So Many Criminals

We need something like a war crimes tribunal when Trump is gone. 

To try the ICE agents (almost all of them) who broke the law, the military personnel who carried out unlawful orders to commit war crimes, to try everyone who enriched themselves with insider trading and by taking bribes, to punish the crimes committed by corrupt conservative SCOTUS justices in accepting bribes, to punish the Trump 2.0 officials who participated in defying court orders, to punish those who were deliberately indifferent to suffering at immigration detention centers, to punish Elon Musk and everyone else involved in illegal conduct a DOGE, to punish Trump family members who illegally represented the U.S. government (and themselves) in diplomacy without Congressional approval, and on and on and on.

The Trump Executive Order Renaming Lake Ontario Is Illegal

Trump has claimed that he can rename Lake Ontario unilaterally with an Executive Order. Google Maps is obeying it. But, of course, like so many of his other Executive Orders, this one is illegal because it contradicts a binding treaty with Canada.

Quote Of The Day

If this kingdom is led by the corrupt, it will be doomed to fall.

- The Frontier Lord Begins With Zero Subjects (2026) (Episode 7).

Could The Military Remove Trump In A Coup?

The number one trigger for military coups is the military not getting paid, which the U.S. is doing right now. And, when Trump has called up the national guard, he has done so for time periods one day short of what is necessary for them to receive full compensation for being called up. VA spending has also been slashed.

Corruption and incompetence are also major factors. But you have to go back to Andrew Jackson to find a President who rivals Trump 2.0 in those dimensions. It doesn't inspire confidence to talk about conflicts between Albania and Azerbaijan, or a European country and Cambodia. His dementia is apparent and was on full display at his unprecedented speech to all generals and admirals.

Humiliation and disrespect for the military can be factors, and Trump has shown both towards soldiers, and in particular, POWs and military casualties. The meeting of all generals and admirals where Trump, a repeat draft dodger, and a Fox News commentator, calling them out for being fat and woke, didn't help.

The meeting, met by stony eyed silence from the assembled military brass to the last man, also potentially broke down the single biggest barrier to a military coup in the U.S., which is the collective action problem of figuring out which officers are on your side. This is why numerically smaller militaries are much more likely to carry out coups. But by showing unanimity of distaste for Trump, he may have inadvertently overcome some of that barrier.

There are other signs that the military has distaste for Trump. For his birthday Army parade in D.C., he wanted a communist style show of force and got a boring historical display. Morale was brought very low when the National Guard gardened and cleared trash when occupying D.C. The National Guard has not been effective in L.A. or Chicago or Portland or Memphis at reducing crime and multiple judges have held that Trump is illegally deploying the military. But when rule of law is the only thing keeping the military subordinate to the civilian government of the U.S., Trump's flouting of the rule of law undermines that singular force. The military didn't get involved in January 6 and like most law enforcement is probably dismayed by the January 6 pardons. Trump's rogue attacks on "drug dealing" boats in international waters in the Caribbean without legal authority is another example.

The military has spent a lifetime opposing enemies like Russia, and supporting traditional allies, but Trump has turned that on his head, making war with NATO, coddling Russia, envying North Korea, threatening Greenland, Canada, and Panama.

The idea that an armed public discourages tyranny behind the Second Amendment is empirically not true historically, and obviously not true now. Gun owners in the U.S. today, not only aren't resisting tyranny, they're the ones welcoming it.

Is a coup likely? Probably not. But it is more likely now than at any other point in U.S. history.

A Fire ICE Act

ICE is rotten to the core. Basically everyone who works for it is a corrupt, racist, bad cop, with no regard for the rule of law who lacks moral character.

Democrats in Congress should sponsor the Fire ICE Act. This would:

1. Immediately terminate the employment of every single employee and contractor working for ICE.

2. Permanently bar every former ICE employee from working for any federal government agency or any federal government contractor in any capacity, even as an unpaid volunteer or as prison labor.

3. Permanently bar every former ICE employee from receiving security clearances.

4. Permanently bar every former ICE employee from receiving federal financial aid for higher education.

5. Permanently bar every former ICE employee from eligibility for SBA loans.

6. Permanently bar every former ICE employee from serving as a sponsor for any immigrant.

7. Retroactively downgrade every former ICE employee who is a military veteran to dishonorably discharged status.

8. Permanently bar every former ICE employee from receiving federal farm aid.

9. Permanently bar every former ICE employee from receiving federal housing or disaster assistance, including FHA and VA loans.

10. Revoke all non-vested employee benefits of the ICE employee from any federal government employment.

11. Extend the statute of limitations for civil liability and criminal liability committed in connection with service as an ICE agent to 50 years.

12. Create a private cause of action, including minimum statutory damages of $50,000 and attorneys' fees, for any violation of federal law committed by an ICE agent while employed by ICE or a contractor for ICE. This would include any wrongful deportation and any detention made without probable cause. And, allow any vested retirement funds or homestead property to be used to satisfy any such judgment even if it would otherwise have been exempt from creditors. Make any such debts non-dischargeable in bankruptcy.

13. Bar all companies that provided deportation transportation services to ICE from all future government  contracts.

14. Make all former ICE employees ineligible to serve on the board of any 501(c)(3) organization, or as an officer or paid employee of any such organization.

15. Revoke the visas of any ICE employee who is not a U.S. citizen.

16. Prohibit former ICE agents from owning or possessing firearms.

17. Bar former ICE officers from making new applications for federal disability benefits.

18. Prohibit federal civilian employees and federal government contractors hired in any law enforcement role from wearing masks, or enforcing the law in unmarked cars, subject to very narrow exceptions that are heavily reported upon, required all sorts of red tape, and are limited to circumstances that never include immigration enforcement.

19. Create a list of places like hospitals, court houses, churches, and immigration offices, where immigration enforcement is not allowed.

20. Allow any state or city to prohibit federal immigration enforcement from taking place in their jurisdiction, subject to very narrow exceptions for people convicted of serious felonies within the last five years.

21. End all grounds for denaturalization and punish people who secured U.S. citizenship by fraud with criminal penalties that do not revoke their U.S. citizenship.

22. Place former ICE agents at the bottom of the priority list to receive organ transplants, at at the end of the line for any Medicaid, Medicare, or VA medical benefit for which there is a waiting list.

23. Prohibit former ICE agents from receiving any honor or recognition from the federal government and revoke any honor or recognition that the former ICE agent was previously awarded by any federal government entity, military or civilian.

24. Deny former ICE agents any benefit of U.S. international child custody treaties.

25. Prohibit former ICE agents from notarizing any document used in the federal courts or submitted to a federal government agency.

26. Make former ICE agents ineligible for all federal licenses, including but not limited to, patent examiners, SEC licenses, BLM grazing permits, FCC licenses, interpreter qualifications, pilot's licenses, federal firearms dealer's licenses, and federal fishing or hunting licenses.

