Trump's 'Constitutional dumpster dive' torn apart by comedian

U.S. President Donald Trump reacts as he participates in a signing ceremony in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., January 14, 2026. REUTERS Evelyn Hockst

Comedian and podcaster John Fugelsang says 228 years ago this week, President John Adams signed one of the great constitutional embarrassments in American history; the Alien and Sedition Acts. And today, President Donald Trump is “dumpster diving” through the Constitution to attack comedians and people who dare to laugh at him or disagree.

“You always know an authoritarian is terrified when they willfully confuse dissent with danger. But they’re not the same, folks,” said Fugelsang on his substack. “A peaceful protest isn’t America hate, a critical editorial isn’t assisting our enemies, and a comedian making fun of politicians isn’t the collapse of civilization.”

The Alien and Sedition Acts did four things. In addition to making it harder for immigrants to become citizens and letting the president deport non-citizens he calls “dangerous,” it also expanded wartime detention powers.

“And — this is the incredible one — they made it a crime to publish ‘false, scandalous and malicious’ criticism of the government,” added Fugelsang. “… Adams helped give us independence; then attempted to give himself independence from criticism. Imagine creating a law that says criticizing politicians is illegal. I mean, that could get the Stephen Colbert show cancelled.”

“It won’t shock you to know that the Sedition Act wasn’t applied equally,” Fugelsand said. “It overwhelmingly targeted editors and political opponents aligned with Thomas Jefferson; because ‘protecting democracy’ now meant persecuting the administration’s critics.”

This, said Fugelsang, was the first generation of Americans wasting “absolutely no time disappointing the second.”

It’s difficult to square Adams being one of America’s indispensable founders with the fact that he also signed one of the greatest assaults on free political speech in our early history, Fugelsang noted. But patriotism isn’t pretending great leaders never made terrible decisions. It’s learning from them.

“Of course, history is less of a teacher in the Age of Trump, and more like a deeply embarrassed parent,” he said. “… then Combover Caligula used your tax dollars to argue, in court, that street gangs operating within the U.S. are literally acting as extensions of a foreign government. … And so Trump used John Adams’ 200-year-old law as vulgar pretense to deport thousands, including legal asylum seekers, often violently, without the standard immigration court reviews. But the law was written for wartime spies. Not nannies and Uber drivers.”

But the good news is that more than two centuries later, nobody bought Adam’s argument, said Fugelsang.

“The public wasn’t fooled. Jefferson and Madison fought back, journalists kept publishing, and voters in the young Republic remembered,” said Fugelsang. “And in 1800, John Adams lost, having been handed a very clear performance review. And the lesson is true today. If you’re trying to keep power by attacking, suing or trying to silence people who criticize you, you probably shouldn’t keep power.”

“History doesn’t repeat itself,” Fugelsang said, “but bad politicians tend to plagiarize it.”

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