EDITORIAL
Trump Not Beating The “Kingly” Allegations
Contrary to what is repeated daily through right wing media and less-than-factually sound online news sites, it has always been illegal for non-citizens or anyone here illegally to vote in U.S. elections at any level. Which makes President Trump’s newest executive order another overreach that will likely be challenged in court soon.
It also directly contradicts the Constitution’s delegated power to the states to monitor and establish elections, setting up another states rights clash. Will critics who have shot down virtually every piece of progressive legislation for the last 40 years in the name of preserving states rights come to the defense of this basic constitutional separation of powers?
What does the order say?
Under the order, four agencies will combine their data bases to form a State Citizenship List. This list will take information from the Social Security Administration and the Department of Homeland Security through the Director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services.
The list will be compiled from “naturalization records, SSA records, SAVE data, and other relevant Federal databases.” The order does not specify what these “other relevant” federal databases were.
After which it will be transmitted to the election official of each state no later than 60 days before each federal election. As for what to do with the list, there is no specific language, but we would assume that these lists would have to be cross-referenced with State voter rolls for someone to qualify for voting.
“Other relevant databases”
After DOGE effectively took power-of-the-purse from Congress last year via another unconstitutional executive order, we learned a little bit about what kind of information the federal government has on Americans.
Financial information, health information, social services and benefit information, education and immigration data. These datasets were seized upon by the Department of Government Efficiency, and currently they’re being used in ways not disclosed to the American public.
Is it so much of a stretch of the imagination to see a world where these datasets will be playing a part in the “other relevant databases” section of this executive order?
At the risk of going too far into the realm of speculation, though at this point who’s stopping anyone from saying or doing anything, is it possible that a public/private partnership could be formed from these databases? Your papers might contain your social security number and immigration status, as well as, say, your statements on social media for the last two years?
As the big tech companies swore total allegiance last year, along with Big A.I., we saw that all of them took sweeping agreements to “assist” the federal intelligence system in anyway they could. This “other relevant databases” line is not only troubling, but looks to be a kind of coup de grace in the new theory of what allegiance and loyalty actually mean, and its implementation into American life.
Once again: executive orders are not laws
Despite Congress’ longtime lack of will to address any problems actually facing everyday Americans, the Constitution makes no qualifications for coming up with new laws. That power lies with Congress.
Of course, I understand why some people might be confused by this. After all, the President is sitting behind a very nice desk and signing a document with his very nice signature and very nice pen: this must be how laws are made!
Although, it seems, this is the new way of writing laws in this country. After all, we learned that even officials at the our state Texas Tech university system believe that if the president signs an executive order, this qualifies as not only law but fully enforceable by whatever means necessary.
After it became clear to President Trump that Congress was likely not going to approve the extraordinarily draconian SAVE Act, which would have made it virtually impossible for anyone who has ever had to change their last name (ladies) to vote, he decided that he wanted to do something about it anyway.
Historically, this has been the point where presidents give up on their electoral promises, if Congress rejects the ideas.
If you can’t change the world the legal way: try, try, try again.
The Problem with Changing Definitions
It’s no stretch of the imagination to worry that the Trump administration is planning on changing the very definition of what qualifies a U.S. citizen — both in interviews and on public platforms, immigration hardliners have already begun specifying that citizenship might be determined not just by place of birth, or even if your family has been here for generations, but instead based on ones “allegiances.”
This is a totally fuzzy term that the hardliners feel like they don’t have to qualify, but what does it mean? If one criticizes their governments military or diplomatic actions, does that make them disloyal? If one criticizes their president, does that make them disloyal?
If we follow President Trump’s definition of loyalty, we might say that having allegiance to America these days would be defined as:
‘Anyone who agrees totally and blindly with everything I do up until the point I throw them under the bus to avoid any problem that might arise for me or my administration.’
After you are thrown under the bus, you might be called a “loser,” or even worse: a hater.
Some might say that this is overly paranoid, but watching the long line of people who have pledged their loyalty to President Trump only to be inevitably screwed at the first opportunity Trump has to do so, I personally cannot be convinced otherwise.
For followers of President Trump, it seems totally open and shut that American Citizens should be loyal to their governments. For students of history, pledging total loyalty to a government is about as un-American as you can get.
Would you follow your country blindly as it enacted and perpetrated genocide? Or would you speak out?
Would you “just follow orders” to turn in your neighbors? Or would you keep quiet?
Without qualified allegiance, we might as well call this whole thing off. Because from what I learned from 8th grade-level American history, total blind loyalty was one of the things our Founding Fathers fought against.
This is why, despite the fact that we may disagree with people, revoking American citizenship is virtually impossible. We’ll see how long it stays that way.
Further reading – Know Your Rights: Voting and Protesting