27. Prohibit former ICE agents from being buried in military cemeteries.

28. Prohibit former ICE agents from being granted patent or trademark applications.

29. Prohibit former ICE agents from serving as officers of any federally recognized employee unions.

30. Prohibit former ICE agents from attending any federal educational institutions.

31. Prohibit former ICE agents from making mining claims.

32. Impose a 50% excise tax on any vested, deferred compensation payable to former ICE agents on top of any other applicable taxes.

33. Enact a rebuttable presumption in any federal discrimination case that a former ICE agent intended to engage in illegal discrimination.

34. Prohibit former ICE agents from serving a registered lobbyists.

35. Require former ICE agents to disclose their employment with ICE to all future employers, in any commercial contract, in any campaign for public office, and prior to being issued a marriage license.

36. Make status as a former ICE agent an aggravating factor under the federal sentencing guidelines.

37. Prohibit former ICE agents from entering federal parks and federal landmarks.

38. Prohibit former ICE agents from serving as officers or directors of any publicly held company.

39. Prohibit former ICE agents from purchasing cyptocurrencies or selling crypocurrencies that were not owned prior to the enactment of the law.

40. Prohibit former ICE agents from obtaining any federal loan or bailout of any kind.

41. Disclose all internal ICE records and a list of all former ICE agents to the public on a publicly available database that disclosed all internal affairs information, all service information, and all contract information of former agents.

42. Immediately release everyone in ICE detention who isn't an undocumented immigrant convicted of a crime within the last five years that is a felony or worse. Transfer the rest to the federal Department of Corrections.

43. Ban all future private prison contracts of any kind.

44. Deny all de minimis tariff exemptions for former ICE agents.

45. Formally authorize private sector employers and state and local government employers to discriminate against former ICE agents.

46. Give cases in which former ICE agents are plaintiffs, the lowest scheduling priority in federal court.

47. Require disclosure of former ICE agent status in every lawsuit filed by a former ICE agent, and as part of the witness testimony of every former ICE agent in any federal court or federal administrative agency proceeding.

48. Prohibit former ICE agents from participating in clinical trials for new drugs and medical devices.

49. Prohibit former ICE agents from receiving any new federal tax credits.

50. Prohibit former ICE agents from serving as employees or unpaid volunteers in federal funded schools at any level.

If this bill is introduced as a bill in Congress, and secured enough co-sponsors in the House and Senate to have some credible chance of being seriously considered, it doesn't even matter if it passes. 

It will still powerfully discourage people considering employment with ICE from doing so. Every if some provisions are subsequently invalidated by the courts and are severed from the larger bill, the uncertainty would seriously chill anyway from applying to work for it.

Property Tax Assessment Bias

In the last few years, researchers have revealed something shocking about the property tax, the mainstay of local governmental finance. In virtually all jurisdictions in the country, expensive homes are undervalued by property tax assessors—and hence under-taxed—while less expensive homes are over-valued and over-taxed. Put another way, one of the major methods of taxation in America is premised on repeated determinations that the rich are less rich than they actually are and that the less well-off are better off than they actually are. To give it name, there is almost universal Property Tax Assessment Regressivity, or PTAR.

This Article explains the consequences of PTAR. It shows that PTAR, while still likely regressive, may be less regressive today than one might imagine. A consistent, long-standing PTAR in jurisdictions would be capitalized into property values and thus have largely benefited property owners many years ago, rather than today’s property owners. PTAR also limits the “insurance” value of property taxes, the way in which property taxes limit the downsides of property value declines (and the upside of increases). However, PTAR may counterintuitively make jurisdictions less scared of allowing much-needed dense housing construction.

So, should PTAR be fixed? 

The answer is a qualified yes. Fixing PTAR would be an efficient form of wealth redistribution, if a somewhat oddly directed one, as it only shares revenue among homeowners in individual local governments. Capturing the insurance benefits of the property tax would have substantial benefits for the many homeowners with undiversified portfolios. However, fixing PTAR should be paired with policies to mitigate its downsides and enhance its upsides. More taxing authority should be given to bigger jurisdictions, as doing so would enhance the insurance and redistributive benefits of fixing PTAR. And states should pair fixes to PTAR with greater oversight of local zoning authority to ensure a better property tax system does not come at the cost of exacerbating the housing crisis.

What the strange case of PTAR reveals is that the property tax is not, as many have argued, the perfect tax for local governments to levy. Instead, the property tax turns out to be the bad local tax we have grown used to. To make it “work,” we have allowed local governments to engage in all sorts of bad policy—taxing the less well-off at higher rates than those richer than them, and restricting housing growth in order to avoid redistribution.

David Schleicher, "Your House Is Worth More than They Think: The Strange Case of Property Tax Assessment Regressivity", 62 Harv. J. on Legis. 1 (2024).

Dreaming About A Better Future: Beliefs, Culture, And Political Economy Edition

It doesn't hurt to image a better future, even if you have no way of getting all of the way there very quickly at the moment. Technologically driven change is more powerful, more inevitable, and more common, but beliefs, culture, and political economies can progress as well.

Wouldn't it be great to live in a world without the beliefs held by flat earthers, creationists, anti-vaxxers, evolution deniers, ancient astronaut believers, believers in lost high technology civilizations, faith healing believers, people who believe that demons are real, people who believe in possession by evil spirits, people who think that dinosaurs and humans co-existed, anti-fluoride activists, human caused climate change deniers, people who deny that men walked on the moon, and the pseudo-scientific beliefs of adherents to other forms of pseudo-science? Wouldn't it be great to live in a world where we didn't have elected officials and politically powerful individuals who took absurd conspiracy theories like government weather manipulation, Jewish space lasers, sex trafficking dens hidden by pizza parlors, 2020 U.S. Presidential election results denial, and Haitian immigrants in Ohio eating cats and dogs seriously? This isn't impossible. There are many parts of the world, and there are large subcultures in other parts of the world, where these beliefs are vanishingly rare and no one of consequence holds them.

Wouldn't it be great to live in a world where the vast majority of people saw the metaphysical worldviews of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism as myths akin to the predominant view held by modern people today about the pagan religions of the pre-Christian Phoenician, Greek, Roman, and Norse people This isn't impossible either. There are parts of the world where this is the predominant worldview, even if there are fairly small minorities of true believers and many people still acknowledge cultural identities with roots in religion.

Wouldn't it be great to have a world where there was no place where women were denied access to more than rudimentary education? This is already true in most of the world. But it is not true yet Afghanistan, in much of sub-Saharan Africa, in tribal societies in parts of Southeast Asia and the Amazon, and in some Islamic countries (or at least parts of them). Historically, women (and for that matter, almost everyone) was denied access to more than rudimentary education. But most of the world has moved beyond that situation and it isn't impossible to change that in the last remaining hold out societies.

Wouldn't it be great to live in a world free of misogyny and bigotry towards foreigners, non-white people, and LGBT people? This is possible too. There are, at a minimum, large subcultures in many places in the world where this is the overwhelming the case among members of that subculture.

