• Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    18
    ·
    edit-2
    11 hours ago

    “Effectively, what he’s saying is that even though there’s a guarantee of birthright citizenship,” explains Evan Bernick, an assistant professor of law at Northern Illinois University and co-author of The Original Meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment: Its Letter and Spirit, “the president can kind of turn it off by declaring an invasion and try to remove whoever he says is invading…It’s not even a loophole, it swallows the entire guarantee.” The fact that Trump referred to a foreign invasion in his campaign video, he adds, suggests they might be anticipating litigation and trying to “boost as much as possible their very minimal odds.”

    This is an extraordinarily dangerous approach. He’ll basically be declaring them to be enemy combatants. That means he can involve the military. That means he can declare protesters to be giving “aid and comfort” to enemies, and charge them with treason.

    • satanmat@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      14
      ·
      14 hours ago

      Gosh… an unfettered imperial presidency using a pretext to revoke a person’s citizenship…

      So anyone who ever donated to … oh say… not him, could suddenly be stateless?

      I’m sure I’m over reacting, and I don’t want to “slippery slope “ but isn’t that a reasonable reading of his statement?

  • mindbleach
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    10
    ·
    edit-2
    14 hours ago

    TLDR, fascists are gonna make shit up to do exactly what you think fascists do.

    The details don’t really matter. Stop giving yourself reasons to say ‘but he can’t do that!’ and internalize that words aren’t what will stop him.

  • droporain@lemmynsfw.com
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    2
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    12 hours ago

    Sure would be funny if all the born here brown people who voted for trump found themselves in a train or a camp go leopard party! But honestly I can’t think of a more unAmerica idea.