April 1, 2025
The antidemocratic insurance policies put in place after 9/11 have come dwelling to roost.
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President George W. Bush speaks on the Eisenhower Government Workplace Constructing in Washington, DC, in 2007.
(Saul Loeb / AFP by way of Getty Photographs)
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4 years in the past, I printed Delicate Instruments, a e book on the erosion of American democratic norms within the face of what got here to be often known as the World Battle on Terror. Each what had been accomplished within the identify of “nationwide safety” in response to the 9/11 assaults and the way it had been accomplished—via the prepared neglect of procedural integrity, the exploitation of all-too-flexible norms, a exceptional disregard for transparency, and a failure to name for accountability of any kind—left the nation extensive open to much more damaging future abuses of the rule of legislation.
And—lo and behold!—now, that future is all too distinctly right here. What occurred within the first quarter of this century is already being weaponized in a startling vogue within the second period of Donald Trump. In truth, the deluge of eye-opening, antidemocratic insurance policies that we’ve witnessed in simply the primary 50 days of his presidency needs to be thought of nothing in need of a perverse escalation of the current previous. Consider it, in reality, as—in case you don’t thoughts my inventing a phrase for this unusual second of ours—the “perversification” of Battle on Terror period legislation and coverage, which could as soon as have been laborious to think about on this nation.
Whereas there are already all too many examples of that very kind of perversification, let me simply deal with a number of that might show essential with regards to the way forward for our imperiled democracy.
Racism
Among the many quite a few antidemocratic traits of this century, state-sponsored racism has been a continuing concern. Of the numerous low factors within the response to 9/11, the unleashing of presidency insurance policies of racial and ethnic discrimination stands out. Fearing a follow-up assault, legislation enforcement focused Muslim Individuals, surveilling mosques and casting a startlingly extensive internet of suspicion with a sweeping disregard for civil liberties. That method was solely strengthened by the militarization of police forces nationwide within the identify of concentrating on Arabs and Muslims. In 2002, the federal government even launched the NSEERS program, a “Particular Registration” requirement mandating that each one males from an inventory of 24 Arab and Muslim international locations (in addition to North Korea) register and be fingerprinted. Within the phrases of the American Civil Liberties Union, this system amounted to “a discriminatory coverage that ran counter to the basic American values of equity and equal safety.”
A harmful template for discrimination based mostly on race, faith, or nationwide origin was thereby set in place. In his first time period in workplace, Donald Trump promptly doubled down on that Islamophobic pattern, regardless that his predecessor, Barack Obama, had revoked the registration requirement. By Government Order 13769, Trump approved a ban on the entry into the US of residents from seven Muslim international locations, an order that will be reined in considerably by the courts and eventually revoked by President Joe Biden.
Nor, in Trump’s first time period, was discrimination restricted to these from Arab and Muslim international locations. Because the Prices of Battle undertaking has identified, the Islamophobia of the conflict on terror years had set a racial-profiling precedent and instance for the extra broadly racist insurance policies of the primary Trump administration. “The exponential surveillance since 9/11 has additionally intensified the criminalization of marginalized and racialized teams…and has more and more focused protest actions similar to Black Lives Matter.” Sure, Trump did certainly go after Black Lives Matter protesters with a vengeance throughout his first time period, even unleashing armed federal brokers with out insignia to tear fuel, beat, and detain such protesters in Portland, Oregon.
Present Difficulty
Whereas Obama would finish the Particular Registration program and Biden would revoke the Muslim ban, no preventive measures had been undertaken to protect towards future racist insurance policies and, all too sadly, we see the outcomes of that immediately.
Trump 2.0 has already escalated discriminatory insurance policies, specializing in defending White males on the expense of individuals of colour and girls. In truth, his very first govt orders included a number of measures cracking down on asylum seekers and shutting off authorized avenues to citizenship, in addition to a brazen decree aimed toward eradicating variety, fairness, and inclusion (DEI) all through the nation. Government Order 14173 (“Ending Unlawful Discrimination and Restoring Benefit-Based mostly Alternative”) was issued on January 21, 2025, the very day he took workplace. It ordered organizations and entities—from authorities places of work and the US navy to varsities, companies, and extra—to finish their DEI insurance policies “inside 120 days” or danger shedding authorities funding.
Just lately, making good on its threats, the Trump administration canceled $400 million of federal funding within the type of grants and contracts to Columbia College as an indication of disapproval of that college’s supposed tolerance of pro-Palestinian protests, “described,” as Nationwide Public Radio reported, “as the college’s failure to police antisemitism on campus.” 9 different universities are believed to be beneath comparable scrutiny.
