If you’re wondering what the definition of an American is, it’s somebody who Donald Trump says is an American. At least that’s his newest dementia-fueled fantasy. Trump doesn’t like Rosie O’Donnell and the feeling is mutual. He issued a screed this morning saying that he was going to take away O’Donnell’s citizenship — which is not his to take away. But he believes he’s God and we know the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, so that’s the “authority” that Trump is proceeding on.
Trump has no legal right to revoke O’Donnell’s, or anybody’s citizenship. Yet. The way the GOP cosigns on his every mad whim, it would not surprise me if some insane bill allowing Trump to revoke citizenships might be proposed. I seriously don’t know how strange things can get in this country.
The kind of headlines that used to be the stuff of satire are now perfectly real and totally the norm nowadays. Rolling Stone:
To some extent, the irrepressibly catty president of the United States is just barfing his feelings onto the internet. It is highly unlikely O’Donnell will face the loss of her citizenship and basic rights, even during this exceedingly lawless administration. And yet Trump’s threat to a comedian he’s long despised is not happening in a vacuum, in the same way that his threat to criminally investigate Bruce Springsteen, because the rock star said something Trump didn’t like, comes as Trump’s government is, in fact, criminally investigating Trump’s enemies only because they made the president mad. These are all different words in the same sentence in the exact same authoritarian tome.
Trump’s Justice Department has explicitly stated how serious the administration is about prioritizing a large denaturalization push as part of Trump’s broader immigration crackdowns. Privately, Trump has repeatedly told lawyers and others in his second administration that when it comes to certain people he’d want to see lose their citizenship and then be shipped overseas for supposedly “national security” or “crime”-related reasons, he does not see a meaningful distinction between naturalized citizens and those who were born in the U.S.
And now, the president is openly telling a celebrity and political enemy that he is “serious” about taking away her American citizenship, merely because she has exercised her free speech rights.
In a saner time, that alone — even if no executive order or blatantly lawless action followed — would be a presidential scandal, revealing a commander in chief with nothing but contempt for the First Amendment, baseline constitutional values, and his own people.
Of course, Trump has hated O’Donnell for many years — and the feeling is mutual. O’Donnell moved to Ireland earlier this year after her Los Angeles home was destroyed by wildfires. She has said she would consider returning to the U.S. once “it is safe for all citizens to have equal rights there in America.”
I hope that day dawns. Every day I awaken I wonder how weird it will get that day and this is this morning’s Bizarro World headline.
He’s still allowing R.O. to live rent free in his demented bombranium. Priceless.