Brendan McDermid / Associated Press
Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump sits in Manhattan state court in New York, Monday, April 23, 2024.
Wednesday, May 8, 2024 | 2 a.m.
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Our republic has become so challenged that Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, openly expresses hatred for the American system of justice. He underscored that fact this week as he was found in contempt of court for a jaw-dropping 10th time. Bear in mind that this is only the first of four criminal trials covering 88 indictments that Trump will undergo in the coming months.
Trump’s contempt for the rule of law, and the people and institutions who seek to uphold it, knows no bounds. He demands absolute immunity from all consequences — legal and electoral — for his words, actions and choices, and anything less is unacceptable to him. That makes his recent statements to Time magazine so concerning.
In an article published last week, Trump described an imperial presidency that would disregard the rule of law and give him unilateral authority to run the country as he sees fit.
Among the litany of promises made during his two interviews with Time’s Eric Cortellessa, Trump said he would “have no problem using the military” both on the border and in cities across the country to round up and deport as many as 11 million undocumented immigrants and make the country “safe.”
When Cortellessa challenged the legality of Trump’s announced plans to deploy the military against civilians — a clear violation of U.S. law — Trump responded casually, saying, “Well, these aren’t civilians, these are people that aren’t legally in our country.” He either doesn’t know the difference between a “civilian” and a “citizen” or he doesn’t care because the law is irrelevant to him.
While one should never underestimate Trump’s ignorance, his malice is just as powerful a character trait, so we assume he simply doesn’t care about the law. After all, this is the same man who refers to undocumented immigrants as “animals,” “vermin” and “not human.”
Continuing his long history of violating women’s bodies and shattering their privacy and autonomy, Trump told Cortellessa that he would not commit to vetoing a national abortion ban or other federal abortion restrictions, including restrictions on the mailing of abortion pills. He also said he would do nothing to prevent states from monitoring women’s pregnancies and prosecuting women suspected of having or performing abortions.
And, when asked if he was worried about political violence in connection with the upcoming November election, he said that “if we don’t win, you know, it depends. It always depends on the fairness of an election.”
“It depends” is a deeply troubling statement, especially coming from a man who just last week told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that, “If everything’s honest, I’ll gladly accept the results. … If it’s not, you have to fight for the right of the country.”
He echoed those sentiments at a rally in Wisconsin in which he told supporters that President Joe Biden is “more dangerous than China and Russia” and that “2024 is our final battle.”
Unfortunately, like his friends — Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese president Xi Jinping and North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un — Trump’s ego and grandiose vision of himself make it impossible for him to believe any election is fair unless he overwhelmingly wins.
Trump lost the popular vote in 2016, but still won the Electoral College and the presidency. However, winning wasn’t enough. He wanted a landslide victory among the people in order to silence his critics and give credence to his authoritarian tendencies. So, he lied and spread conspiracy theories about “rigged” elections.
By the time Trump lost to Biden by 7 million votes in 2020, he had spent years undermining the system of checks and balances that were designed by the Founders to prevent the rise of a dictator or monarch. He had also stoked the flames of rhetoric regarding stolen elections into a firestorm, even though the election took place under his watch.
Trump then rallied his supporters and encouraged them to “fight like hell” to overturn the results of the 2020 election and prevent Biden from taking office. The violence, vandalism and threats that followed are well known, as the Jan. 6 insurrection led to the deaths of multiple police officers.
Yet, in the interviews with Time, Trump said he was considering pardons for the more than 800 people who participated in the violence and have been sentenced for their role in the insurrection — most of whom pleaded guilty. He refers to them as “hostages” of the woke left rather than the violent criminals they are.
Trump’s statements offer a disturbing glimpse into what life in the United States will look like if he’s reelected.
In short, Trump is saying that not only should he be immunized from prosecution, but he will use his powers as president to immunize his followers. He already granted clemency to close advisers such as Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, Michael Flynn, Steve Bannon and George Papadopoulos. By pardoning the Jan. 6 thugs, he’s promising his followers that they can do anything — including killing police — on his behalf and he will let them get away with it.
Trump’s vision of the future is one in which the rule of law, the rights of the American people and the power of democracy will all be replaced with the rule of a single man and his army of extremists who are accountable to no one.
Trump is telling us that he intends to throw our country into chaos by eliminating democracy and the rule of law. We would be wise to listen, and keep him and his supporters out of the White House and away from the levers of power in our government.
