Trump Seeks to Manufacturer a "Burning of the Reichstag" Crisis

Hitler used the Reichstag fire in 1933 to seize almost unlimited power.

On the night of February 27, 1933, flames erupted from the Reichstag building in Berlin. It took fire engines hours to quell the fire, which destroyed the debating chamber and the Reichstag’s gilded cupola.  An unemployed Dutch construction worker named Marinus van der Lubbe was arrested and accused of arson. More recent research indicates it was actually multiple Nazis who started the fire.  Nonetheless, on February 28, President Hindenburg, incited by Hitler, invoked Article 48 and the cabinet drew up the “Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of the People and State.” The act abolished freedom of speech, assembly, privacy and the press; legalized phone tapping and interception of correspondence; and suspended the autonomy of federated states, like Bavaria. This opened the door for Hitler and his party to establish their dictatorship.  

Fast forward 86 years and we see Donald Trump, a/k/a Der Trumpenführer on this blog, threatening to declare a "national emergency" and claiming to hold the power to build his southern border wall to thrill his racist, knuckle dragging base and seize the private lands where the wall would be constructed.  Never mind that the alleged border crisis has been manufactured by Trump's own policies, including separating children from the parents and disregarding international law requirements for asylum seekers. In my opinion, the man is pure evil and amoral and every patriotic American should be demanding his removal from office (ditto for his foul acolyte, Mike Pence who feigns piety while trashing Christian principles).  A piece in the Washington Post looks at the growing danger Trump poses to the nation and the need for members of Congress to put the nation and rule of law ahead of party and say "no" to his attempted power grab.  Here are excerpts: 

President Trump on Friday offered his most robust public case for the border wall since the partial government shutdown began two weeks ago, expounding for an hour at the White House about the need for a barrier to keep out terrorists and dissuade migrants while asserting he has the legal authority to build it without congressional consent.

In a forceful but meandering performance that included numerous false or questionable assertions, Trump announced he was considering declaring a “national emergency” to move forward on construction through executive power; argued his administration would use eminent domain to obtain private land along the U.S.-Mexico border; and suggested a steel wall could provide manufacturing jobs to U.S. companies.

Yet legal experts said Trump’s emergency powers under federal law are limited and expressed doubt that such an avenue would solve a mounting political dilemma for a president who, two years into his term, has elevated the fight over the wall into a defining moment for his presidency.

“I can do it if I want — absolutely,” Trump said of his ability to invoke emergency powers to build the wall. “We can call a national emergency because of the security of our country. We can call a national emergency and build it very quickly. But if we can do it through a negotiated process, we’re giving it a shot.”

With Democrats beginning to declare their candidacies for the White House in 2020 and some prominent Republicans ramping up criticism of him, Trump is determined to hold out in the shutdown fight, aides said.

“It’s resonating with our base for sure,” said Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), a Trump ally. “This is not really about immigration now. The people who elected Trump believe the wall is a foundation of border security. It’s a statement about sovereignty. When they’re told by the people they hate that this makes no sense, it makes them more determined to get the wall.”

But Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, accused Trump of considering an “unwise, weak and irresponsible legal gimmick” that would divert “substantial resources” from the military to build a wall.

“By abusing this authority, President Trump would be saying that he does not actually believe all money he requests for our country’s defense is needed for legitimate national security purposes,” Smith said. “That would raise major questions about his credibility when he requests his next defense budget from Congress.”

He [Trump] repeated false claims that a renegotiated U.S. trade deal with Mexico and Canada would provide new revenue to reimburse taxpayers — even though that deal still requires congressional approval to go into effect and any new revenue would benefit private companies.

[Trump] The president told aides he was winning the shutdown politics. But one aide described him as “incredibly sensitive to negative press . . . He’ll be willing to hold out as long as he’s not getting crushed.”

Trump employed foreboding language to warn of terrorists and immigrants intent on exploiting the U.S. immigration system — even though the Department of Homeland Security has not disclosed any evidence that terrorists have been apprehended at the southern border.

Trump aimed to create a sense that his administration was moving forward, declaring that it has built “a lot of miles of wall already” — even though DHS officials said recently they have replaced dozens of miles of aging structures but have not built any new barriers since Trump took office.

Lie after lie after lie by Trump with Lindsey Graham, the Palmetto Queen, seemingly positioning himself to be the Hermann Goering of the Trump/Pence regime.  The only honest statement was Graham admitting that hatred motivates Trump's base.  

Chief Justice Roberts Rebukes Trump

Chief Justice John Roberts.

Since entering the White House - thanks to Electoral College electors failing to protect the nation as envisioned by the Founders - Donald Trump has proceeded to undermine and destroy public confidence in America's core institutions, including but not limited to the federal court system.  No doubt Vladimir Putin is smiling broadly as he watches from afar and sees Trump trying to replicate Putin's dictatorial rule in Russia.  Typically, the Supreme Court remains aloof from political disputes - although this may change given Trump's placement of rank partisans Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh on the Court - but this week Chief Justice John Roberts found he could no longer bite his tongue and issued a rebuke to Der Trumpenführer's attacks on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that sounded like it came from Hitler or Putin's playbook of how to emasculate the judiciary and turn it into a tool of autocracy.  A piece in NPR looks st this rare but much needed rebuke of the foul individual at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.  Here are highlights:

In a rare moment of direct criticism, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts rebuked President Trump on Wednesday for [Trump's] the president's description of a federal judge who ruled against his asylum policy as "an Obama judge." Within hours, the president fired back on Twitter, launching an unusual conflict between the executive and judicial branches.

