Michael Cohen - Trump's Path to Permanence
If you want to understand Donald Trump, don’t start with what he says. Start with what he wants. Because the Supreme Court agreeing to hear his challenge to birthright citizenship isn’t about immigration, national security, or whatever fear-mongering buzzword Stephen Miller scraped off the floor of his ideological dungeon. This move, this meticulously engineered constitutional booby trap, is about two things: reshaping who gets to be American, and testing how far the Court will let him go when he eventually comes for the 22nd Amendment. Birthright citizenship is the opening act. The main event is Trump clearing the runway for a third term. Maybe more.
On Day One of this disastrous encore presidency, Trump signed an executive order ending birthright citizenship for children born to undocumented parents or those here on temporary visas. One pen stroke, and he tried to erase a principle that has defined American identity for more than 150 years. The 14th Amendment is not ambiguous. Anyone born here, diplomats and invading armies excluded, is a citizen. Period. End of story. That’s been the bedrock understanding of who we are since 1868, when the country finally acknowledged that being born here made you part of this nation, no matter your parents’ status.
Multiple federal judges blocked the order because it is, in plain English, unconstitutional. Two federal appeals courts upheld injunctions preventing the order from taking effect. But Trump appealed, because Trump always appeals, especially when the Constitution gets in his way. And now his handpicked Supreme Court decided to take the case. They didn’t have to. But they did. That alone should chill you more than a December night in FCI Otisville.
The administration claims that the 14th Amendment’s phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” excludes children of undocumented immigrants or temporary visa holders. That argument has been rejected by scholars, courts, presidents, and every competent legal mind since Reconstruction. But facts are a nuisance in Trumpworld. They exist only to be bent, broken, or bulldozed.
https://www.meidasplus.com/p/trumps-path-to-permanence