Brookings pastor Kline: President and self-avowed dictator for a day is causing disorder with his many executive orders
During Donald Trump’s first term in office, the Washington Post claimed that our president made 30,573 false or misleading claims over those four years. Most media outlets found, and find now, their fact-checkers are kept busy whenever he makes a speech.
In October 2024, while he was on the campaign trail making speeches at two sites in Pennsylvania, CNN reported he made at least 40 false claims. NPR identified 162 lies and distortions at a news conference in August of that year.
But there is one statement he has made that is clearly the truth. “On day one,” he said, he would “become dictator!”
Well, all of those executive orders didn’t happen on day one, but they did occur since his inauguration last month. There have been 65 in all. He was also able to revoke more than 78 executive actions of the Biden administration within hours of his inauguration.
He made it eminently clear who was in charge and what it meant for the direction of the country. And as he makes questionable administrative appointments on the basis of loyalty, rather than experience and other qualifications, we will see his one-man-rule more clearly.
It’s incumbent on all who value our democracy to read his executive orders. They are comprehensive enough that they will impact all of our lives in some way. Let me mention just a few of the most egregious.
Probably the most prominent issue of the campaign was the border, with all of the racial overtones. One of the executive orders challenges citizenship by birth. Although citizenship by birth is part of the Constitution, the president and Republican Party are challenging it, with congressional activity set to support the president’s order. People in this country illegally will no longer sire U.S. citizens. Another executive order allows using the U.S. military to secure the border from the “invasion” of immigrants. Other refugees seeking American soil by water might soon find themselves captured in the “Gulf of America,” as another order goes into effect.
And since our new secretary of state has already been in Panama, maybe we will eventually see the birth of the “American Canal.”
The other executive order with clear racial implications has to do with the DEI; diversity, equity and inclusion policies of past administrations. Those will no longer be characteristics considered in hiring.
Part of the text reads: “Illegal DEI and DEIA policies not only violate the text and spirit of our longstanding Federal civil-rights laws, they also undermine our national unity, as they deny, discredit, and undermine the traditional American values of hard work, excellence, and individual achievement in favor of an unlawful, corrosive, and pernicious identity-based spoils system. Hardworking Americans who deserve a shot at the American Dream should not be stigmatized, demeaned, or shut out of opportunities because of their race or sex.”
So, longstanding efforts to make sure persons are not discriminated against because of their race, gender, sexual orientation or accessibility, are now found to be discriminatory. The importance of this executive order was highlighted when the president spoke at length about it during the news conference addressing the recent plane crash killing 67.
He implied the crash likely happened because the people responsible (whoever that might be) were probably hired based on race or some other DEI reason rather than merit. The worst airline disaster in years was used as his opportunity to promote his anti-DEIA policies. (Of course, he did begin with a moment of silence; although he was unable to keep his hands from twitching and slapping his thighs.)
As Trump throws aside all the evidence of climate change (here’s NASA’s take), we have withdrawn (once again) from the Paris Agreement on climate change. According to another executive order we have an energy emergency which requires that we “drill, drill, drill” for energy independence.
And as the climate worsens with additional carbon in the atmosphere, another order begins defunding FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency. According to the president, let the states and localities take care of their fires and floods.
Like former Gov. Kristi Noem, the president would like to make funds available to private and religious schools; and would like to shape school curriculums with patriotic themes, trashing more liberal ideological teachings like our history of racism. It’s in an executive order!
Perhaps the most ironic of the executive orders is on “Ending the Weaponization of the Federal Government.” This order allows him to remove all those who helped indict him of crimes around the Jan. 6, 2021, attempted insurrection.
He has already removed security clearances of many, including former President Joe Biden, and we can expect hundreds if not thousands of government employees resigning or being forced out in the near future. He is “weaponizing the government” for his own purposes.
So here we are, with a dictator; a compliant administration; a frightened if not approving Republican Congress; and a Supreme Court shaped by Trump appointees.
All we have besides is, “the people.” We shall see!
Carl Kline of Brookings is a United Church of Christ clergyman and adjunct faculty member at the Mt. Marty College campus in Watertown. He is a founder and on the planning committee of the Brookings Interfaith Council, co-founder of Nonviolent Alternatives, a small not-for-profit that, for 15 years, provided intercultural experiences with Lakota/Dakota people in the Northern Plains and brought conflict resolution and peer mediation programs to schools around the region. He was one of the early participants in the development of Peace Brigades International. Kline can be reached at carl@satyagrahainstitute.org. This column originally appeared in the Brookings Register.
Photo: public domain, wikimedia commons
