Jan.21

electoral-vote.com

Dem 47

   

GOP 53

Trump Signs a Bushel of Executive Orders

As expected, and as is de rigueur for the commencement of presidential administrations these days, Donald Trump unleashed a slew of executive orders yesterday. The exact number depends on whether you count related XOs as one or as several, but the total is somewhere in the vicinity of 85. If you would like to pore through them, they've all been posted to the White House's newly redesigned, Trump-glorifying website:

That certainly doesn't scream "cult of personality." No, sir, not at all. Anyhow, here's a rundown of the 10 XOs/XO-related storylines we think are most worth noting:

1. Immigration: This was agenda item #1A, and in case you have been living under a rock for the last 10 years, and didn't know it, the Trump administration put the most sweeping immigration-related XO at the very top of the page of XOs, and gave it the ALL CAPS title "GUARANTEEING THE STATES PROTECTION AGAINST INVASION." None of the other XOs have ALL CAPS titles.
   
   This was part of a group of immigration-related XOs that Trump promised during the campaign, and issued yesterday. In short order, he declared a national emergency at the border and said troops would be deployed there, decreed an end to birthright citizenship, announced that mass deportations would begin under the terms of the Alien and Sedition Act of 1798, designated several drug cartels as terrorist organizations, and paused all applications for refugee status for the next 3 months.
   
   Virtually everything listed here is clearly in violation of U.S. law, or else sets Trump up to do things that would violate U.S. law. Most obviously, there is no world in which an XO carries more weight than a constitutional amendment, so the birthright citizenship thing should be dead in the water (the ACLU will file its planned lawsuit sometime this week).
   
   Why does Trump do things that should not withstand legal scrutiny, especially given how many times he got smacked down during his first term? Maybe the important thing to him is the attempt, since he can tell his base that he's fighting the good fight, but it's hard to overcome the deep state. Maybe he thinks that if you throw enough dubious things at the wall, some of them will stick. Maybe he's persuaded that the judiciary is more Trump-friendly this time around. Maybe all of these things.
   
   Just hours after Trump issued these XOs, there was an exchange of gunfire between the border patrol and two individuals who were apparently trying to enter the country. The incident left one border patrol agent and one would-be immigrant dead. We doubt this can be attributed to Trump's XOs, but it certainly is an ominous harbinger of things (likely) to come.
   
   
2. Trans Americans: We won't dwell too much on the names of the XOs, which are pretty much all exercises in branding. However, the name of the anti-trans XO was particularly over-the-top: "Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism And Restoring Biological Truth To The Federal Government." According to the administration, trans does not exist, and federal agencies should not take any actions that acknowledge the existence of trans people. The XO also offers an "official" definition of the two sexes, "grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality":

   "Female" means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell.
   
   "Male" means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the small reproductive cell.

   We have an extended piece on this subject coming up soon, but just note for now that Trump and his Republican Party are never, ever, ever, going to stop beating this particular horse, no matter how dead that horse might become, and no matter how many times Democrats look the other way.
   
   
3. DEI: We don't think it's too far off to say that the three main boogeymen Trump ran against were immigrants, trans Americans, and DEI. And, of course, he lashed out in all three directions yesterday. In addition to all the anti-immigrant stuff, and the anti-trans XO, he also decreed an end to all executive branch DEI programs. We'll see how that works out on the military front, since the generals believe in DEI (for practical reasons), and since the courts have already said that the Pentagon's DEI programs are appropriate and useful.
   
   
4. Anti-Environment: Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris Accords, struck down all existing federal mandates regarding electric vehicles, and threw Alaskan lands open to those who wish to "drill, baby, drill." The impact of these maneuvers is likely to be less than Trump thinks. The world is clearly sticking with the Accords, even if the U.S. joins and then drops out every 4 years; state-level mandates and consumer demand are going to drive EV purchases even without federal encouragement; and, as we have noted many times, petroleum producers are loath to commit to expensive drilling projects that could well be shut down the next time there is a Democratic administration.
   
   
5. Anti-Biden: Trump also canceled 78 Joe Biden-era XOs. Most of the now-dead initiatives involve the environment, promotion of diversity, or oversight. For some reason, Trump prefers that the Supreme Court and the Census Bureau, in particular, be given a free hand. Wonder why?
   
   
6. Anti-Health: Trump withdrew the United States from the World Health Organization, and also got rid of all federal vaccine mandates. Make America Germy Again is the idea, it would seem.
   
   
7. DOGE: To the extent that the not-authorized-by-Congress "Department" of Government Efficiency can be official, Trump made it so yesterday with one of his XOs. Not that things are going well on that front (see below).
   
   
8. Place Names: Under the title "Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness," Trump did as promised, and "renamed" Denali as Mt. McKinley and the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. We put "renamed" in quotes, because it is very improbable that the new names will be adopted by anyone besides federal government employees who have no choice. Also, the Gulf of Mexico has never been known as the Gulf of America, so "Restoring" is a misnomer, in this case.
   
   
9. TikTok: As promised, Trump paused the TikTok ban, for 75 days. Let us point out again that the law banning TikTok does allow for a one-time extension, but only if progress is being made toward a sale. There is no indication that ByteDance has made any effort to sell, so by granting them an extension under these circumstances, Trump is unambiguously subverting a law passed by Congress. It does not seem probable that anyone who might hold him accountable here will try to do so. We can only hope he's held accountable when the law-breaking becomes more serious. Note that we wrote "hope" he will be held accountable, not "expect" he will be held accountable.
   
   
10. Tariffs: One thing that Trump did not do, despite many, many campaign declarations to the contrary, is impose Day 1 tariffs on China (or Canada, or Mexico, or anyone else). He took the rather more flimsy move of ordering the federal agencies to "study" the trade deficit between the U.S. and those nations.

So, it was a busy day for the new president. The bad news for him is that issuing XOs is the easy part, and it gets much harder from here. (Z)