President Trump Archives | Justin Stapley

Flashback: The Law and Order President?

This article was originally published in 2017 on my Millennial Federalist blog.

On August 25, 2017, President Trump issued a full pardon to Joe Arpaio, the controversial former Sheriff of Maricopa County. President Trump characterizes this action as embodying his promise to be the “Law and Order President.” The President not only granted Sheriff Arpaio a reprieve from prosecution for his alleged crimes but essentially endorsed the Sheriff’s behaviors by saying such things as:

“Sheriff Joe is a patriot.”
“Sheriff Joe protected our borders.”
“Sheriff Joe is a great law enforcement person.”
“He’s done a great job for the people of Arizona.”

This action stands in contrast to the characterization of President Trump as being the “Law and Order President.”

Law enforcement is a high mantle of responsibility. An officer is given the authority to temporarily suspend certain rights to investigate a crime. An officer can entirely suspend even more rights if it appears probable that the crime has occurred. It is therefore reasonable and just to expect officers to perform their duties within the realm of actual law as passed in legislation and as interpreted by the courts. This means that following the directive of the courts is not only a part of law enforcement; it constitutes a foundational principle for the legitimate exercise of enforcement authority.

Within this context, Sheriff Arpaio had made the reasonable determination that the state of Arizona and Maricopa County were facing unusual damage due to the Federal Government abdicating its responsibility to control our nation’s border. Based upon this determination, he and his counselors crafted policies designed to enforce immigration law despite the lack of Federal effort. While these are reasonable concerns, the actual policies they crafted and implemented were not deemed reasonable nor ethical by the courts. The courts then issued an order for Sheriff Arpaio to halt the implementation of such policies. Sheriff Arpaio disagreed with the court’s decision. He continued the policies, claiming it was his Constitutional right to do so as the elected Sheriff by the sovereign people of Maricopa County.

In doing so, Sheriff Arpaio violated his oath of office. He raised the middle finger to the judicial process, even flirting slightly with “sovereign citizen” mentality. Despite his claims, this anti-federalist and unconstitutional.

The courts determined that Sheriff Arpaio had enacted policies which directed sworn officers under his command to detain individuals and suspend their rights where there was no likelihood that a crime had been committed. They ordered Sheriff Arpaio to desist because he was using ethnicity and language as probable cause for arrest. The courts rightly pointed out that language and ethnicity are not proofs of citizenship. Therefore, language and ethnicity cannot be used as proofs for the lack of citizenship.

Refusing a lawful court order is the exact definition of contempt. This meant the courts and its officers had far more probable cause for charging Sheriff Arpaio then he ever had for arresting Hispanics in Maricopa County. Now, the actual elements of contempt and the nature of the situation, as well as Sheriff Arpaio’s advanced age, would have all been considerations moving forward in the appellate process. I would even argue there are sufficient grounds for repeal and possibly even retrial. But we’ll never know. The just and legal process for determining Sheriff Arpaio’s guilt has been thwarted by a Presidential pardon.

In my opinion, this pardon does not make President Trump the “Law and Order President”. In fact, it makes him the opposite. A “Law and Order President” would place a premium, above all other considerations, on the consideration of law and order. The law states the courts have the power to interpret the laws and the officers of the law must obey their decisions. Order dictates the process must be respected and justice must be given a chance to have its day.

President Trump could have allowed the process to proceed, allowed the courts, appellate courts, and possibly even the Supreme Court to hear the case and through just deliberation provide closure to the circumstances. If Arpaio was held guilty in the end, the President could have simply, and much less controversially, commuted Arpaio’s sentence, citing Sheriff Arpaio’s advanced age and years of service as grounds for the commuting. Instead of such a reasonable and equitable approach, the President offered a preemptive full pardon. This action aborted the entire appellate process. This course has provided grounds for just accusation that Sheriff Arpaio is indeed guilty of prejudice in his policies and that the President not only excuses his behavior but fully endorses it.

