“If everything is honest, I'm willing to accept the results.” That's what former President Donald Trump adorably joked Wednesday in response to a question from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about whether he would accept the results of Wisconsin's presidential election. It was a statement. As my colleague Clarissa-Jean Lim pointed out, Trump has a long track record of making similar statements, to hide the fact that he doesn't feel bound by the election results. It offers a spurious justification. The events of January 6, 2021 revealed the true outcome of this shell game.
But this latest case, coupled with comments Trump made recently in an interview with Time magazine, highlight a disturbing and underappreciated aspect of the 2024 campaign. Mr. Trump's approach to the election results has become his (and his followers') approach to the broader law. Even as their policies and rhetoric become more extreme, Trump and his MAGA followers continue to leverage their extremism and authoritarianism in ways that were simply unthinkable during the first Trump administration. They are already laying out justifications, legal or otherwise, to enforce their policies.
Despite President Trump's consistently bigoted immigration policies, it's easy to forget how much has changed in eight years.
The deportation of millions of people, the deployment of the National Guard and even the military into the country, the firing of prosecutors, the authoritarian expansion of executive power, and the potential weaponization of the Comstock Act banning abortion, all of which include: There will be excuses like. There is a tendency toward “complete fiction.'' Or, as President Trump told Time magazine, “I'm going to do everything on a very legal basis.”
For example, consider immigration. It's easy to forget how President Trump's immigration policies have changed over the past eight years, even though they remain consistently bigoted. His 10-point plan on immigration in 2016 consisted of a border wall and a number of truisms. (“We will build a safe zone. I think that’s what we all want.”) The military was absent. The word “aggression” was nowhere to be found and was hardly worth mentioning in court.
Compare this with the Time interview. President Trump has defended deploying the military both at the border and inland to deport “15 million, maybe as many as 20 million” illegal immigrants, but this would mean deporting the entire state of Florida. It is equivalent to . With greater authoritarian movements come greater lies. Immigrants no longer just “bring crime.” Trump created an entirely separate (and obviously false) category of “immigration crimes.”
Deploying troops into the country would appear to violate an 1878 ban on the use of military against civilians. However, unlike the 2016 version, this time President Trump has prepared a legal front. Illegal immigrants are invaders, not civilians, and “I will obey the orders of the court.'' It may seem difficult for him to reconcile these two sentiments, given that the former classification is contrary to case law. But as recent oral arguments on presidential immunity demonstrate, precedent means little to this Supreme Court.
Immigration is just the tip of a very dangerous iceberg. With close advisors like Stephen Miller and coalition projects like Project 2025, we can see not only the policies, but also their underlying justifications and the legal powers they are poised to have. Part of this effort is practical. Many policy efforts during Trump's presidency either failed to get past the planning stage or wereted months (or even years) on false starts. The reality that Mexico would not pay for the border wall meant that less than 20% of it was built when he left office. The Trump administration spent much of the year scrapping various iterations of the president's self-proclaimed “Muslim ban” and seeking a version that could pass muster in the courts.
Phrases like “If only everything had been honest” and “What if things had gotten out of control” create horrifyingly large loopholes.
Trump's supporters are determined not to waste any time this round. There is no better example of this than the Comstock Act. Rather than wait for Congressional Republicans to pass a new national abortion ban, they can simply reinstate “zombie laws” that criminalize any material used in abortion and hope for more Trump-friendly courts. right. To back them up.
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But much of this effort is political. Author Brian Beutler says: He gave a series of humiliating assurances to those who did not make the commitment. ” Most of Mr. Trump's signature policy proposals, such as military deportation forces and significant tariff increases, and those of his most devoted advisers, are unpopular. So Trump, hoping to minimize how radical his own plans sound and avoid scaring off persuasive voters with authoritarian signals, has pushed back on the lawless extremes of his ambitions. It's balanced. “When we talk about the military, generally speaking, I talk about the National Guard,” he says, as if the two terms are interchangeable. “But if I thought things were getting out of control, I wouldn't have any problem using the military.” Just as he accepts the outcome “if everything is honest.”
President Trump said of his policy, “I don't think it's a bold move,'' but “I think it's a common sense move.'' But phrases like “If only everything had been honest” and “What if things had gotten out of control” create horrifyingly large loopholes. For example, it is easy to imagine deportation forces being sent to New York, then reinforced by local resistance, with dire consequences. But if platitudes can get him back in the White House, he and his supporters will move quickly to welcome the scare.