A little over three months into the second Trump presidency, I think we can safely identify patterns in the way the regime is seeking to construct a patchwork dictatorship by asserting unprecedented powers under the executive branch through a variety of means. Part of this is a truly unhinged reading of Article II of the US Constitution that requires you to assume the drafters just decided to quill out the rest of the document for shits and giggles after granting absolute authority to the President. Part of this strategy is exercising rarely-used powers under the authority of very old laws in ways that they were never intended to be used and based on pretending fascist conspiracy theories are real. And finally part of it is that Trump has declared an unprecedented number of (fake) national emergencies to grant himself extraordinary powers; which of course the Kelpto Kaiser is still using in ways they were never intended so he can straight up install a fascist dictatorship.

https://truthout.org/articles/trump-has-issued-8-national-emergencies-since-reentering-the-white-house/

Trump Has Issued 8 “National Emergencies” Since Reentering the White House

"According to reporting from Axios, which relied on data collected by the Brennan Center for Justice, Trump has declared eight national emergencies since assuming office in mid-January. For comparison, President Joe Biden issued two national emergency declarations during his first 100 days in office, and President Barack Obama issued none within that time frame in either of his terms in office.

Trump has declared 21 national emergencies across his two terms so far — more than any other president this century, as the eight he announced this year, combined with the 13 he declared during his first four-year term, amount to 35 percent of all national emergencies declared by the four presidents since 2001. The next highest number of emergencies declared came from former President George W. Bush, who issued 16 such orders over the course of eight full years in office.

National emergencies allow presidents to temporarily enhance their executive powers without congressional approval. While Trump is not the first president to declare national emergencies to expand his authority, legal scholars say that he is exploiting such declarations to enact his far right agenda."

One of the major ways I think mainstream political discourse in the second Trump era has failed Americans, is in mainstream thinkers' inability to separate whether or not Downmarket Mussolini "can" do something, from whether or not he "should" do something. This isn't a videogame; emergency presidential powers presupposes an actual emergency that justifies them or Trump is just stealing power for the executive branch. Yes, the President has the authority to declare a bunch of national emergencies, but that doesn't mean we have to believe him when he makes up a bunch of fake crises and then insists that those fake crises give him the power to literally do fascism. What do I mean by fake crises? Well let's take a look at some of the emergencies Trump has declared:

"Trump has issued national emergencies related to fossil fuel energy production, mineral drilling, additional militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border, and the country’s economy, using the latter of those declarations to justify imposing tariffs on nearly every country on the globe. Despite some abuses of the law by multiple presidents, Trump’s actions have been much more numerous and noticeable, according to Elizabeth Goitein, senior director of the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program."

Please keep in mind that this is in addition to the fake war he says we're fighting against narco-terrorist gangs only his administration believes are working for Venezuela; as I've discussed elsewhere, this fake "invasion" is more or less the basis for the Trumprenreich regime's entire plan to traffic migrants to a torture prison in El Salvador, just to name one example.

Finally of course, our American political tragedy wouldn't be complete if the reason Trump is getting away with all this wasn't a function of GOP complicity, short-sightedness, and a terrible SCOTUS ruling:

"The National Emergencies Act of 1976 established more than 120 powers that presidents can use when declaring emergencies. Meant to empower the executive branch to respond to events that required faster response times than allowed for by the ordinary legislative process, the law also originally included a “legislative veto” on emergency decrees, to ensure presidents couldn’t abuse the law.

That veto, which only required a simple majority vote under the law, was deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1983. To overturn a presidential national emergency order today would require the passage of a law, with a veto-proof two-thirds support in both houses of Congress."

Somehow I don't think the fascist GOP is gonna stop the fascist president; but maybe I'm just cynical.

Is #Trump planning to declare #MartialLaw on April 20? The frightening claim, explored

Story by Charlotte Simmons, March 14, 2025

"First, the essentials. Martial law is the term for when civilian government and legal processes (such as mayoral jurisdiction and police officers, respectively) are overtaken by state military, so as to make demands on behalf of the nation’s leader, and then enforce those demands with their wealth of resources. Typically, martial law is invoked in dangerous situations, such as natural disasters or major #CivilUnrest.

"This is different from the United States’ #InsurrectionAct, wherein those civilian enterprises are not replaced by military personnel and resources, but supplemented by them. More importantly, the official nature of the Insurrection Act allows the #POTUS to deploy the military domestically during emergencies, as the #PosseComitatus Act of 1878 prohibits the use of the military against American civilians. In short, the Insurrection Act can waive the rules of the Posse Comitatus Act to create a sort of #MiniMartialLaw. Remember this.

"Recently, fears have been rising over whether or not the United States could enter martial law on April 20 under Donald Trump. But why then? What is it about April 20 that holds significance? When Trump first took office back on January 20, he signed an executive order declaring a state of emergency at the United States’ southern border, requiring the secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security to submit a report about what the 'situation' is at said border, together with recommended actions for 'resolving' said 'situation.' This report needed to be submitted within 90 days.

"When this order was signed, Trump also declared that 'A #NationalEmergency exists at the southern border of the United States…I hereby declare that this national emergency requires use of the Armed Forces…' This, directly references the potential execution of the Insurrection Act.

"The Secretary of Defense? #PeteHegseth. The Secretary of #HomelandSecurity? #KristiNoem. Two of Donald Trump’s most prominent yes-men. And guess how many days January 20 and April 20 are apart? Ninety.

"So, essentially, on April 20, there’s a not-insignificant chance that those two aforementioned Trump yes-men are going to tell Trump whether or not he should deploy the military in the southern United States so as to crack down on immigration. Except, as we saw with the case of #MahmoudKhalil — a recent #ColumbiaUniversity graduate who played a major role in that student body’s recent #ProPalestinain campus occupations — it doesn’t matter if you have a green card or if you haven’t committed any crimes; under this presidency, #ICE will illegally detain you if they think you’re troublesome to the vision of #TrumpsAmerica. They’re trying to deport Khalil for speaking out against #genocide as we speak. This is a direct, wholly #unconstitutional attack on #FreeSpeech.

"And here’s why that distinction between the Insurrection Act and martial law was so important earlier. On April 20, Trump will constitutionally — through the Insurrection Act — be allowed to deploy the military against #AmericanCivilians, and his government has already demonstrated that legal American civilians who have not committed any crimes are at risk for detention and deportation. It’s not technically martial law, but this #Trumpian cocktail is just as bad, if not worse.

"#Khalil’s detention — again, occurring in response to his speaking out against the #genocide of #Palestinian people — was made on the grounds of Trump’s executive order prohibiting #AntiSemitism. How long before more executive orders (none of them made in good faith, let’s be clear on that) just so happen to limit more ways of speaking, acting, and thinking? A scary thought, and a horrifyingly pertinent one."

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/is-trump-planning-to-declare-martial-law-on-april-20-the-frightening-claim-explored/ar-AA1AUIqy
#USPol #Authoritarianism #Fascism #Crackdown #CriminalizingDissent #NDAA #ExpandedPowers
#USPresidency #NationalEmergency #Terrorists #Activists #USPol #BorderEmergency #Gitmo #IllegalDetention #IndefiniteDetentionClause #IndefiniteDetention