'Wartime president': Conservative details ways Trump is 'at war with half of America'

22 January

Although Donald Trump has only been back in the White House a few days, his second presidency has already generated a great deal of controversy — from pardoning more than 1500 January 6 rioters to issuing an executive order calling for an end to birthright citizenship (which, the ACLU says, he doesn't have the authority to do because birthright citizenship is protected in the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment).

In a column for The Bulwark, Never Trump conservative Jonathan V. Last lays out some reasons he considers Trump a "wartime president." But the president's primary target, Last stresses, isn't a foreign adversary.

"He can finally be a wartime president," Last argues. "It's just that he's going to war against America."

Trump, Last laments, "sees himself as being at war with half of America" — and he is expressing his "wartime" outlook by pardoning the January 6 rioters, fighting against birthright citizenship and proposing steep tariffs on U.S. trading partners.

"If he targets immigrants in blue states," Last warns, "he can create a drag on local, blue-state economies while satisfying the anti-immigrant desires of red-state voters. It's a twofer. Trump can hurt businesses and make life more expensive for consumers in New York and Illinois — and then attack blue state mayors and governors for these problems and maybe even help Republican candidates win in those states. Meanwhile, Fox will run B-roll from the raids on a loop, satisfying Trump voters in Texas and Arizona — whose economies will continue to benefit from immigrant workers."

The Never Trumper continues, "Trump understands that blue states are the last bastions of meaningful popular opposition to his rule, so he will use the federal government to subdue them. That's what deportations — and tariffs — are for. These are executive powers which can be used in highly-targeted ways to hurt on local economies. If you live in a blue state, President Trump is going to use the power of the federal government to make your life harder."

Trump, according to Last, "is governing not for all Americans…. but as an attack on the half of America that opposed him."

"I hope we can all be clear-eyed about this," Last writes. "Because being clear-eyed is about all we can do for the moment."

Jonathan V. Last's full column for The Bulwark is available at this link.

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