Wouldn't it be great to live in a world that is profoundly less corrupt? This isn't impossible either. There are multiple countries, and there are more subcultures within other societies, where this has been accomplished at well.

The way that a world like this arose would matter, of course. I am imagining a path that would primarily involve gradually converting people to new worldviews, not a path with mass slaughter or one secured with fear or harsh repression, although it wouldn't necessary be completely voluntary either.

Once achieved, this cultural change could be stable. There isn't anything inherently wrong, for example, with the people in Red State America. They just have a culture and belief system the remains in place due to cultural inertia, that in the context of a modern, scientific informed, technological culture with a strong state, is dysfunctional and undermines their own well-being (in addition to making the world worse for everyone who shares the flawed democracy that is the United States with them, and everyone who is subjected to American power in its foreign and military affairs).

John Lennon's song "Imagine", however, wasn't right. We wouldn't live without war in peace and harmony even without religion, countries, and possessions. 

Life without religion can work, but isn't a panacea. Life without countries and possessions, where people just share everything and live as a brotherhood of man, doesn't work. Countries and reasonably regulated ownership of possessions are necessary conditions to peace and a decent life for ordinary people. 

Life without countries promptly leads to anarchic warfare, violence, and warlords. It looks like Somalia over the last few decades, not the garden of Eden. Indeed, well run countries, and systems of strong nation-states in the context of a well-organized international community with widely agreed upon borders, tend to suppress military conflicts, which are resolved by politicians, diplomats, and lawyers instead. 

The last time U.S. states were at war was one hundred and sixty years ago, in 1865. The last war in the U.S. with American Indians ended more than a century ago in 1924 and was followed by legislation that gave Native Americans who were parts of Indian tribes full U.S. citizenship. If the part of North America that is now occupied by the U.S. had been made up of many different independent countries, there would almost surely have been more international wars in this territory in this time period. 

We could also have a global system that somehow prevented psychopaths and authoritarian dictators from gaining control of, or holding onto control of, nations. Some of the worst wars and circumstances for people on Earth exist as a result of a handful of authoritarian leaders and their inner circles of advisors. 

We could have international institutions that could discourage wars. We could have global institutions that prevented the injustices, corruption, and incompetence of national leaders and oligarchs from persisting and triggering insurgencies, violent coups, and civil wars.

All past attempts at life without possessions in the Soviet Union, in communist regimes in Asia, and even in large-scale communes, failed. And, their disavowal of property, and of any meaningful level of inequality, was an important cause of their own collapse. It wasn't just that communism wasn't done right in these cases.

The transitions to Communism in Russia, China, and other places like Cambodia, were some of the worse catastrophes and epic scale tragedies of human history.

In the former Soviet Union and former Warsaw Pact, communism just died, producing a variety of successor regimes, none of which significantly disavowed large accumulations of possessions. Communist Asia has kept their Maoist style one party political systems, but they didn't keep its extreme prohibitions on private ownership of property to the point where it has the toxic concentration of extreme wealth associated with "late stage capitalism" despite being nominally communist. Communist regimes in Africa have had a similar fate. Communism is Cuba has been most of the most successful attempts at it, but has been seriously flawed and authoritarian nonetheless, and communism in Venezuela has been an unmitigated disaster. But we could significantly reduce poverty and other failures of capitalism without abolishing possessions and property and market based economic systems entirely.

It is possible to have a world that is peaceful, sane, rational, believes in science, with diverse populations, that is economically fair. The culture and worldview of Star Trek's society (although, of course, not all of its technologies), is not beyond the realm of possibility at a global level in the real world. Proof of the concept exists in multiple places. Expanding this set of beliefs and worldviews, and creating laws and institutions that support these kinds of societies is difficult but not impossible. 

Just because we failed to secure "the end of history" at the historical moment when it had seemed to pundits to be just around the corner, doesn't mean that this objective is fundamentally unattainable. Most great cultural and political revolutions have taken multiple attempts to finally gain hold.

France eventually secured a republic, despite the fact that it reverted to monarchy after the French Revolution and after some subsequent republics. The anti-monarchist uprisings of 1848 mostly failed, but a coupe of generations later, Europe was made up almost entirely of republics and constitutional monarchies in which the remaining monarchs were basically symbolic figureheads. Almost every newly independent country has coups and/or civil wars at some point fairly early on after gaining independence (the U.S. included). Some European countries have experienced coups and civil wars in the 20th century. A united India only lasted a few years before its Muslim territories were partitioned, the Muslim part was split by a civil war within a generation after that, and the Muslim successor states, between them have had multiple coups. A handful of monarchies transitioned peacefully into democratic countries, but these have been the uncommon exceptions and not the rule.

Why should securing the "end of history" be any easier? It isn't. But that doesn't mean that it can't be done.

Our Dismal Moment

The left is fighting for all it is worth to keep democracy alive in America, to create a world where justice prevails, where villains aren't rewarded, where decency and empathy guide policy, where science and reason are heard, and where people doing good are empowered through cooperative effort.

The right has less noble goal and tries to achieve them with lies, cheating, and violence. There was a time when there were intellectually defensible conservative policy arguments that the right tried to advance. But that has died with MAGA. Trump is a post-policy politician who is doing is best to run the federal government, and the United States of America into the ground without regard to any legitimate arguments for doing so.

Why the political right in the United States, which is suffering and will suffer further from Trump's agenda, doesn't wake up and turn on Trump is hard to understand.

Trump, a life long con man, rapist, and pedophile, and more recently, a felon, an insurrectionist and hard core fascist (like his father), is unraveling further into his most basic psychopathic tendencies as, at age 79, his dementia, probably the same Lewy body dementia that afflicted his father Fred in his 70s, gets steadily worse. The average 79 year old man in the U.S. has a life expectancy of 9-10 years and Trump is in below average health. The average person with Lewy body dementia dies 7-8 years after symptoms start, and they started a while ago in Trump. He may or may not manage to stay alive for the next three and a half years. He is the most unpopular President in U.S. history (rivaled only by himself in his previous term).

He's already done irreparable harm. A defeat in the 2026 midterm elections could mitigate the amount of further harm he can do, and would make it harder for him to carry out a coup ending democracy for good.

Once in place, dictatorial regimes can persist for generations. Look at North Korea.

Democrats really, really want to resolve the crisis facing the United States while coloring within the lines, rather than slicing the Gordian knot. MAGA has no such scruples.

Today, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump will be having a summit meeting in Alaska, mostly about ongoing Ukraine War. In a better world, treachery would leave both men, each one of the greatest forces for evil in the entire world in their generation, dead. This is highly unlikely to happen, however. We'll see what does.

The night is pretty dark, although there is plenty of room for it to get darker. I'd like to think that hope can survive it, but I'm not sure.

