Trump Just Released His Plan to Revoke Birthright Citizenship. It's Worse Than Imagined.

[Ms. Toad]

68. The Executive Order on birthright citizenship is different.

Please identify a single thing he has changed since the January 6 order - despite all of the chaos in virtually everything else he has touched.

This is a long-time dream of folks like Stephen Miller, and it was very carefully crafted to have the best chance to succeed. They aren't going to change it, because doing so would make it more likely just chaos - with no real change. The goal here is real change.

His interactions with law firms, universities, immigrants, are all designed (1) to flood the end zone so that no one has time to react, (2) take advantage of our lookback review of the law (laws aren't pre-approved for constitutionality - as a general rule once an unconstitutional law (or executive order) is passed, someone has to be hurt before the law can be tested to (3) implement social/political change by brute force. He is being remarkably successful because of his strategies - and because the traditional firewalls aren't holding. I expected congress to cave. I expected media to stand firm - or at least for some portion of it to stand firm - virtually none are. I expected universities to hold firm - virtually none are. Even Harvard, which started in the right direction, seems to be caving. I expected law firms to hold - and they are caving. I expected the courts to hold - but be unable to keep up with the pace - and for the most part that is what I'm seeing. The losses at the Supreme Court are largely because the Supreme Court is not designed to step in on an emergency basis - and also acts as a barrier to lower courts deciding the merits without deciding the merits by issuing very broad injunctions.

The reconstruction of the White House isn't abnormal. Many presidents alter it during their term. He is particularly tacky in what he is doing - but he isn't alone in either altering it - or in being criticized for doing it. Arthur added gilded Victorian styling, Roosevelt added the east wing, a pool, and a bunker. Nixon covered the pool up. Ford built a new outdoor one. Truman entirely rebuilt much of the white house (moving to Blair house during the work) - including adding the Truman balcony.

It is incredibly discouraging - but don't lose the story line in all of the chaos Trump is creating. Nothing has changed (or is likely to change) as to the citizenship birthright issue until after it reaches the Supreme Court. And even with this court, I don't see Trump winning. The majority of the lower court substantive decisions have been against Trump - it is just that the system isn't designed to work by injunction, which works well when we have a semi-normal person as president.