In the meantime, in accordance with The New York Occasions, Trump is planning to difficulty a brand new journey ban, together with a “pink record” of nations whose residents shall be prohibited from coming into the US and an “orange record” of these whose residents would, in some vogue, be curtailed if not fully barred from entry. As but, the specifics stay unknown.
In different phrases, the discrimination enshrined by federal authorities in legislation and coverage after 9/11 opened the way in which for a much more widespread governmental embrace of racial and ethnic discrimination now underway.
Disappearing the File
Secrecy was likewise baked into the federal government’s response to the conflict on terror, usually to maintain what would have been apparent abuses of the legislation effectively hidden. Whether or not it was using “enhanced interrogation methods”—the phrase employed by the administration of George W. Bush for acts of simple torture—or mass surveillance, the authorization for the focused killing of an American citizen or the implementation of different insurance policies that deviated from accepted legislation and apply, all of that and extra was initially saved effectively hidden from the American public.
Now, many have described the brazen upheavals decreed by the Trump administration as being the very reverse of secrecy—as, in reality, “saying the quiet half out loud.” In actuality, nevertheless, in these first days of his second time period in workplace, Trump and crew have taken secrecy to a brand new degree, changing it with a broad coverage of erasure and invisibility. In truth, regardless of the administration’s pledge of “radical transparency” in areas like spending, a hostile onslaught towards the written report has prevailed.
This dedication to bury the report was obvious through the first Trump administration. He repeatedly asserted his proper, for example, to not doc his conferences with Russian chief Vladimir Putin. In 2017, he reportedly confiscated notes that had been taken at a gathering with Putin. In 2019, on the G-20 in Buenos Aires, he met Putin with out both a translator or a note-taker current. The Washington Publish reported that “U.S. officers stated there is no such thing as a detailed report, even in categorised recordsdata, of Trump’s face-to-face interactions with the Russian chief at 5 places over the previous two years.” In different phrases, on a matter of prime nationwide safety concern—US-Russian relations—a “cone of seclusion” was created, successfully leaving it to the 2 presidents to make selections in secret. (In the meantime, in his first time period in workplace, Trump allegedly flushed down the bathroom sure information related to the categorised paperwork case towards him.)
In his onslaught towards record-keeping and the general public’s proper to know, the Nationwide Archives has change into a primary goal. Trump’s battle with the Archives had its origins in his authorized battle over the categorised paperwork he was alleged to have saved in his possession in violation of the legislation after his first administration, even supposedly destroying safety digicam footage taken at Mar-a-Lago that confirmed packing containers of these paperwork being moved. Now, the president has fired the United States archivist, changing knowledgeable tutorial with Marco Rubio, regardless of his duties as secretary of state.
His outright refusal to maintain a report of his administration’s actions can also be mirrored in his insistence that the information of the Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE) fall beneath the Presidential Information Act, which applies to the information of the president and vp, and which comes with the assure that they are often withheld from the general public for as much as 12 years after he leaves workplace. The act additionally permits for the disposal of information, pending the approval of the nationwide archivist.
In an additional instance of denying data as a type of politics, Trump’s Workplace of Skilled Administration ordered the removing of gender-related content material from its web sites (in addition to the erasure of gender-identifying pronouns from e-mail signatures and an finish to all gender-related packages and grants). This led to the removing of pages from the Census.gov web site, in addition to from the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention and navy web sites, and the alternative of the acronym LGBTQ+ with LGB. Underneath courtroom order, a few of these webpages have been put again up, even when with this defiant observe:
Any data on this web page selling gender ideology is extraordinarily inaccurate and disconnected from the immutable organic actuality that there are two sexes, female and male. The Trump Administration rejects gender ideology and condemns the harms it causes to youngsters, by selling their chemical and surgical mutilation, and to ladies, by depriving them of their dignity, security, well-being, and alternatives. This web page doesn’t replicate organic actuality and subsequently the Administration and this Division rejects it.
In different phrases, the Trump administration’s claims of legitimacy for its purge of knowledge stay robust. The legacy of state-sanctioned secrecy and a parallel burying of the report, inextricably tied to the post-9/11 period, has already discovered a safe footing within the second Trump presidency.
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Undermining the Courts and the Legislation
Repeatedly within the conflict on terror, the Division of Justice and the courts deferred to the federal authorities within the identify of nationwide safety. As a 2021 Brennan Heart report famous, nationwide safety deference was obvious in selections to not hear instances on account of “states secret” claims, in addition to in selections that prioritized over civil-liberties ensures and human-rights concerns what authorities legal professionals argued had been the constitutionally granted powers of the president in nationwide safety issues.