The Morality Of Legality

Resistance from civil servants has been less effective at mitigating illegal conduct from Trump than one might hope, because the U.S. Supreme Court is enamored of a novel "unitary executive theory" with no historical basis, and because Trump has used his illegal attempts to fire independent agency leaders, to fire civil servants without a legal basis, to interfere with federal government unions, and to appoint incompetent people chosen for loyalty, in order to undermine this form of resistance to his illegal acts.

The Morality of Legality holds that it is a moral wrong, and essentially taboo, for those who work in the executive branch to act unlawfully, even if high-level officials much want to act unlawfully, even if circumstances clearly call for the action in question, and even if there is a strong public demand for the unlawful action. The Morality of Legality is less innocuous and more directive than it might seem. It is a red light; it is a conversation-stopper; it empowers law and lawyers. Those who are committed to it will not engage in unlawful action even if no court will be available to strike the action down, and even if there would be significant gains, including political gains, from undertaking the action. 

The Morality of Legality distinguishes nonauthoritarian from authoritarian systems, and it is a fundamental (and puzzlingly unrecognized) feature of the rule of law. In U.S. constitutional law, it can be taken to be codified in the Take Care Clause. Those who are committed to the Morality of Legality are willing to face "litigation risk" and to seek changes in existing law, even if those efforts are more likely than not to fail. The Morality of Legality is often felt as a matter of duty, rather than a product of some consequentialist calculation; but it is probably best justified on rule consequentialist grounds. 

By itself, the Morality of Legality is (mostly) agnostic on the allocation of interpretive authority as between the executive branch and the judiciary. Under emergency circumstances, very narrowly defined, the Morality of Legality might have to yield. The Morality of Legality might also be followed in other places, including of course legislatures and courts, and also private institutions.

Cass R. Sunstein, The Morality of Legality, SSRN (2025).

Facts About Donald Trump And His Administration

Some of the major themes of Trump 2.0's agenda are quite simply contrary to the law and Trump is just such as bad President and bad person.

* Opposition to the Israeli government's treatment of Palestinians is not antisemitic.

* The U.S. Supreme Court has specifically held for decades that antisemitic speech is protected the First Amendment. National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie, 432 U.S. 43 (1977).

* Equity and inclusion have been legally required in employment, at least since the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and in public education since Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954).

* Diversity achieved by breaking down barriers to employment and education for women, people of diverse sexual orientation, minorities, and people with disabilities is legal, and arguably mandated by U.S. Civil Rights laws.

* Diversity achieved by favorable treatment of women, people of diverse sexual orientation, minorities, and people with disabilities, relative to a meritocratic standard is legal to overcome past discrimination.

* No U.S. law is a valid basis for removing books and websites that laud the achievements of historical women, people of diverse sexual orientation, minorities, and people with disabilities, or depict these individuals in fiction. Indeed, multiple court cases applying existing U.S. law have held that this kind of censorship in public libraries is illegal, such as a recent case involving the Elizabeth school district in Colorado.

* None of the Trump 2.0's political appointments have been remotely meritocratic, contrary to his claim that he wants to end affirmative action.

* There is no legal basis for the U.S. federal government to prohibit educational institutions, public or private, at any legal, from teaching critical race theory.

* Discrimination against white, straight men in employment and education is modest at best, and mostly, non-existent.

* Discrimination against Christians in the U.S. is basically non-existent, and, instead, for the most part, the U.S. sees significant discrimination against non-Christians.

* Christian religious freedom is not a valid basis for discrimination against homosexuals and transgender people by organizations that are not religious organizations.

* All levels of government in the United States are strictly forbidden from supporting any particular religion, or religion at all, by the establishment clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

* It has been illegal since the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 for the President to refuse to spend Congressionally appropriated funds.

* Generally applicable rules and regulations of the Executive Branch of government in the United States can only be adopted after notice and hearing according to the procedures of the Administrative Procedure Act.

* Speech, legislative lobbying, and legal action against President Trump are protected by the First Amendment and it is illegal for President Trump to retaliate against law firms and individual for doing so.

* Federal employees who are not political employees or lawyers cannot legally be fired by the President without good cause.

* The President has no constitutional authority over employees of Congress or the judicial branch or employees of non-profit corporations formed by the U.S. government, and has only the authority granted to him by federal statutes to do so.

* The President has absolutely no legal authority to defy a court order, even if the legal basis for issuing that order was incorrect and it is later overturned on appeal. Despite this, President Trump has intentionally defied court orders more than once in his first four months in office.

* The U.S. Constitution requires the directors of federal agencies to be nominated by the President and approved by the U.S. Senate, or, when a Congressionally approved law provides otherwise, by a federal judge or a U.S. Senate approved officer of the United States.

* It is illegal for the President to use his office to promote a private business in his official capacity.

* The U.S. Constitution expressly prohibits federal employees, including the President, from receiving gifts or other private benefits from holding a public office without Congressional approval on a case by case basis.

* The international war crime of "aggression" prohibits the U.S. from invading Canada, Greenland, or Panama at this time.

* White South Africans are not facing genocide in South Africa and do not meet the legal criteria to be classified as refugees. The claims that White South Africans are been systemically murdered on account of their identity in South Africa are not true, and the most compelling pieces of evidence the President Trump presented in support of that claim in a White House meeting with the President of South Africa were actually evidence of mass killings of black women in the Democratic Republic of Congo and evidence of symbolic political protests in South Africa in which no one was physically harmed.

* Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland resident who was wrongfully deported to El Salvador, is not a gang members and evidence relied upon by President Trump to support that claim was photoshopped onto a picture of Mr. Garcia.

* The Alien Enemies Act relied upon President Trump for man deportations is not a valid legal basis to deport anyone because the U.S. is not experiencing an invasion within the meaning of the act as President Trump claims, as multiple judges, some appointed by President Trump himself have held, and as an investigation by U.S. government intelligence agencies that he commissioned established.

* The Alien Enemies Act does not legally authorize deportation without due process.

* Only Congress may authorize the suspension of the right to seek a writ of habeas corpus, and only in places where the federal courts are unable to operate. See Ex parte Milligan, 71 U.S. (4 Wall.) 2 (1866).

* A core principle of federal law is that every person, whether or not that person is a U.S. citizen, and whether or not that person is a criminal or terrorist, is entitled to due process before being detained or deported.

* It is a core principle of U.S. constitutional law that every person born in a U.S. state, who does not have diplomatic immunity at the time, is a U.S. citizen. This includes the children of illegal immigrants. No U.S. court has ever ruled to the contrary since the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which gave rise to this right, was adopted.

* It is illegal for the President to fire members of an independent agency board without cause. Humphrey's Executor v. United States, 295 U.S. 602 (1935), was a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States that ruled that the U.S. Constitution allows the U.S. Congress to enact laws limiting the ability of the President of the United States to fire the executive officials of an independent agency that is quasi-legislative or quasi-judicial in nature.

