Week One of the New Era is in the books... and what a week it was...

Trump was inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2025. He did not place his hand on the Bible when he took the oath of office. 

                                            Trump takes the oath of office without placing his hand 

                                            on the Bible.

We know that if any Democrat had failed to place their hand on the Bible, the resulting hollering from the right would be endless and all too loud. But there are two rules these days - morals and standards and laws for Democrats to uphold and absolutely no morals or standards or laws or even job qualifications for Republicans to uphold and exhibit.

Immediately after taking the oath to protect the constitution, Trump began his assault on it. He signed executive order after executive order - many of which seemed written by the same people who wrote Project 2025, a document filled with the goals that the Heritage Foundation brings to this new era, a document Trump disavowed repeatedly during the campaign. 

(It's been painful all these years to watch Republicans on the campaign trail disavowing their real stances on abortion, using public funds to pay for religious education, etc. and then snap into action to take up the stances they disavowed publicly in order to get elected - but the American voters and national news media outlets and rightwing gatekeepers keep falling for this. "I'm not going to read it," was one Trump statement pushed out by the New York Times during the campaign about Project 2025, which seems to be the playbook he's closely following now that he's president.) 

And now, one week into the new administration, many of the Project 2025 goals have been acted upon – we  can't say they were fully realized yet because many of them are blatantly unconstitutional and the path forward for many of Trump's new E.O.s will be determined by the courts. One judge, a Reagan appointee, has halted Trump's abolishment of birthright citizenship, had very plain talk about the E.O. attacking the 14th amendment:

"I’ve been on the bench for over four decades," [Judge] Coughenour, a Ronald Reagan appointee, said. "I can’t remember another case where the question presented is as clear as this one. This is a blatantly unconstitutional order."

For those unfamiliar with the language in the 14th amendment, here's the section attacked by Trump with this particular E.O.

Fourteenth Amendment

Section 1: All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

The language is unambiguous - there are no qualifications or exceptions noted in the language adopted and passed by the US Government and ratified by the states in 1968. I do not recall any arguments until this century about eliminating birthright citizenship. I do not recall any child of immigrants who lost birthright citizenship because of the immigration status of their parents. Getting rid of birthright citizenship can legally only be done by a constitutional amendment but Trump has tried to get rid of this right via an E.O. We know it's a big goal for extremists at the Heritage Foundation but there is really no legal precedent that allows right-wing extremists to push their opinions about the legislative intent of this amendment. That will never stop them from trying, and if there's anything I've learned in my life, right-wing extremists are in it for the long game. They will keep pushing until the norms are unrecognizable to anyone who claims to appreciate the rights embedded in our Constitution and its amendments. 

Trump has, in his first week, waged war on the Constitution. He's halted funding that has been approved by Congress and passed into law for international aid; he's ordered the National Institutes of Health to halt all communications with the public; he's fired inspector generals who are responsible for providing oversight to agencies Trump wants full control over without oversight, something that requires notification of Congress and a 30-day waiting period before the firing can be formalized.  

One of Trump's first actions was to pardon virtually everyone involved in the 1/6/21 insurrection at the Capitol. These were people who descended on the Capitol at Trump's invitation, who brought a gallows and wanted to "hang Mike Pence" and who wanted to halt the certification of the election Trump lost. What kind of message does this send? His unregulated militias - the Proud Boys, Oathkeepers, etc. - know that Trump will allow them to commit violence on his behalf with impunity. That's the message he sent with those pardons. 

The constitutionality and legality of many of his orders has been called into question. But what Trump is showing in his first week is that trampling the constitution and defining the presidency as an authoritarian ruler above all oversight is a key goal of his administration.

And the scary thing - his party and the right-wing ideologues at the Federalist Socity and Heritage Foundation are fully on board. We saw that when his party approved Trump's nomination of Pete Hegseth to lead the Department of Defense. Hegseth's main qualifications seem to be that he was a Fox News host that captivated Trump's attention at one point. Outside of that, he has no qualifications to lead a department with nearly $1 trillion budget and that is responsible for our military. He has been let go from two veterans organizations for "financial mismanagement, sexual impropriety, and personal misconduct" and multiple people came forward to talk about his alcoholism while on the job. He paid a woman $50,000  to remain silent about the sexual assault she experienced from him while they were both at a Republican event. 

We are in the early stages of an administration that has abandoned the rule of law and the constitution and there are no guarantees that the rights and freedoms we've taken for granted will remain at the end of this presidency. Terrifying times in America today.