As Donald Trump completed his first 100 days in his second presidential term, there’s rising opposition to his authoritarian agenda as evidenced by almost daily protests across the country. According to a number of recent public opinion polls, Trump had the lowest 100-day job approval rating of any president over the past 80 years.
Through more than 140 executive orders, Trump has defied the separation of powers mandated in the U.S. Constitution by dismantling federal agencies, firing tens of thousands of government workers, slashing congressionally-approved budgets for health care research, education, foreign aid and sabotaging the Social Security system. At the same time, Trump has aggressively attacked his perceived political enemies with extortion schemes targeting law firms, universities, media outlets and former staff members. In defiance of court orders, the Trump regime has deported legal U.S. residents and citizens, international students and people accused of being gang members based solely on their tattoos, all without due process. All this while Trump and his family are engaged in blatant acts of corruption and ethics violations to enrich themselves.
Trump’s imposition of unprecedented tariffs on nations around the world has wreaked havoc on the stock and bond markets, severely weakened the U.S. dollar, ramped up inflation and set the stage for a damaging recession. Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Ralph Nader, America’s best known and most effective public interest lawyer and four-time presidential candidate. Here he assesses the current constitutional crisis under Trump, and talks about his timely new book, “Civic Self-Respect,” a handbook on democracy with immediate applications on how citizens can empower themselves to effectively resist tyranny.
RALPH NADER: It’s basically a fascist dictatorship. By a small margin of voters, in November, they elected a dictator. He was not secretive about it. He told everybody what he was going to do. He even used the word “dictator.” He said, “I also would like to be known as a king. King Donald, the First.”
People in sufficient numbers due to the default of the Democratic party in their pathetic campaigns every four years — he got enough people believing his lies and swooning over his promises of economic paradise, unrebutted by the Democrats, largely.
You know, the Big Lie repeated again and again, as he would do dozens of times every day. And the Democrats would say, “Well, nobody can believe this. This is crazy.”
Well, you don’t rebut these lies, you get more and more people believing them or hoping that they’re true. And so we have a fascist dictatorship that violates any law it wants.
Trump has said on numerous occasions he can do whatever he wants as president. He cites the Supreme Court decision last June that said no criminal prosecution is possible against a sitting president engaged in official duties — without defining official duties.
Well, is extortion of universities and law firms? That’s not official duty. So let’s stop using words like “distressing,worrisome, authoritarianism.” It’s straight out dictatorship and you can see it moving into a police state, kidnapping people on the streets, sending them to El Salvador prisons or Louisiana, no charges. People who are innocent, trying to fight the courts, who are trying to impose the rule of law and habeas corpus.
So you have a no longer an autocracy — it’s a dictatorship. I mean, name one law that Trump respects, other than himself.
SCOTT HARRIS: The law of the jungle, Ralph. That’s what I think he believes in.
Ralph, just a word on Watergate reforms after Watergate and Nixon resigned, there was the implementation of a lot of new rules to prevent abuse of power and ethics violations. They seem to be shattered now. What does our nation need to do to prevent future presidents from executing an administrative, authoritarian or fascist coup as we’ve been talking about, such as Trump has launched since January 20th.
If we survive this and there are future elections and Trump is out of office, what do we need to do to prevent this from happening again?
RALPH NADER: A strong Congress rooted in the citizenry that’s the most powerful branch of government. The smallest branch that has the most power under the Constitution if it chooses to exercise it. It has the taxing power, the spending power, the investigative power, the confirmation of executive and judicial officials’ power, the war power. I mean, you name it, the contempt power.
It all starts with a small number of people around the country organizing Congress watchdog groups. People ought to realize that most of the great things we like about our country and what we’re handed down by our predecessors and forebears never involved more than 1 percent active citizens reflecting public opinion, the sense of justice of the people and zeroing in on the decisionmakers, in this case, 535 members of Congress.
That’s why this book I just came out with was a small book. It’s the most fundamental book I have written, it’s called Civic Self-Respect. And it starts with ordinary people. By that I mean that if ordinary people broaden their sense of awareness, they will never say to a candidate campaigning in front of them, “Well, you know, senator, I’m a nobody, but …” How many times have you heard that? People say, “I’m a nobody?”
That’s why this book is so personal. And it’s broken down into the roles that people play. It’s broken down into chapters. I, the citizen. I, the worker. I the consumer/shopper, I the taxpayer, I the voter, I the parent, I the veteran. Why is it broken down that way? Because once you recognize you are playing those roles, you’re no longer a nobody.
You immediately realize well, you know, I’m a worker, I’m a plumber. I’m a carpenter. I’m a teacher. You become somebody immediately. One of the principles of this book is whatever role you play, you raise your expectation level. If you raise your expectation level of what you think politicians should do — senator, representative, city council president, you immediately have more power over them.
If you have a low expectation level in our politics: “I’m not into politics. They’re all crooks.” Well guess what?
Number one, politics are into you. You think they’re going to let you alone every day?
Number two, how come corporations never say that? You ever hear a corporation say, “I’m not into politics?” They’re swarming over the corridors in Capitol Hill in Congress because they know that is where the reservoir of civic power has been delegated under the Constitution We the people. We delegate our authority to senators and representatives and other elected officials.
For more information, visit Ralph Nader’s website at nader.org.
Listen to Scott Harris’ in-depth interview with Ralph Nader (26:09) and see more articles and opinion pieces in the related links section of this page. For weekly updates on the Trump authoritarian playbook now underway, subscribe here to our Between The Lines Radio Newsmagazine Substack newsletter to get updates to our “Hey AmeriKKKa, It’s Not Normal” compilation.
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