* The President's authority to unilaterally impose tariffs without an act of Congress doing so is very doubtful, and mere trade deficits with a country are not a valid legal basis for doing so.

* The President has a legal duty to faithfully execute the U.S. Constitution and the laws of the United States.

* Every public official in the United States has a sworn duty to uphold the U.S. Constitution.

* The fact that the President has been held to have immunity from criminal and civil liability for his official acts does not mean that the President is legally entitled to violate the law, it just limited the legal remedies that are available when he does.

* The fact that the President has been held to have immunity from criminal and civil liability for his official acts does not mean that the President's subordinates charged with carrying out the President's orders also have immunity from criminal and civil liability for their official acts, if they are not judges or prosecutors and the claims are related to their participation in the legal process.

* Trump admitted on TV shortly after he announced tariffs to helping his billionaire friends engaged in insider trading on his tariff news. Many members of his administration and many Republicans in Congress have engaged in insider trading.

* Trump has sold access to the White House to mostly foreign investors in a meme coin he introduced after taking office for a second time. The coin has funneled hundreds of millions of dollars to Trump, enriched rich foreign investors, and produces big losses for almost all ordinary investors in the meme coin.

* Trump had basically a commercial for Tesla cars on the White House lawn after Elon Musk's political involvement (an advisor of the President so close that he has been called the co-President) with Trump and Nazi and far right, and Trump has quashed about a dozen federal investigations of Musk's companies, awarded Musk's companies many billions of dollars of government contracts without the usual government bidding process, and has insisted that countries do business with Musk's companies in trade negotiations.

* Members of Congress have an express legal right to inspect immigration detention facilities without notice even if the President orders the officials there not to allow them to do so.

* The President does not have the legal authority to revoke a non-profit organization's tax exemption without good cause, and may not do so for legally authorized good cause specific to eligibility to receive non-profit status for reasons not specific to eligibility for non-profit status under the Internal Revenue Code.

* The President does not have the legal authority to deny a higher educational institution the right to admit and teach international students entitled to student visas under the Immigration And Nationality Act without good cause specifically set forth in the Immigration and Nationality Act that is specific to eligibility to do so under the INA.

* The President does not have the legal authority to revoke a student visa, or any other person's immigration status, based upon the lawful free speech.

* It is a crime for IRS officials to share confidential tax information with the government to enforce non-criminal laws.

* It is a crime to use military personnel to enforce the laws within the United States. The law that says so is called the Posse Comitatus Act.

* The President does not have the legal right to blacklist a news reporting agency because he doesn't agree with the views expressed by that agency.

* Donald Trump is a convicted felon.

* Donald Trump is a legally adjudicated rapist.

* Donald Trump has been found repeatedly by the courts to have engaged in fraud, defamatory conduct, and illegal racial discrimination.

* Donald Trump is wealthy in large part because he inherited a large sum of money from his father.

* Six companies, including casinos, that Trump has owned have filed for bankruptcy.

* Trump's University had to settle a civil case against it for fraud for a large sum of money for fraud that Trump personally participated in.

* Trump's main business organization and one of its main executives were criminally convicted of tax fraud in New York during the most recent Presidential campaign.

* Trump and organizations he is affiliated with are notorious for not paying their bills when due. He is also notorious for not paying his lawyer's bills.

* Donald Trump has multiple multi-million dollar money judgments from courts that are currently enforceable outstanding against him.

* Donald Trump and his current wife have both acted in pornographic films. His current wife's primary employment prior to meeting Donald Trump was as an actress in pornographic films and her visa was obtained in the "genius" category despite the fact that she had no other meaningful professional or educational expertise, and she was not even a particularly success porn star.

* While they are not legally separated, Trump is de facto mostly separated from his wife and is notorious for subtly disrespecting her in public settings.

* Donald Trump paid $100,000 in hush money in an attempt to silence a prostitute he hired and then misreported it on financial statements.

* Donald Trump has repeatedly engaged in adultery during each of his many marriages.

* Donald Trump has publicly stated that he doesn't know if he has a legal duty to obey the U.S. Constitution despite twice swearing oaths to uphold it as President of the United States.

* Donald Trump is legally prohibited from operating any business or charity in the State of New York as a result of separate business and charitable fraud cases.

* Donald Trump was legally found by a Colorado trial court, in a decision whose factual determinations were affirmed by the Colorado Supreme Court, and which were not found to be incorrect on the merits by the U.S. Supreme Court, to have engaged in an insurrection against the United States that would bar him from holding federal office. The U.S. Supreme Court overruled the decision of the Colorado Supreme Court only on the ground that the provision of the 14th Amendment which bars people who have engaged in insurrections against the United States from holding federal office is not self-executing and must occur in Congressionally authorized legal proceeding (contrary to strong arguments from the language of the U.S. Constitution, the legislative history of the 14th Amendment, and past precedents applying that constitutional provision).

* There is no legal or constitutional way that President Trump can hold the office of President for a third-term.

* There was no credible evidence that President Trump won the Presidential election in 2020, many attorneys who brought claims challenging that election where sanctioned or disbarred for bringing groundless and frivolous claims, and at least one elections official in Colorado was convicted of multiple state election law crimes in an effort to create that impression. Fox News paid more than $800 million to settle defamation claims to that effect in a lawsuit filed by a voting machine maker on the brink of trial in connection with those claims and another very strong defamation claim against it from another voting machine maker is currently pending.

* In President Trump's first four months in office, approximately four dozen court rulings have held that one or more of his Executive Orders is illegal. No President in U.S. history has issued Executive Orders at such a high rate, or had such a large percentage of his Executive Orders held to be illegal.

* Trump has, in a conspiracy with his physicians, repeated made grossly false statements about his height and weight.

* Trump dodged the draft multiple times during the Vietnam War by procuring a false medical excuse claiming that he had "bone spurs" from a doctor that conspired with him to do so.

* Trump was a transfer student to Wharton Business school whose admission was obtained with donations to the college from his father. It is know for certain that he was not a top student as he has sometimes claimed as he was never on the honor roll. He has jealously kept his academic records from Wharton secret but one of his past professors there characterized him as one of the least academically competent students that he ever had.

* Trump's father was a Ku Klux Klan member and a Nazi supporter.

* Despite Trump's America First trade stance, almost all of the merchandise he sells in his various businesses and for his political campaigns is made outside the United States, mostly in China.

* Many members of Trump's family and some of Trump's businesses have been greatly enriched personally in one-sides transactions meant to curry political favor with him.

* Trump was a close associate of Jeffrey Epstein, a famous procurer of child prostitutes for the rich and famous including British Prince Andrew, who died in prison after being convicted of related crimes, and Trump was a repeat visitor to Epstein's "sex island" and is shown in pictures surrounded by child prostitutes.

* Trump bragged in a recorded interview of sexually assaulting women.

* Trump has made sexually suggestive comments about his own daughters and was known to have abused his authority as a sponsor of beauty contests for minor girls to watch them undressed in the changing rooms associated with those contests.

