Source: The Washington Post / Getty
In today’s episode of Donald Trump Keeps Saying The Fascist Part Out Loud, the president who pardoned or commuted the sentences of more than 1500 Jan. 6 Capitol rioters is now threatening college students who engage in “illegal protests” with arrest and/or expulsion, which only proves (not that we needed more proof) that Trump doesn’t care about the U.S. Constitution and he believes the POTUS is all-powerful (at least when he’s in the Oval Office).
“All Federal Funding will STOP for any College, School, or University that allows illegal protests,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Agitators will be imprisoned/or permanently sent back to the country from which they came. American students will be permanently expelled or, depending on the crime, arrested. NO MASKS!”
Now, Trump didn’t specifically mention pro-Palestinian protests, but, as Axios noted, he “has previously said his administration will deport student “aliens” who joined ‘pro-jihadist’ demonstrations and revoke visas for ‘Hamas sympathizers.’”
Anyway, there are a few things going on in Trump’s latest unhinged post. First, what is an “illegal protest?” The right to free speech and peaceful assembly is granted to us by the First Amendment, which conservatives pretend to swear by — almost as much as they do the Second Amendment — until the protected speech involves the “woke” stuff they just don’t want to hear.
Now, if by “illegal protests” Trump is referring to rioters, well, a riot and a protest are not the same thing. It’s the rioting that would be illegal, not the protesting. And, again, this is rich coming from someone who gave get-out-of-jail-free cards to the better part of 2,000 convicts who engaged in what, by Trump’s definition, would be the “illegal protest” that he inspired and instigated.
Trump dismissing pro-Palestine protesters as “Hamas sympathizers” is also rich coming from the president who just got through staging a shouting match with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy while clearly serving as a PR rep for the Russian warlord who is still ravaging Zelenskyy’s country.
Either way, if Trump can designate a pro-Palestine demonstration as an “illegal protest,” he can make any protest he doesn’t like “illegal.” As much as I normally despise the “slippery slope” logical fallacy, there are already anti-Trump protests springing up across the nation, and Trump has already proven his willingness to outlaw anything that bruises his fragile, rust-orangey-white ego, so, in this case, the “slippery slope” is applicable.
Secondly, why is Trump out here acting like the president has any power to expel a student from a privately-owned university? How is that even the federal government’s role? Apparently, much like their love for free speech, all of that “small government” talk goes out the MAGA window once Trump and his party find a way to start throwing their federal weight around just to get a leg up on their culture war.
Of course, Trump is threatening to enforce authority he doesn’t actually have by threatening to withhold funding from any school (or entity in general) that doesn’t bend to his will. Tariffs and the withholding of federal funds — that’s always been his whole playbook, and it’s not a playbook that projects strength, just pettiness and childishness in an “I’m going to take my ball and go home” kind of way.
Lastly, Trump is, as usual, just slinging around allegations without presenting a shred of evidence. If a riot is what he (hypocritically) considers an “illegal protest,” he’s claiming, without evidence, that college administrators are just allowing violence to happen on their campuses without involving law enforcement and having violent people arrested. He’s also claiming, without evidence, that undocumented migrants who he can legally have “imprisoned/or permanently sent back to the country from which they came” are present at these “illegal protests.” Either that, or he’s threatening to have migrants deported without due process whether they’re in the country legally or not just because they engaged in activism he doesn’t like.
Trump is doing more than just flirting with fascism at this point, y’all; he’s taken it out on several dates and now he’s proposing to marry it and make it America’s new stepdad.
And to think — we’re still not two months into his second term. It’s going to be a long four years.
SEE ALSO:
Trump’s Weird Gait Causes Wild Speculation About His Health
Gold Cards: Trump Is Out Here Selling Citizenship Like He’s In ‘The Wire’
Trump Claims Students Engaging In ‘Illegal Protests’ Will Be Arrested, Expelled Or Deported
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