Beware Trump’s two-pronged strategy undermining democracy | David Cole

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1. Excerpts:

   “Emergency powers have long posed a threat to the rule of law. ‘Necessity knows no law’, after all.”

   “But by declaring that the metaphorical war on drugs is an actual ‘armed conflict’, and declaring that fishers carrying drugs are ‘narco-terrorists’, Trump has asserted the power to kill in cold blood – premeditated murder without trial.”

   “Using the same rationale, Trump has invoked a 1798 law, the Alien Enemies Act… The US is not at war today. But Trump has asserted that a Venezuelan drug gang… is at war with us, and used that claim to deport more than 100 Venezuelans to a notorious prison in El Salvador without hearings of any kind – and in defiance of a court order.”

   “Nothing is more essential to a liberal democracy than the rule of law – that is, the notion that a democratic government is guided by laws, not discretionary whims; that the laws respect basic liberties for all; and that independent courts have the authority to hold political officials accountable when they violate those laws.”

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