* Trump on the campaign trail has mocked a disabled man for being disabled, denigrated veterans and prisoners of war (including Republican Senator John McCain) for being losers, and has encouraged people at his campaign rallies to use violence against hecklers at his rallies.

* Trump went out of his way, prior to being formally involved in politics, to denigrate five teenager who were wrongfully convicted of assault and rape of a jogger in a case occurring in Central Park in New York City in 1989, who were later exonerated by DNA evidence after serving prison terms (New York City later settled the civil case arising from the wrongful convictions for $41 million), and Trump stood by his actions (which may have contributed to their wrongful convictions) after the men were unequivocally exonerated.

* Despite being particularly popular with the Christian right to the point of being viewed as a messiah or saint by some, promoting bible sales to raise funds, and appointing an Evangelical Christian advisor, Trump is not at all religious and knows almost nothing about the Bible or Christian doctrine.

* Both Trump's FBI director and his attorney general in his current term were on the payroll of the Qatari government receiving large amounts of compensation from the Arab oil monarchy shortly before taking their current offices. The Qatari government recently gave Trump a $400 million jet liner for his personal use which his attorney general claimed did not violate constitutional or federal law limitations on receiving personal gifts from foreign governments. Trump's company has been pursuing a multi-billion dollar resort development project in Qatar at the time of this gift.

* No politician in U.S. history has ever publicly made false statements of fact at a rate as high as that of President Trump. Indeed, no one else even comes close.

* Vaccines do not cause autism.

* The measles vaccine is safe, effective, and the most effective way to prevent death or serious long term negative effects from measles.

* Trump's actions since he took office have significantly reduced the number of federal employees available to carry out air traffic control.

* Trump's actions since he took office have significantly reduced the number of federal employees and resources to predict the weather and response to weather related emergencies.

* No President in U.S. history has declined to provide emergency relief authorized by U.S. law to natural disaster victims at the rate that President Trump has in his second term.

* Trump has essentially dismantled federal enforcement of federal laws protecting the civil rights of women, racial minorities, homosexuals, and transgender individuals.

* No President in the history of the United States has made as many absurdly wrong statements of historical fact as Donald Trump (e.g., that there were air based during the American Revolution, or that the U.S. was an ally of the Roman Emperor, or that Mattel is a country).

* In his 2024 Presidential campaign, Donald Trump repeatedly made knowingly false claims that Haitian refugees in Ohio were stealing and eating cats and dogs, that that public schools were providing free sex change surgeries to transgender children at those schools.

* Many of the pardons issued by Trump have been to people who contributed to his political campaigns.

* Many of the people whom Trump pardoned for January 6, 2021 capitol riot charges have subsequently committed crimes in the four months since he pardoned them.

* President Trump has nominated a convicted felon, who is the father-in-law of one of his children, to be the U.S. ambassador to France.

* No President has had more subordinates and affiliates convicted of crimes than Donald Trump.

* No one other than Donald Trump has been impeached two separate times by the U.S. House of Representatives although neither of those impeachments were upheld by the required two-thirds majority of the U.S. Senate (in both cases the vote was largely on party lines, although a number of Republican Senators joined Democrats to convict in the second impeachment trial). In the second impeachment of Donald Trump, 57% of Senators voted to convict, the highest percentage other than the impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson in 1868 which failed to convict in the face of 35-19 votes to do so in the U.S. Senate when 36 voters were required to convict.

* Trump, in both his first and second terms, was the least popular President in the history of modern polling.

* Trump's anti-vaccination rhetoric, and pseudo-scientific medical claims about COVID-19, and his downplaying of the severity of the COVID-19 led to hundreds of thousands of preventable COVID-19 deaths in the U.S., primarily among elderly Republicans.

* Trump was indicted in four criminal cases which were still being tried during his 2024 Presidential campaign: a federal case arising from his involvement in the January 6, 2021 capitol riot, a federal case arising from his refusal to return top secret nuclear weapons information to the government that he was storing in a bathroom in his Florida resort, a Georgia case involving his illegal attempts to cause election officials there to engage in election fraud to elect him, and a New York State fraud case in which he was convicted of 34 felonies (but given no substantive criminal sentence in a sentencing hearing conducted after he was elected). The confidential records case was presided over by a federal judge he personally appointed in Florida, and dismissed on the legally dubious grounds that the special prosecutor statute was unconstitutional, with the case dismissed because Justice Department policy prohibits pressing criminal charges against a sitting President. The January 6 case was appealed on the grounds that he had absolute immunity from criminal charges for his official acts, which lower courts unanimously denied but the U.S. Supreme Court with had three justices he personally appointed who did not recuse themselves made the unprecedented decision over a strongly worded dissent that the President has absolute immunity from criminal prosecutions for his official acts. The charges in that cases were revised on remand to limit the case to Trump's unofficial acts (with considerable damning evidence revealed in a final report from the case) and then this federal case was dismissed because Trump was elected President and Justice Department policy is to not prosecute a sitting President.

* Trump routinely dresses inappropriately for state funerals and fell asleep in public during the funeral for Pope Francis.

Sanctioning And Preventing Federal Government Corruption

Emoluments And Other Standing Problems

The law is very clear. And, it is the highest possible law - a part of the United States Constitution. But, enforcing it, particularly in the case of a President who violates it, by any means short of an impeachment, which can be circumvented by 34 Senators of the President's political party, is another thing.

The U.S. Supreme Court's rules on standing to sue takes the position that you can't have standing to sue as a taxpayer, as a U.S. citizen, or as a voter, on a wrong that affects everyone in the same way.

The U.S. Supreme Court recently held that the President is immune from criminal liability for his official acts, no matter how egregious (in a stark deviation from the widespread understanding at the time it ruled this way), in addition to being immune from lawsuits seeking money damages for his official acts.

Justice Department policy, and the structure of the Executive Branch also prevent federal prosecutors from prosecuting a sitting President, and the President's authority over the Justice Department, together with his pardon power, allows the President to shield anyone he favors from federal criminal prosecutions.

The U.S. Supreme Court hasn't directly ruled on the issue, but at least one lower court (in the criminal case against Trump involving his refusal to turn over documents with government nuclear secrets which he kept in his residence after he left office and refused to return upon demand) has held that special prosecutor statutes are unconstitutional, in an extension of the (until recently fringe) "unitary executive theory."

The same problem does not arise to nearly the same extent in state government. Almost every U.S. state has an independently elected state attorney general who can prosecute misconduct in other parts of the state government, and the federal government can also step in to prosecute state and local government corruption and violations of civil rights as a federal offense. The subject-matter jurisdiction of state courts is also not subject to the same level of strict limitations as the federal courts are by Article III of the U.S. Constitution.

