Armed National Guardsmen have been deployed in the District of Columbia to keep American citizens in line. Trump is trying to normalize the militarization of our country. This is where it starts, not where it will end. Trump is dropping the pretense of abiding by the rule of law. Sure, he still drapes himself in it enough that anyone who wants to can turn a blind eye and pretend that he’s complying with his oath of office, which requires him to support and defend the Constitution. But everyone who is paying attention and being honest with themselves understands that we are in a dangerous moment where Trump’s path toward authoritarianism is accelerating, and Americans need to wake up. Trump trumps up excuses to justify doing as he pleases, which mostly involves accumulating more of the power of government in his own hands. A national emergency here, an invasion there. No matter what the truth is, he makes it up as he goes along, shamelessly lying about crime going up, when it’s in fact going down, and accusing agencies that release the statistics that contradict him of fraud when he’s called on the lies. This manner of operation makes it clear that it’s not about democracy and the American people; it’s about Trump and protecting Trump. It’s critical to make sure that the people around you understand this. It’s a week for serious conversations about what we need to do to protect the future of this country. Monday, Trump signed a new executive order that is a thinly disguised effort to expand the use of the National Guard nationwide, a new leaf in the would-be autocrat’s playbook. It’s titled, “ADDITIONAL MEASURES TO ADDRESS THE Included in its provisions:
In other words, this isn’t just about Trump’s “crime emergency in the District of Columbia.” It’s about the entire country. What’s a civil disturbance? Anything Trump wants it to be. This executive order, if not challenged, calls for the creation of National Guard forces that are ready for immediate deployment anywhere Americans protesting against Donald Trump get under his skin. To underscore the point, Trump also issued an executive order titled, Prosecuting Burning of The American Flag. After acknowledging that the Supreme Court has ruled that burning the flag is First Amendment protected conduct, the order tries to slide around the law by claiming, “Notwithstanding the Supreme Court’s rulings on First Amendment protections, the Court has never held that American Flag desecration conducted in a manner that is likely to incite imminent lawless action or that is an action amounting to ‘fighting words’ is constitutionally protected.” They rely on a case called Texas v. Johnson for that proposition. The case involves a protest outside of the 1984 Republican convention, which resulted in the prosecution of Mr. Johnson. The Court held that, “The act for which appellant was convicted was clearly 'speech' contemplated by the First Amendment.” The Court made it extremely clear that only in a narrow range of the most extreme of cases could flag burning fall anywhere close to criminal conduct: “Thus, we have not permitted the government to assume that every expression of a provocative idea will incite a riot, but have instead required careful consideration of the actual circumstances surrounding such expression, asking whether the expression "is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action." Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U. S. 444, 395 U. S. 447 (1969) (reviewing circumstances surrounding rally and speeches by Ku Klux Klan). To accept Texas' arguments that it need only demonstrate "the potential for a breach of the peace," … and that every flag burning necessarily possesses that potential, would be to eviscerate our holding in Brandenburg. This we decline to do. Nor does Johnson's expressive conduct fall within that small class of "fighting words" that are "likely to provoke the average person to retaliation, and thereby cause a breach of the peace." … No reasonable onlooker would have regarded Johnson's generalized expression of dissatisfaction with the policies of the Federal Government as a direct personal insult or an invitation to exchange fisticuffs.” I cite to the case at this length to ensure you can see just how tortured the executive order’s interpretation of the case it claims to rely on is. It calls on the attorney general to prioritize enforcement of laws against flag desecration. And, of course, it wants to use them to deport or deny entry to noncitizens. The hypocrisy of the man whose conduct led to January 6 knows no bounds. The order proclaims, “My Administration will act to restore respect and sanctity to the American Flag and prosecute those who incite violence or otherwise violate our laws while desecrating this symbol of our country, to the fullest extent permissible under any available authority.” This administration is on the dictator track. In an Oval Office ramble Monday, Trump, after calling Chicago a killing field, stumbled into saying “a lot of people are saying maybe we’d like a dictator. I don’t like a dictator. I’m not a dictator. I’m a man with great common sense and a smart person.”