But, there is much more damning evidence that this is not an action a “Law and Order President” would take.

Beyond the foolishness of thwarting the process, it is even more incriminating that this pardon was clearly politically motivated (unless President Trump’s believers believe he would sign a pardon for a Sheriff held in contempt for continuing to enact “Sanctuary City” policies against a court order). A President cannot claim to be an advocate of law and order while thwarting the process of justice in order to toss red meat to his political followers. This is about a Presidential style of disruption and provocation. It has nothing to do with his respect for the rule of law.

Finally, many of Trump’s followers are making a stink about who appointed which judge. They are demonstrating a willingness to cry the demands of justice or turn a blind eye predicated on partisan loyalties. The words of John Adams, “We are a nation of laws, not men” are being turned upside down by President Trump. John Adams was a man of law and order and he saw to the fair trial of British Soldiers despite the mob calling for their blood. Trump and his followers would instead selectively apply laws upon men they deem their allies and those they deem their enemies.

President Trump is demonstrating he is quite the opposite of John Adams. He is far from the “Law and Order President” he claims to be.

Flash Back: Understanding Never Trump

This in-depth essay on the Never Trump movement was first published in 2016 on Justin Stapley’s first blog Never Tyranny.

There are fewer things that have been more misunderstood in the discussion of the unusual 2016 election cycle than the Never Trump movement. Even those who claimed to be a part of the movement either don’t fully understand it or used it as a vessel for venting frustrations instead of as an apparatus for unity in the face of the Trump candidacy. An explanation of the movement’s genesis, its continued endurance, and its relevance may help clear the mists of rhetoric.

One of the most significant failures of those who derided the Never Trump movement was their inability to see outside the prism of identity and resentment politics. Because modern politics too often teaches activists to hitch their wagons to individuals and to identify their stances, not with enduring principles, but with transient characters of charisma, it is difficult for many to comprehend a position which stood independent of such concerns. A large number of the arguments that were used in an attempt to bully and coerce Never Trump conservatives to fall in line behind Donald Trump failed to do so, primarily due to this political disconnect.

To understand Never Trump is to understand the difference between identity politics and principled politics and the contrast between being reactionary and being conservative.

Conservatives who considered themselves Never Trump were assaulted consistently with accusations of being sore losers, country-club activists, the resentful “establishment,” and even traitors and Islamists for “enabling” Hillary Clinton a near victory by refusing to vote for Trump. To understand why these attacks did not affect Never Trump conservatives is to realize they are operating on a different plane of political thought.

Despite what many pundits suggested, Never Trump was a loose collection of various fiscal conservatives, social conservatives, constitutionalists, foreign policy hawks, and libertarians. Their beliefs and principles did not exist in a vacuum but existed, often intensely, previous to the 2016 election cycle and continue to this day. Their views are personal ideological determinations that were often reached after intense self-introspection and earnest soul searching. For many of them, their principles are synonymous with the heart and soul of their political activism. To many of them, voting is a sacred responsibility that constitutes an effective self-endorsement of a candidate and his policies. In reality, they were Never Trump before the term was invented because their stances and positions did not match his reactionary rhetoric.

Because Never Trump conservatives viewed politics through the prism of self-determined principles instead of identity politics and because they viewed their opposition in terms of ideological disagreement instead of partisan fealty, they were less concerned with “handing the election to Hillary” as they were with the survival of the principles, policies, and ideas they believe will actually save the country. In their estimation, allowing Donald Trump to carry the banner of Republicanism without clear objection to his demeanor, tactics, and policies is a concession that will have resounding consequences and make it nearly impossible to communicate their positions effectively in the future without being tainted by hypocrisy.

Certain pundits, such as Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, know enough about the complexities of the various wings of the Republican Party that they probably recognized this inconvenient truth. That is why they adopted the tactics of the left, which they have attacked for so long, and sought to marginalize, categorize, and trivialize the Never Trump movement. By willfully ignoring the multiplicities of the Never Trump movement and merely labeling them as the newest manifestation of the hated “establishment,” they sought to trivialize the movement while also adding fuel to the flames of resentment politics which propelled Trump to pre-eminence in the first place.