Underneath Trump, the second time round, it’s already clear that there’s going to be a full-scale assault on the legitimacy of the authorized system. Witness the administration’s assaults on judges whose selections have gotten in the way in which of his agenda. When a choose ordered the restoration of public well being knowledge that had been faraway from authorities web sites, he was summarily castigated by Elon Musk as “evil” and somebody who “have to be fired.” In the meantime, the Division of Justice has already moved to squelch impartial decision-making by immigration courtroom judges, threatening them with nothing in need of dismissal ought to they rule towards the president’s prerogatives.
Then there are the assaults on legislation companies which have opposed Trump. Just lately, for example, safety clearances had been eliminated for legal professionals on the legislation companies of Perkins Coie, which represented Hillary Clinton’s marketing campaign within the 2016 election, and Covington Burleigh, which represented Jack Smith, who investigated Trump within the Biden years. Attorneys from these companies had been additionally banned from federal buildings. And don’t neglect the all-out try and go after officers who investigated and prosecuted January sixth instances.
The thought of an impartial Justice Division has been severely broken, with the promise of a lot extra to return.
Evading Accountability
Most of the time, the numerous transformations of legislation and coverage that grew out of the response to 9/11 had been relegated to the pages of historical past with little or no accountability. The Senate, beneath Senator Diane Feinstein’s management, did produce a report on the CIA’s use of torture. It detailed despicable acts of cruelty and finally concluded that such methods, decreed to be authorized by the Division of Justice, had been “not an efficient technique of buying intelligence or gaining cooperation from detainees.” And instantly upon taking workplace in 2009, President Barack Obama issued an govt order formally ending using torture. However he was decidedly towards holding any officers accountable for what had occurred, preferring, as he so memorably put it, to “look ahead, not backward.” As well as, Obama refused to name torture a “crime,” labeling it a mistake as a substitute.
Common
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Immediately, in additional mundane issues, the distaste for accountability has been institutionalized all through the federal government. In his first time period in workplace, Donald Trump dismissed or changed 5 inspectors normal, officers assigned to departments all through the manager department of presidency to watch waste, abuse, and fraud. Nearly instantly upon taking workplace this time round, he dismissed “roughly 17” of them. For the second, Elon Musk’s Division of Authorities Effectivity, or DOGE, which, from its creation, by no means included an inspector-general place, is now beneath evaluation by the Division of Treasury’s inspector normal.
Trump’s aversion to accountability clearly displays a want to guard his personal efforts to completely management govt coverage. It ought to, nevertheless, additionally function a hanging reminder of the aversion to accountability that adopted the legalization and makes use of of torture within the post-9/11 years, the fabricated determination to go to conflict in Iraq, the mass surveillance of Individuals in that period, and a lot extra. All of this set in place a grim template for the second Trump period—the notion that nobody is finally accountable for abusing the legislation when their actions have been ordered (or just accepted) by the president.
Classes (Un)discovered
Given the magnitude of the latest antidemocratic actions by Donald Trump and his staff, blaming them on the slippery slope created through the conflict on terror years might appear to be a definite overreach. But, given the damaging excesses we’re now witnessing, it’s value remembering simply how susceptible the lack of sure norms of legality and accountability in these years left this nation—and the way sadly little we appear to have discovered from that period.
Racism, an absence of deference for the courts, the failure to carry people and organizations accountable for informally rewriting the nation’s legal guidelines, the pervasive embrace of secrecy, and an unwillingness to erect strict guardrails to forestall the longer term manipulation of each legal guidelines and norms—all these realities of the conflict on terror years created a distinctly undemocratic template, nevertheless totally different in scale, for this Trumpian second of ours. An unwillingness to be accountable or to bypass secrecy through the conflict on terror led the nation straight into immediately’s quagmire.
Immediately’s horrific second ought to, in reality, be thought of—to return to that phrase of mine one final time—a real perversification of previous misdeeds, made all too attainable by a failure within the post-9/11 years to take measures to forestall their recurrence.
Karen J. Greenberg
Karen J. Greenberg is director of the Heart on Nationwide Safety at Fordham Legislation Faculty. She is the creator of The Least Worst Place: Guantanamo’s First 100 Days, Rogue Justice: The Making of the Safety State, and most just lately, Delicate Instruments: The Dismantling of American Democracy from the Battle on Terror to Donald Trump.
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