Since coming to power in the context of his second term, Trump has tame his conservative policy by limiting certain rights as in the field of immigration or the press. This coupled to its massive use of decrees, a doubt creeps into a possible authoritarian tendency of the president.
Accumulation of anti-right decrees, threats of press censorship, questioning the right to immigration…. Trump multiplies scandals by carrying out a policy going more and more against civil rights and this, in a brutal way to govern more and more by itself using the presidential decrees, thus bypassing the congress. To this is added an ultra-conservative policy which goes against the law of minorities. Does Trump have an authoritarian trend?
The extreme use of decrees
According to the diplomatic world, authoritarianism is reflected in particular by the primacy of the executive and the restriction of civil and political rights.
Thus, we can emit here a parallel with the way in which Trump carries out his policy by improperly using presidential decrees (therefore primacy of executive power). In addition, through his decrees against immigration and his press censorship, he attacks fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution. In the space of only 6 months, Donald Trump would have signed 170 presidential decrees, therefore more than Biden between 2021 and 2024. By comparison, Obama had signed 17 during his first mandate and only 2 during his second mandate. We note that this is a peculiarity in Trump to write so many decrees in such a short time.
Thus, we notice that Trump massively governed alone by these decrees by making important decisions. It is good to recall that a presidential decree is a “text signed by the president by which he gives a series of directives for his government and federal agencies, asking them to undertake (or stop) certain actions” as RTBF reports. These presidential decrees do not require the approval of the congress and cannot be directly canceled by him but he can block them by holding back funds or taking measures which complicate their execution.
Decrees against rights guaranteed by the Constitution
In addition, issuing decrees is quite legal, it is also a delegation of legislative power towards executive power. However, it is its massive appeal and their content that is worrying. For example, Donald Trump has signed a decree that calls into question the right of asylum and the law that he finds “ridiculous”. However, we recall that on the 14the Amendment of the Constitution guarantees citizenship to any person born in the United States and affirms the need to guarantee the equal protection by law of all those who are on its territory.
This decree was to come into force on February 19, but it was suspended on January 23 for two weeks by a Washington Federal Judge. Subsequently, it was even suspended indefinitely throughout the territory, while the judges clearly defined it as unconstitutional, recalling that the modification of the Constitution was to go through the American Congress.
In addition, out of the 170 decrees issued, 140 concern immigration. Trump’s argument has always been his fight against illegal immigration. But this argument is questionable. Indeed, the refugees who had already received a security authorization beforehand and which were therefore completely legally to enter US territory, were refused this right.
However, the state of the detention centers where foreigners wait before being expelled from the country is worrying, leaving these populations to live in deplorable conditions. On this point, the NGO Human Rights Watch alerted: “ The American government maintains many people who have no danger to public security under conditions which affect their dignity and flout fundamental human rights ”.
The threatened press?
Since coming to power, Trump has been attacking the press more and more. For example, in the subjects concerning the defense, journalists will only have to report information approved by the Pentagon, even when this information is not classified. If journalists do not obey this rule (among others), they risk the revocation of their accreditation. It therefore goes against 1er Amendment to the United States Constitution which provides large protections for the press. We also did not forget his shock declaration of September 18: ” 97% of TVs are against me. They only make me a bad publicity, a bad press. They have a license and I may tell myself that we have to take away from them ”; Declaration which, for once, really calls into question freedom of expression.
In addition, now, the group of journalists who can follow the president as close as possible as in the Oval Office or on his plane will be open to new media that will be chosen by Trump in person, interfering in the press work.
But censorship does not only appear in the field of the press. Indeed, Trump has decided to ban a hundred keywords in research projects, at the risk of preventing some researchers from obtaining a study scholarship if they work on these prohibited subjects by Trump. Among these defended words, we note “woman”, “diversity”, “anti -racism”, “gender”, “climate change” …. The choice of these words reflecting Trump’s conservative policy. On this point, the historian Brian Sandberg reports to Amnesty International: “Today, I can no longer apply for American federal scholarships because my research is affecting the keywords prohibited.»
Force demonstrations that can be dangerous
Obviously, it is impossible not to mention the assault of the Capitol which had marked a real turning point at Trump and for the entire United States. It was in 2021, when Trump had lost the presidential elections against Joe Biden, that he had mobilized tens of thousands of supporters to act against this election, according to him, faked. It was then that the pro-Trump had invaded the Capitol in an insurrection that almost turned to the coup. On this point, moreover, Jack Smith, responsible for investigating this period revealed in a report that “the evidence was sufficient” for Trump to be condemned, if he had not been re -elected.
A few years later, returning to power, Trump goes even further by sending federal troops to Washington squarely, to “clean up” the city “gangrated by violent gangs”. Washington has also attacked Trump for the intrusion of the army, which, according to her, is similar to a “forced military occupation suffered which goes far beyond the powers of the president”.