Despite continued attempts to declare the Never Trump movement dead going back as far as early May, the movement endured (and many still call themselves Never Trump today). The reason for this is simple. Every time Trump spouted his inflammatory rhetoric, every time he declared something that flew in the face of constitutional principles, every time he pushed divisive beliefs, and every time his supporters presented a “with us or against us” ultimatum they only fueled the strength and conviction of the Never Trump conservatives because they witnessed first-hand the type of politics they do not want to be associated with their own beliefs.

One might ask if all of this is true then why do victories for the Never Trump movement seem to be so few and far between? Why did Trump get the nomination in the first place? Why is Republican Leadership far less concerned with the 16 million who voted against Trump than they are with the 14 million who voted for Trump? Why did Trump win the general election?

The answer to this is simple: the Never Trump movement lacked cohesion and faced an inability to coalesce around a single strategy to defeat Trump.

From the beginning, the loose collection of activists that we call Never Trump had been an uneasy alliance of disparate groups who, at best, agreed only on a nucleus of shared ideals. The threat of Trump was down-played for so long and organization against him required such different political affiliations to be created that active resistance fell short. These factors were compounded by the fact that the Never Trump movement gave in to the compulsion to communicate their opposition in terms of the identity and resentment politics which they were organizing to resist. All of these circumstances explain why the Never Trump movement was thwarted, why Trump came out of the primary season and the general election as a victor, and why Party Leadership and Radio pundits have chosen to ignore Never Trump as a disorganized non-threat.

But Never Trump didn’t go away. This is the truth that Trump’s supporters, Trump’s enablers, and Trump himself refuse to see…in many ways, those who called themselves Never Trump are the future of the Conservative Movement. It is the inclusiveness, discourse, and cohesion against improbable odds that can create a political apparatus that will at last gain the ability to wage an effective insurgency against progressivism and socialism. It is a culture of freedom coalesced around a movement of hope that will save our country from ruin, not a culture of hatred and fear circled around the false promises of a single demagogue.

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The Same Old North Korea

President Trump is making a big mistake in thinking North Korea is behaving any differently than they always have.

North Korea’s goals for developing nuclear capabilities have been consistently three-fold: to provide a smokescreen for their human rights violations, to create leverage for pushing American interests off the peninsula, and to gain legitimacy in the international community by forcing recognized powers like the United States to deal with them face to face.

North Korea is voicing a willingness to suspend their nuclear program in exchange for summit meetings, the possibility of lifting sanctions solely based on nuclear detente with no mention of their human rights violations, and the possibility of American troops leaving the peninsula. This does not suggest anything other than that an American president has approached them with the willingness to give them what they have wanted all along.

The ultimate goal of Kim Jong Un remains the ultimate goal of his predecessors: to perpetuate their regime’s absolute dominance of the North Korean people and to set the stage for reunification with South Korea under their terms and their banner.

All the same reasons which made the Iran deal a horrible idea, all the same reasons which made the thawing of relations with Cuba an awful development, and all the same reasons which have made the general policies of appeasement devastatingly consequential mistakes also make the suddenly squishy relationship between Trump and North Korea a very horrible development.

I wish President Trump’s advisers could be more effective at carefully explaining to him that Kim Jong Un has offered nothing he has not offered before, though it appears unlikely Trump will listen to them regardless of the approach. The President will likely refuse to understand that a willingness to meet even a single North Korean demand without immense and verifiable action on behalf of Kim’s regime is tantamount to surrender. The President is determined to believe he’s making great strides towards ending the threat of a nuclear-armed North Korea, but the reality is that Kim Jong Un is playing him for a sucker.

Above all else, I wish President Trump’s supporters would speak up and not allow him to make the same mistake in North Korea that President Obama made in Iran.