An admission of which I'm not proud....

[osodecanela]

I've been railing about the dauphin president-elect for months. Recently he's begun tweeting about revoking the citizenship of people who're espousing ideas he deems un-American. Opposition to the Donald publicly looks as though it may qualify, at least to this observer. As I was thinking about this and posting my concern, discomfort, anger, fear and disgust, it dawned on me, this is a public forum. Should I think twice about doing this?

My right to post this should be guaranteed by the first amendment in the Bill of Rights. If I, a liberal, civics semi-geek has a moment of pause, how do you think the person who never took civics will respond? Trump wants a chilling effect on his opposition. That first middle-of-the-night tweet may have come from a man who hadn't bothered to read the Bill of Rights before tweeting his opinion, and while I suspect he has since been told about the first amendment, I fully expect him to continue to repeat this threat in the coming weeks and months. As gold star father Khizr Khan asked Trump from the podium of Democratic Nat'l Convention, "Sir, have you even read the Constitution?"

Why should something as inconvenient as the federal Constitution stop the Donald from doing as he sees fit?

Comments

[tilia-tomentosa.livejournal.com]

How on earth do you "revoke" the citizenship of people who are American citizens by birth? *puzzled foreigner is puzzled*

[kita0610.livejournal.com]

You cannot. Most of the things he claims he intends to do cannot be done legally- as long as our country doesn't you know, plunge into chaos, cannablism, and no constitution to uphold. Right now a lot of Americans feel like the latter is plausible.

[tilia-tomentosa.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[osodecanela.livejournal.com]

As Kita said, he can't, at least not legally. But my point is there seems to be nothing Trump isn't willing to threaten, whether its legal or not.

When he called for a ban on Muslims entering the country or for a registry of all Muslims already here, he got public support. This is in direct conflict with our constitutional right to freedom of religion, but that didn't stop him from demanding it.

Registration of a non-Christian religious minority strikes fear in my heart, but unlike the majority of Caucasians in this country I lost the bulk of my mother's family in the holocaust. People on the right in this country bristle at the comparison, but fear of the other historically allows stuff to happen that never should, such as the internment of Americans of Japanese descent during WWII.

[tilia-tomentosa.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, so it seems easier for us Europeans to make the association with what happened to the Jews in WW2.

*hugs*

[osodecanela.livejournal.com]

Thanks sweetie.

[danthered.livejournal.com]

Please stop saying "the Donald".

[furr-a-bruin.livejournal.com]

Indeed. I suggest such terms as:

Mango Mussolini
President(-Elect) Pussy Grabber
Kim Jong Don

[quietpathos]

The Constitution has a system of checks and balances that, although it won't limit some of his foreign policy disasters, will limit a lot of his other shit.

I really dislike comparisons to fascism to any American politician, just because having formally studied political theory, fascism entails a kind of state violence not of the same degree that Trump has ever advocated for. Maybe I'm willfully optimistic.

By the way, you should see that you have a nifty Paid account now! I've been so busy with work that I've not had time to read, but I will catch up. You are a fantastic writer and I hope with your impending retirement that you will consider writing professionally. I enjoy good writing of all kinds. Speaking of writing, I've reflected a lot on disability stuff since you reached out, and I've posted about them here for you (but you'll have to be logged in to read it).

Hope this comment finds you in good spirits!