This problem isn't unique to the Emoluments clause either. It comes up frequently in Establishment clause violations of the First Amendment. It can come up when one part of the federal government illegally shares confidential information with another part of the federal government. It comes up when the executive branch spends federal government money without a Congressional appropriation to support it. It comes up when a President orders a violation of the Posse Comitatus Act and then pardons anyone who was involved in it. And, there are many other contexts where serious violations of the law within the executive branch have no viable remedy.

In some cases, an entire house of Congress can, by majority vote, authorize a lawsuit against the Executive Branch in federal court, but this is cumbersome and rendered frequently ineffectual by partisan politics. In some cases, a federal government chartered corporation, like the Public Broadcasting Corporation, can have independent standing to sue and by sued under a statutory grant of federal authority.

But, there is no systemic solution to this problem in existing federal law. Mostly, we just have to trust the President to do the right thing, but not all Presidents have earned this trust, and certainly, our current President has not. This is a glaring flaw in American Public Law.

Solutions

There are plausible solutions which could be imagined that would set aside the usual rules of standing on the grounds of necessity. We could grant the federal courts the authority to deputize a special prosecutor to pursue these issues. We could grant standing to pursue these issues to state attorneys-general. We could allow Congress to create an independent agency (perhaps one located in the judicial or the legislative branch with no Presidentially appointed directors or board members from an organizational chart and constitutional perspective) to pursue these claims. We could vest this authority in former U.S. Presidents who are still living, or the candidate that was the runner up in the last Presidential election.

Possible Constitutional Amendments

Perhaps we need an "anti-corruption" constitutional amendment, although conceptually, maybe this could be broken into several components. Consider this package to six constitutional amendments (and to be clear, some of those could also be accomplished without constitutional amendments):

Anti-Corruption And Standing Amendment

* Create an agency that has standing to take criminal, and civil legal action with national effect), to enforce federal law, to render advisory ethics opinions, and to protect the rule of law within the federal government (perhaps with a director appointed by a governing board made up of federal judges chosen at random),

* Prohibit federal elected officials from having a role in, or knowledge of, the management of private businesses or investments while in office,

* Prohibit self-dealing and conflicts of interest by federal officials including the President,

* Prohibit felons from serving as President unless that disability is removed by the same means as an insurrection disability is removed,

* Prohibit members of Congress from serving while serving a sentence for a felony,

* Authorize removal of members of Congress without being formally expelled from office by the House where someone is a member by the courts for various grounds established by law constituting good cause,

* Expressly authorize the appointment of special prosecutors by a three U.S. District Court judge panel, where the Justice Department is conflicted, or where the federal government fails to prosecute a crime when a preponderance of evidence, beyond mere probable cause, shows that it was committed by the proposed defendant,

* Authorize facial challenges to the constitutionality of legislation and regulations by the anti-corruption agency and by state attorneys-general, even in the absence of a case or controversy or other proof of standing,

* Create standing to enforce the establishment clause by any person who resides in, or is detained by, the territory of a government that is alleged to have violated it,

* Expand the scope of grounds for impeachment to include a willful and persistent failure to faithfully execute the laws in violation of one's oath of office, or a willful defiance of a court order.

* Try impeachments before a panel of judges rather than by the U.S. Senate,

* Prohibit judges appointed by a President from serving as a judge in any court proceeding in which the appointing President is a party in a non-official capacity (including any criminal prosecution),

* Mandate that Congress pass appropriate legislation to thwart judge shopping,

* Create binding ethics rules for the U.S. Supreme Court and lower courts that can be enforced without utilizing the impeachment power by state attorneys-general, but some minority percentage of Senators, or by an anti-corruption agency, and

* Provide additional remedies for courts when federal government officials disobey court orders (including the permanent removal of an official from office, and the appointment of a special master to carry out the duties of the defiant official).

Immunity Amendment

* Overrule the U.S. Supreme Court's recent Presidential immunity ruling creating blanket immunity from criminal prosecution for a President's official acts,

* Forfeit immunity from civil lawsuits for money damages for acts that an official has been legally adjudicated to have committed in a criminal case or civil proceeding,

* Allow immunity from civil or criminal liability for federal government officials exclusively when Congress authorizes it by law, including, but not limited to Presidential immunity and qualified immunity for law enforcement,

* Prohibit stripping all courts of the authority to consider any matter,

* Narrow the political questions doctrine, and

* Make clear that there is no immunity from contempt of court liability.

Anti-Tyranny Amendment

* Impose limitations on the prosecution of state and local government officials by federal officials while they are performing their official duties (perhaps limiting such prosecutions to the anti-corruption agency),

* Make the Posse Comitatus Act a matter of self-executing constitutional law and to allow its enforcement in civil actions as well as by criminal prosecutions,

* Provide a self-executing, federal, private cause of action for compensatory, economic and non-economic damages including litigation costs and attorneys fees and/or injunctive relief, for any deprivation of federal rights constitutional or statutory, under color of state or federal law, against the government under whose authority or actions or inactions the deprivation was made, on a strict liability basis without regard to the intent of the government or governmental agents or employees doing so, and with no form of immunity (in a matter akin to the takings clause),

* Provide an absolute right to have criminal convictions vacated upon a showing of actual innocence by a preponderance of the evidence,

* Create a right to counsel in deportation actions and to bring habeas corpus petitions,

* Remove the "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" (which applies only to a handful of children of diplomats anyway) and "Indians not taxed" provision (which was legislatively mooted in 1924) from the grant of birthright citizenship in the 14th Amendment,

* Prohibit criminal defamation laws,

* Prohibit laws barring travel from one state to another in order for the person doing so to avail themselves of another state's law,

* Prohibit laws barring interstate communications about a matter that is legal to communicate about in either state,

* Prohibit revocation of immigration status based upon speech which would be protected by the First Amendment for a U.S. citizen,

* Prohibit involuntary denaturalization under any circumstances (even in the naturalization was secured by fraud which could be prosecuted but could not result in loss of U.S. citizenship), and

* Expressly include the limitation on the suspension of habeas corpus to places where the federal courts are not open established by Ex Parte Milligan and to clarify that the writ of habeas corpus is available to person detained outside the territory of the United States by the federal government or its agents or contractors.

Election Law Amendment

* Make Section 3 of the 14th Amendment (the insurrection clause) self-executing in any local, state, or federal tribunal with jurisdiction over qualifications to hold public offices or elections for those offices,

* Create eligible voter standing to enforce election laws including campaign finance laws, and constitutional provisions related to elections in jurisdictions where the voter has a right to vote,

* Remove the authority of Congress to resolve disputes over the election or qualifications of their members or the validity of duly certified state elections for federal offices, vesting that authority, instead, in the courts,

* Invalidate all statutory confidentiality rights other than attorney-client privilege and religious confession privilege for anyone running for, or holding, a federal elective office,

* Remove the authority of state legislatures to appoint electors for the President by any means other than a vote of the people,

* Require federal elections be administered at the state and local level by officials who are not partisan elected officials or appointees of partisan elected officials,

* Authorize non-criminal remedies for false statements of presently existing facts, or false statements related to voting, made with actual malice, in connection with political speech, and

* Constitutionally overrule Citizens United which constitutionally prohibits any rigorous campaign finance regulation.

