Trump's Executive Tantrums Are Damaging America

on Jan 28, 2025

SAN DIEGO -- My brain works in threes. So now that President Donald Trump is back in the White House, here's a trifecta of things I'm experiencing. As I watch Trump abuse executive power and weaponize the federal government, my head is spinning, my heart is breaking and my blood is boiling.

It's disturbing how many of Trump's recent actions, orders and threats have a racial or ethnic dimension to them. There is the assault on birthright citizenship, which will probably have a disproportionate impact on migrants from Latin America. Then came the rollback of programs fostering diversity, equity and inclusion, and the freezing of all Justice Department cases alleging civil rights violations. Then Mexican cartels were designated a terrorist group, and U.S. troops were sent to the U.S.-Mexico border to help the Border Patrol keep out immigrants. Trump even reached into the history books to rescind Executive Order 11246, which President Lyndon Johnson signed in 1965 to prevent racial discrimination by the federal government or businesses that get federal contracts.

Yeah, all that sounds about white.

Right-wing trolls will wrongly assume that the only reason that I'm upset about Trump's defacement of our country's laws and traditions is that I'm Mexican American.

Let's get something straight. It's true that Trump has always run afoul of my Mexican half. It started in June 2015 when the real estate mogul entered politics by labeling my Mexican grandfather -- who migrated to the United States legally more than 100 years ago -- a criminal, rapist and drug trafficker. But it's the American half that really takes offense at Trump's petulant tantrums and the executive actions, administrative retribution and policy changes they produce.

Put simply: If you love America, you should hate the way that Trump is spray-painting graffiti all over it.

We want our presidents to be strong, confident and bold. We count on those qualities to protect us in a world that gets more dangerous by the day. But with Trump 2.0 -- someone who has obviously been traumatized by the admittedly unfair treatment he has received from Democrats and the media -- those things are present at toxic levels.

As Americans, we also want our presidents to be humble, thoughtful and empathetic. Unfortunately, Trump is none of those things.

For me, the most essential job requirement for those who aspire to be president is perspective. Applicants need to understand how they measure up next to America. They're small and insignificant; America is grand and immense. If they don't get that, they ought not apply for the gig.

Those who do apply should think back to their eighth grade civics class and reacquaint themselves with the Preamble to the Constitution. It goes like this:

"We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

See there. The Framers wanted the Americans people to, at least now and then, experience "domestic tranquility."

Sadly, that phrase is not in Trump's vocabulary. With every threat he makes, every precedent he violates and every rhetorical grenade he tosses, America becomes less tranquil -- and more chaotic.

I'll be honest. As a journalist who is charged with chronicling these events, making sense of them and explaining them to others, I'm struggling. How? Here's another trifecta. I'm struggling to keep up with the dizzying flow of breaking news, to dig out the truth when it gets buried by politics and to maintain what a friend and fellow columnist admiringly calls my "even-keeled" approach to this work.

The first one, I would assume, all journalists are dealing with. The last one, I would argue, hardly any have to worry about since most put on their team jerseys and only tell you half the story -- the part that advances their narrative. It's the second one, about finding out what really happened, that can be maddening.

Before I can process an event, analyze it, scrub it with critical thinking, add a splash of commentary and serve it up to you in simple and clear language, I need to have a firm grasp on the original event. I have to know what happened, and what didn't happen. Just the facts, ma'am.

Unfortunately, it's been the collective experience of Americans that every time Trump steps into the White House, facts go out the window. And MAGA spin takes over.

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To find out more about Ruben Navarrette and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.