That raises the question that we pondered last night. Why, in a democracy, a president would be so desperate to make the Abrego Garcia situation disappear that Abrego Garcia would be offered deportation to and freedom in Costa Rica if he’d only plead guilty to the criminal charges DOJ hastily brought against him when they needed an explanation for why he was being returned to the United States. After ICE arrested Abrego Garcia at a purportedly routine immigration check in this morning, Judge Xinis saw it that way too, expressing concern and ordering the government to keep Abrego Garcia in Virginia and not deport him until she could hold a hearing this Friday. Here’s the problem: Every single time I took a guilty plea in federal court as a prosecutor, the judge asked the defendant if they were pleading guilty because they were guilty and for no other reason. That’s what the Constitution requires. The notion that the government would try to coerce a plea with an offer of Costa Rica and the threat of Uganda is abhorrent. An attorney general and anyone else in leadership who would countenance it is unfit to serve. Also Monday, Trump decided to fire Lisa Cook, who, coincidentally—or perhaps not—is the first Black woman to serve as a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. She’s been there since 2022 and is a highly regarded economist who graduated from UC Berkeley. He posted her termination letter on Truth Social.
Congress placed limits on the president’s authority to fire a Fed governor in the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, which provides that he can only do so “for cause.” No governor has been fired, given that high standard. So, what’s the “for cause” here? The Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Bill Pulte, alleged Cook committed mortgage fraud. He publicly announced that his agency found documents claiming she listed two different homes as her primary residence on loan documentation. These are mere allegations, not yet proven. In the normal course of things, if they were serious, they might be referred to the Justice Department, but they wouldn’t be publicly announced or acted on by the president—they are just claims, one side of the story, and anyone can make up allegations. For a president to act on them, without proof, hardly meets the “for cause” standard. Trump has been sparring with the Fed, trying to attack its independence because it hasn’t cut interest rates quickly enough in response to his demands. That’s the context for this firing on such a shaky basis. Trump has also publicly complained about and threatened to fire Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. Context matters, and it helps us understand what this is really about. It’s the bully trying to bring an independent agency, the nation’s central bank, to heel. He wants them to supplant their professional judgment with his whims. And he’s willing to threaten and ruin lives to get his way. This is the work of a dictator, not a president. Monday night, Ms. Cook released a statement denying there was cause for her firing and saying “I will not resign. I will continue to carry out my duties to help the American economy as I have been doing since 2022.” Expect a lawsuit, which will lead to another battle in the courts over Donald Trump’s efforts to control every branch and agency of government and bend it to his will. Trump has pushed so far that Democratic leaders are pushing back in kind. Gavin Newsom started it. Now others are joining in. Perhaps it’s a harbinger of the campaign to come. Whatever it is, it’s welcome. The governors are on it. Trump posted about sending National Guard troops in to deal with crime in Baltimore and went off about how he gave money (taxpayer dollars, of course) to Maryland Governor Wes Moore to fix the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which was damaged when a container ship hit it last year. Today, Trump claimed Moore had called him “Sir” and said, “you’re the greatest president of my lifetime.” On social media, Moore brushed off the claim he’d kissed the ring, Trump-style—“lol,” he posted.
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker also joined in, giving a barn burner of a press conference and warning Trump against coming to Chicago, another Democratic stronghold that the president has threatened to send National Guard troops to.
Force and intimidation are not strategies we associate with American presidents. Those are not constitutional prerogatives the Founding Fathers assigned to the president. That is how dictators operate. That is how Trump operates. Let’s call it what it is. There is no reason to pretend that this isn’t happening. This is the moment to stay dialed in to what’s happening around us. The effort to overwhelm us with so much—a week’s worth of news and trouble on a Monday—is a deliberate attempt to get us to give up because it’s too much. Instead of doing that, look for the common thread, the theme that runs through it all. On every front, Trump is trying to take hold of power that belongs to others—to Congress, to the courts, to independent agencies like the Fed, most importantly, the power that belongs to us, the American people, the power to vote. It’s time for all of us to stand up. We’re in this together, Joyce You're currently a free subscriber to Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance . For the full experience, upgrade your subscription.
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Monday, August 25, 2025
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