Pardon Power Amendment

* Expressly prohibit the President from pardoning himself, or members of his family, or a President who appointed the current President to the office that put him in the line of succession to be President,

* Prohibit pardons from contempt of court sanctions whether civil or criminal, 

* Invalidate pardons for criminal conduct taken in reliance on a promise from the President that it would be pardoned, or issued in exchange for any consideration,

* Require notice of all pardons and commutation (other than a stay of execution) to be transmitted to Congress to be effective, and to subject them to a legislative veto in the same way as a veto override that must be acted upon with a certain period of time (perhaps 35 days) after it is transmitted to Congress.

Congressional Supremacy Amendment

* Clarify that Congress has plenary authority over the operations and organization of the Executive branch, and over how the President exercises his discretion in any matter whatsoever of which the constitution or statutes grants him authority, which the President has no authority to contradict,

* Require all Executive Orders purporting to impact anyone outside of the Executive branch of the federal government to be transmitted to Congress and paused until ratified by both houses of Congress, or until three weeks have elapsed, before taking effect, and to allow either house of Congress alone, by majority vote, to repeal any Executive Order,

* Legalize legislative veto legislation (retroactively),

* Confirm the authority of Congress to pass anti-impoundment legislation,

* Confirm the validity of civil service protections for public servants,

* Confirm the validity of government contracting rules established by Congress,

* Constitutionally disavow the "unitary executive" theory by expressly allowing Congress to create independent agencies whose directors, boards, and staff cannot be dismissed or directed by the President,

* Validate the constitutionality of laws such as the Administrative Procedures Act which governs how executive branch discretion may be exercised,

* Provide that Congress has the authority to waive any claim of executive privilege made by the President, and

* Constitutionally ratify the authority of Congress to pass legislation like the War Powers Act.

A Little Concern Trolling

I am not a conservative and disagree with almost all of the Republican agenda. 

But suppose that you disagree with me on that. You aren't troubled by income inequality. You think that globalism and international trade are bad. You think that abortion is murder. You think that it is appalling that more than ten million people are present in the United States in violation of U.S. immigration laws. You think that workplace safety regulations are too strict. You think that child labor is a good thing. You think that healthcare isn't a human right. You think it is too easy to immigrate to the U.S. You think that widespread civilian gun ownership is a good thing. You think that the death penalty should be vigorously, frequently, and promptly imposed. You think that harsh penalties for drug dealers and drug users is the solution to drug abuse. You think that family values are being threatened. You think that much of what colleges and universities do has little value and is indoctrinating young adults into liberal ideologies. You want to encourage people to be more religious. You think that taxing unearned income reduces economic growth. You think that the government should do more to encourage patriotism. You think that affirmative action policies are unjustly displacing large numbers of more qualified straight white men with women and minorities and gay people in selective colleges and in the workplace.

None of this implies that you need to conduct politics in the way that Donald Trump's MAGA movement does.

* You can advance your political agenda with laws adopted by Congress and regulations vetted through the Administrative Procedures Act, instead of unilateral Executive Orders that haven't been vetted to see if they are legal (or just if they make any sense).

* When you consider issuing Executive Orders, in addition to vetting them with legal counsel that displays some professional independence, you can confer with the people whom you appointed to positions relevant to those Executive Orders and ask for their input, before issuing them.

* You can nominate competent people who personal merit qualifies them to do the jobs for which they receive political appointments, even if you ultimately want to make big changes in the policies the agencies you are appointing them to, that you are legally obligated to carry out until the policies are changed.

* You can refrain from nominating people as political appointees when they are known to be, or have been credibly accused of being drunks, drug addicts, conspiracy theorists, liars, rapists, sexual harassers, Holocaust deniers, or otherwise lack good character.

* Your elected officials and political appointees can refrain from using public office for their personal benefit, and you can hold them accountable when they do try to receive personal benefit from their public offices.

* You can refrain from pardoning violent and serious criminals who are unreformed simply because they support you politically.

* You can refrain from using your public office to seek revenge and settle scores from your personal life.

* You can seek appropriations from Congress for the money to deport people who aren't lawfully in the U.S. in a manner that affords people you are seeking to deport due process in the course of determining if they are really deportable.

* You can obey court orders, and appeal them or change the law, if you disagree with them.

* You can refrain from creating doubt over whether you will obey court orders, or the law, or the U.S. Constitution.

* You can refrain from illegally impounding funds already appropriated by Congress and focus on having Congress refrain from making similar appropriations in future years.

* You can refrain from trying to arrest, deport, and baselessly prosecute people just because they are your political appointees.

* You can admit when you make a mistake and try to make it right when you do.

* You can deliver speeches and statements in expletive free complete sentences that aren't in all capital letters, and have correct spelling and punctuation and grammar.

* You can dress appropriately at state funerals, and can make an effort to not fall asleep in public when you attend them.

* You can refrain from posting whatever comes into your head on social media at three in the morning, without consulting any of your own advisors, when you hold high political office.

* You can refrain from making statements that you plan to violate the U.S. Constitution which you are sworn to uphold, for example, by ignoring constitutional term limits.

* You can refrain from saying things that you know to be untrue, and from saying that things are true when you have no idea whether or not they are true.

* You can refrain from making unprovoked threats to invade or annex some or all of the territory of sovereign countries.

* You can refrain from trying to ban books from university libraries and the Library of Congress.

* You can refrain from trying to fire federal employees you do not have the legal authority to fire.

* You can support people running for public office who have a basic grasp of geography, history, basic scientific concepts, and the U.S. Constitution.

* You can refrain from trying to deport legal immigrants because they don't share your political views.

* You can insist that your elected officials and political appointees are transparent about their personal financial interests, and, if you are running for President (or are the President), can disclose your tax returns.

* You can insist that all public officials, even the President, refrain from committing crimes and be held accountable if they commit them.

* You can refrain from challenging the validity of settled law.

* You can make a point of obeying the law in the course of your governance, even when there may be no one in a position to challenge you for not doing so in court because no one has standing to do so, or because no one knows that you broke the law.

* You can staff agencies at levels necessary for them to carry out their legal duties until such time as you secure changes in the law that change their legal duties.

* You could refrain from trying to undermine election results.

* You could condemn the use of violence as a political tactic.

These are not exactly big asks. They are really a bare minimum for any elected official of any political ideology. Before President Trump, almost all Republicans believed in  these points too. They don't prevent you from advancing your conservative political agenda. But this would make your movement more credible with decent people and would prevent the country from slipping into fascism and ending democracy.

The problem, of course, is that not doing these things is a big part of what makes Trump popular with his base, because a stunning share of Americans are perfectly happy to live in a fascist authoritarian dictatorship, as long as the dictator hates the same people that they hate.