"We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges," Roberts said in a statement. "What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them."

"That independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for," Roberts said. Roberts has never responded to any president so directly and publicly before.

Trump's initial response was to a ruling by U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar, who issued a temporary restraining order against Trump's asylum policy Monday, saying it violated a provision of the asylum law. Trump called the decision a "disgrace," adding, "this was an Obama judge and I'll tell you what, it's not going to happen like this anymore."

Trump went on to excoriate the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals which he wrongly blamed for the ruling, saying, "Every case that gets filed in the Ninth Circuit, we get beaten. And then we end up having to go to the Supreme Court, like the travel ban, and we won," Trump said.

However, Tigar is a district court judge who sits in San Francisco, and the Ninth Circuit, which encompasses much of the western United States, has not yet been asked to rule on his decision. Tigar's decision is also temporary, lasting only until Dec. 19 when the judge is scheduled to hear arguments about whether the order should remain permanent.

This is not the first time Trump has criticized a judge. During the presidential campaign, he called one judge with a Spanish surname who ruled against him a Mexican, alleging he couldn't rule fairly because of Trump's proposal to build a wall along with border with Mexico and called another who ruled against his travel ban "a so-called judge."

The American Bar Association joined in the criticism of Trump's comments.

"Disagreeing with a court's decision is everyone's right, but when government officials question a court's motives, mock its legitimacy or threaten retaliation due to an unfavorable ruling, they intend to erode the court's standing and hinder the courts from performing their constitutional duties," said ABA president Bob Carlson.  

The Post also noted the rare rebuke to the man seeking to destroy the independent judiciary: 

[I]t appeared Roberts, when asked to comment by the Associated Press, was eager to counter Trump’s criticism Tuesday of District Judge Jon S. Tigar. The Roberts statement did not mention the president by name.

The chief justice is an aggressive defender of the judiciary and has frequently expressed concern about attacks on its impartiality, whether they come from the left or the right. In 2010, he called the timing of President Barack Obama’s criticism of the court’s decision in Citizens United v. FEC during the president’s State of the Union speech “very troubling.”

Roberts made it clear last month that he is particularly sensitive about the image of the courts because of the recent partisan battle over the confirmation of Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh.

At an event at the University of Minnesota just after Kavanaugh’s confirmation, Roberts said the court served “one nation” and not “one party or one interest.”

“Our role is very clear: We are to interpret the Constitution and laws of the United States, and to ensure that the political branches act within them,” he said. “That job obviously requires independence from the political branches. The story of the Supreme Court would be very different without that sort of independence.”

The Parallels With the Nazi Regime Continue

One of the things that students of the Nazi regime in Hitler's Germany often find it difficult to comprehend how ordinary Germans allowed the Holocaust and mass murder of millions to occur.  Three factors were key.  The first, a deranged and hate-filled leader who viewed others as less than human.  Hitler clearly viewed Jews, gypsies and gays as less than human and, therefore, they could be exterminated. Hitler's anti-Semiticism knew no limits.  Fast forward to today, and Donald Trump's racism knows no limits.  A piece in Talking Points Memo looks at the level of Trump's contempt for non-white immigrants:

[Trump's] use of the word “infest” to talk about people is literally out of the Nazi/anti-Semites’ playbook for talking about the Jewish threat. It was also a standard for talking about Chinese in the western United States and it remains part of the vocabulary for talking about Romani (Gypsies) in parts of Europe. This is the most hard-boiled kind of racist demagogic language, the kind that in other parts of the world has often preceded and signaled the onset of exterminationist violence. The verb “to infest” is one generally used to describe insects or vermin (rats), creatures which are literally exterminated when they become present in a house or building or neighborhood.

The second was the so-called “Nuremberg defense” popular with Nazis on trial for crimes against humanity after Germany's defeat in WWII.  As the Intellectualist notes, the acting head of ICE is already invoking this defense, underscoring his own personal moral bankruptcy:

Thomas Homan, the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Monday that comparing ICE agents to Nazis is unfair, because “they’re simply enforcing laws enacted by Congress”.  Thomas Homan employed the “Nuremberg defense” – used by German Nazi officials in an attempt to escape accountability with the claim they were merely following orders.

Of course, every ICE employee participating in the family separation policy is just as morally lacking as Hohman.  There comes a time when each of us must say "no" to participating in such moral criminality.  If every ICE employee said no and threatened to resign, the policy could not be implemented. 

The third component is the portion of the population that is either equally racist and morally deficient as their "führer" or to lazy and indifferent to take a stand in opposition to evil.  The "it doesn't involve me" excuse is little better than the Nuremberg defense. It too is an excuse for moral bankruptcy and complicity in evil.  

For those who say the evils of Nazi Germany could never happen in America, they need to open their eyes.  We have begun traveling down a similar path.  Will everyday Americans prove they are no better than 1930's Germans?