As Trump delivers a series of devastating and appalling executive orders and public pronouncements every day, it has never been more important to avoid being captured by his obscenity and focus on how the issues are interconnected.
It is easy to forget or sideline the executive orders of the previous week: bans on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs and discourse as well as “gender ideology” in all federally funded programing, as new obscenities flood the news cycle. Threats of deportation to international students who engage in legitimate protest; expansionist designs on Panama and Greenland and proposals to take over the total and forcible displacement of Palestinians in Gaza from their land are announced in quick succession. In each case, Trump makes the declaration as a show of power, testing to see whether it can take effect. The executive orders can be stopped by courts, but the deportation of immigrants has already begun, as has the re-opening of the grotesque camps of Guantánamo.
