[Whether we like
it or not—and it likely goes without saying that I don’t—2017 has been defined
by Donald Trump. So for this year in review series, I wanted to AmericanStudy
five forms of resistance to all things Trump. I’d love to hear your thoughts on
the year, Trumptastic or otherwise, in comments!]
On one of the
worst parts of Trump’s first year, and an ironic but crucial counterpoint.
Although there
are so many awful stories every day at the moment that it’s nearly impossible
to decide which ones deserve particular attention and outrage, some of the most
horrendous headlines in recent weeks have featured strikingly
unqualified and/or stunningly
inappropriate Trump nominees
to judicial positions. Moreover, one of Trump’s few definite
accomplishments in this first year has been the successful nomination of a new,
already highly controversial
Supreme Court Justice, Neil Gorsuch; and that appointment was made possible
by an even more horrendous and unprecedented political action, the year-long
stonewalling of Obama’s nominee Merrick Garland by the entire Congressional
GOP. Gorsuch’s life tenure on the Supreme Court reflects just how much such
federal justices can and likely will be Trump’s most enduring legacy (at least
on the American political and legal landscape), and so to see such consistently
unqualified and extreme figures nominated in such unprecedented and
inappropriate ways to these vital positions has been one of this year’s most
frustrating trends for all concerned AmericanStudiers.
Yet at the same
time, one of the most consistently inspiring forms of resistance to Trump’s
policies and agenda has likewise involved federal judges. Time and again, such
judges have ruled to stop and/or overturn Trump’s most extreme and
controversial proposals; this has happened
most consistently with the many
different iterations of the Muslim
immigration/travel ban, but has also been the case with Trump’s attempts
to deny federal funding to so-called sanctuary cities and his proposal
to allow corporations to exclude contraception coverage from their health
insurance plans, among other instances. While of course Trump has frequently attempted
to blame these judicial decisions on similar kinds of political and/or personal
perspectives to those he attributed (with extreme racism) during
his presidential campaign to a judge of Mexican ancestry, the truth is
quite the opposite: these judges are working to uphold America’s Constitution
and its status (sometimes idealized, to be sure, but nonetheless always present
from the founding on) as a nation of laws, in the face of an administration
that seems determined to ignore or even actively counter such legal and
political histories.
As I highlighted
in this
March post, however, some of the parallels between Trump and his favorite
historical president, Andrew Jackson, remind us of how fragile such
judicial decisions have at times been in our histories. Granted, there were far
fewer means of raising awareness and protest when Jackson blatantly ignored the
Marshall Court’s ruling on Indian Removal than there are today (when Trump bizarrely
Tweeted “See you in court!” after a similarly challenging such ruling), and
so the hope would be that any parallel presidential overstepping of the law
today would be met with far more of a serious challenge than was Jackson’s
refusal to abide by the court’s verdict. Yet the simple truth is that our political
system is not necessarily built to withstand the machinations of a wannabe
dictator hell-bent on circumventing the legal and political norms and
precedents, and I would argue that Jackson and Trump have been two of the most
(if not indeed the two most) dictatorial of our forty-five presidents to date. Hopefully
the courts will continue to offer resistance to Trump in 2018—but I believe it’ll
be equally important for us to support their efforts to do so.
Next review
tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Other 2017 stories you’d highlight?
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