented move, the entire senior level of management officials at the State Department resigned, part of "an ongoing mass exodus of senior Foreign Service officers" (Washington Post), and included the #2, Patrick Kennedy, who has served as undersecretary for management for nine years, and three of his top officials: Assistant Secretary of State for Administration Joyce Anne Barr, Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs Michele Bond and Ambassador Gentry O. Smith, director of the Office of Foreign Missions. All are career Foreign Service officers who have served under both Republican and Democratic administrations.

Jan. 26, 2017: The White House closed the public access telephone line. Those calling are told to post on the website or on the FB page.
 

Jan. 27, 2017: DT prioritized Syrian Christians seeking asylum over all other religions. Edit: not sure how this plays out given the ban on ALL citizens of Syria from entering the U.S., signed later in the day.

Jan. 27, 2017: On Holocaust Remembrance Day, DT signed an executive order banning citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the US for at least the next 90 days. The executive order bars all people hailing from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen -- or at least 134 million people, based on 2013 World Bank census data -- from entering the United States. The executive order also makes it clear those seven countries are just a starting point for a likely broader ban. h

Jan. 27, 2017: The new U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., Nikki Haley, in her first day on the job warned U.N.members to back the U.S., or "we're taking names."

Jan. 27, 2017: Coal lobbyist put in charge of prosecuting environmental crimes.

Jan. 28, 2017: People with Green Cards are being denied access to the US and detained at airports. Apparently waivers are being required even for those with Green Cards looking to re-enter as part of the executive order. Subsequently, a temporary stay was issued by a federal judge in New York on Saturday night, allowing those who were detailed to enter the US. 

Jan. 28, 2017: DT and the Republicans are preparing to overturn the EndangeredSpecies Act. (From the Associated Press)

Jan. 29, 2017: DT institutes lobbying ban, making it harder for the public to learn about conflicts of interest 

(By Lisa. Updated by Laurie Goldstein and Sally Bahner)

Just in the past week – August 2019
 
Aug. 22, 2019: DT expressed interest in buying Greenland.

Aug. 28, 2019: North Korea building submarine that can launch nuclear missiles. tRump maintains that Kim is his BFF.

Aug. 26, 2019: tRump wants his Doral property to be used forthe next G7. There are reports of bedbugs and health code violations.

Aug. 28, 2019: Transferring FEMA funds for detention facilities with hurricane on Puerto Rico’s doorstep (insulting the mayor in the process).

Aug. 27, 2019: Deutsch Bank is sitting on his financial information; appears that Russian oligarchs co-signed loans and explains his kissing up to Russia (as reported by Lawrence O’Donnell, who was subsequently pressured to retract his information). Also a report from the New York Times, which had reported extensively on tRump's finances.

Aug. 27, 2019: DT orders deportation of migrants being treated for life-threatening illnesses. 

Aug. 28, 2019: AG William Barr books a $30K holiday party at tRump’s hotel   

Aug. 27, 2019: DT says he will pardon aides who would break the law in helping him build his wall.

Aug. 26, 2019: DT cancels the Flores amendment limiting the amount of time children can be held in detention.

Aug. 27, 2019: DT rolls back protections of the Tongass Forest in Alaska.  

Aug. 28, 2019: DT wants to deny citizenship to children born of military personnel abroad.

Aug. 30, 2019: DT tweets a classified photograph of a fire at a rocket launch site in Iran.

Sandwiched in between these travesties are months and months of cruel immigration policies, rollback of environmental regulations, investigations and convictions of associates, an unprecedented turnover in cabinet and staff, alienation of our allies and cultivation of dictators, random trade policies, and more than 12,000 lies… what have I missed?

We all probably have some idea of whom we want to win the Democratic nomination for 2020. There are many good choices. But the Democrats need to narrow the field and craft unified policies that will undo the damage caused by tRump. They need a list of executive orders to immediately start that process and enlist an army of qualified people to staff up the cabinet and agencies to aid in damage control. Vote Blue!