Donald Trump’s first day back in office culminated in a sea of executive orders—a zone once again flooded with shit. Some of those orders were ceremonial (“promoting beautiful federal civic architecture”); others were PR stunts more fitting for his reality show The Apprentice than for American politics (renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America); and some seemed, quite literally, to take a Sharpie to the Constitution (ending birthright citizenship).
In a normal world, ending birthright citizenship—a right guaranteed by the 14th Amendment since 1868—would be something a president just couldn’t get away with. But Trump, who appointed three justices to the Supreme Court, very much owns the high court, and many of its conservative members only pretend to be textualists (see: their decision, in July of last year, to grant him king-like legal immunity from prosecution for official actions taken while in office). What all of this means is that even Trump’s most preposterous executive orders could very well be found “legal” under the eyes of the law.
Then there was Trump’s pardon-palooza of the January 6 rioters, which Republicans suggested be carried out on a “case by case” basis. Not so: Trump granted a “full, complete and unconditional pardon” to more than 1,000 people charged over participation in the violent insurrection, and commuted the sentences of 14 supporters convicted in relation to the event. Beneficiaries of Trump’s order included former Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio, who had been sentenced to 22 years in jail for seditious conspiracy; Robert Keith Packer, the guy who wore a “Camp Auschwitz” sweatshirt on the day of the ordeal; and “QAnon Shaman” Jacob Chansley, who celebratorily tweeted that he was now “GONNA BUY SOME MOTHA FU*KIN GUNS!!! I LOVE THIS COUNTRY!!! GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!!” It’s hard to square the GOP’s love of “law and order” with a sweeping pardon for the guys who stormed the Capitol, attacked police, smeared feces through the hallways, and expressed support for hanging the then vice president.
The cruelty, as Adam Serwer famously put it, is the point. And the cruelty we should continue to expect from Trump 2.0 was on full display Monday, as evidenced by a sweeping anti-trans executive order as well as directives to suspend refugee admission, bar asylum, and end diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs in the federal government. All of these memos are part of what Steve Bannon recently described as the second Trump administration’s “days of thunder,” and the coming week, he told Politico, is “going to be incredibly, incredibly intense.”
Monday marked a return to the move-fast-and-break-things “governing” style we saw from Trump 1.0, which largely featured Trump testing the guardrails. Trump 2.0, by contrast, has already blasted right through them. There have been moments like this in the United States, when American democracy has teetered on the edge. But they have long been considered the darkest moments in our collective experience. That’s why the MAGA movement should still be treated as highly dangerous and abnormal, despite the way it’s been normalized by those in big business who claim that Trump will take America to great economic heights.
Prior to the dawn of Trumpism, business leaders largely sought to appeal to a sort of bland, apolitical neoliberalism. They embraced things like DEI and the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) principle, in an attempt to convince consumers that capitalism was compatible with social justice. When Trump entered the political picture, that promise was put to the test for corporate America: Some business leaders curried favor with him, while others ran away following his worst impulses, like his responses to the “Unite the Right” rally in 2017 and, nearly four years later, the Capitol riot. Then the dynamic shifted in the lead-up to the 2024 election; as Trump’s presidential prospects improved, billionaires in tech, media, entertainment, and finance all started coming out of the woodwork to kiss the ring, expecting America to somehow believe that Trump might be kinder and gentler this time around.
That illusion was shattered on Monday. We were reminded yet again why Trumpism was so impossible for normal Americans to stomach. It wasn’t Trump’s makeup or his hair; it was his cruelty, his lawlessness, and his blatant advertisement of base desires. For American corporations, which have sought to hide the darker sides of capitalism, this is something of a mask-off moment, as companies now have the permission structure to drop the socially conscious pretense. Oil and gas companies, which have long wanted to look like they care about the climate crisis, can stop greenwashing. Retailers like Lowe’s and Walmart can scale back their DEI programs under the pretext of cost cutting. Meanwhile, social media companies like Meta can stop pretending to be worried about spreading hate and misinformation. With Trump as their blunt instrument, these companies can essentially go full MAGA. And eventually, Americans may see American capitalism with its warts and all—as a system that no longer cares what consumers think.
Donald Trump is back. His style has not changed and his focus is the same, in all of his norm-defying cruelty. In many ways, Trump 2.0 looks a lot like Trump 1.0—except this time, he owns the Supreme Court and the richest people in the world are sitting in the front row at his inauguration. And this time, he’s not trying to hide his attempts at destroying the little checks and balances that still exist in government; he’s delighting in them. The question we should all be asking ourselves is: Are we really better off?
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