Trump is ruling America like a petty, vindictive mob boss

Telegraph

22-07-2025

Is Donald Trump an American Hitler – or an American version of Lewis Carroll's Queen of Hearts? US District Judge Beryl Howell recently blocked an executive order by the President that targeted the Democratic-affiliated law firm of Perkins Coie. It would have banned its lawyers not only from doing business with the federal government, but even from entering federal buildings. Judge Howell observed: 'This may be amusing in 'Alice in Wonderland' where the Queen of Hearts yells, 'Off with their heads!' at annoying subjects … and announces a sentence before a verdict. But this cannot be the reality we are living under.'
Ever since the celebrity property developer descended the golden escalator in Trump Tower on June 16 2015 to announce his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, many have warned he would become a fascist dictator and predicted that he and his followers would replace democracy in America with an authoritarian police state. But the comparison between Trump and dictators like Mussolini and Stalin was always absurd. Unusual as he is compared to other American presidents, Trump resembles a figure familiar in American local politics in all regions of the country: the sleazy city mayor who, without using direct coercion, strong-arms others into doing his will.
Trump has yet to dissolve Congress with a whiff of grapeshot in the manner of Cromwell, or to send members of the opposition party, not just illegal immigrants, to the new 'Alligator Alcatraz' detention centre in Florida. The progressive Democrats and Never-Trump Republicans who think they live in Weimar America will continue to be disappointed when there is no Reichstag Fire or Enabling Act. At the same time, however, there are plenty of examples of Trump abusing his authority in petty and vindictive ways, to extort concessions, including cash, from rich and powerful institutions, or threatening to do so.
On Sunday, July 21, the President of the United States, who apparently has nothing more important to deal with, threatened to withhold approval for a new stadium deal for Washington's National Football League team. In 2022, under pressure from woke progressives, the team changed its name from the Washington Redskins to the Washington Commanders (wits at the time suggested that the Washington Red Tapes would have been more appropriate). Trump ran as a foe of political correctness, so there is nothing wrong with him scoring points with his supporters by expressing his preference for the old name, and also for the Cleveland Indians, now the Cleveland Guardians.
But Trump crossed a line when he announced on Truth Social, his personal social media site: 'I may put a restriction on them that if they don't change the name back to the original 'Washington Redskins,' and get rid of the ridiculous moniker, 'Washington Commanders,' I won't make a deal for them to build a Stadium in Washington.'
This kind of threat evokes crooked mayors, not fascist dictators, along the lines of: 'The city will be glad to grant the contract, if you do what I tell you to do.' And it is only a step removed from the more menacing deal offered by the local mafioso: 'Nice store you have there, it would be a pity if something happened to it.'
Unfortunately in the first half year of his second presidential term, Trump has made many offers that evidently couldn't be refused. Trump has sued major media corporations for negative coverage or alleged election bias. With the implicit loss of their broadcast licenses and other privileges held above their heads, ABC News, Paramount, the parent company of CBS News, Meta, and X (formerly Twitter) have all agreed to settle Trump's lawsuits against them, reportedly by donating up to $63 million combined to the nonprofit fund for Trump's future presidential library, according to a CBS News calculation.
Now Trump is suing the Wall Street Journal and its owner, Rupert Murdoch, for $20 billion, following the publication of a report that claimed he sent a bawdy birthday card to Jeffrey Epstein. He is even suing his own niece, Mary Trump, claiming she took part in an 'insidious plot' with the New York Times to report on his finances in 2018.
In addition to harassing his critics and squeezing money for his Pharaonic monument out of major American media companies, the Mayor of America has shaken down major law firms for 'voluntary' donations to causes he and his allies favour. In the spring, abusing another tool of the presidency – the executive order – Trump threatened penalties against a number of law firms that were known for helping Democrats or that employed lawyers who had been used against Trump in federal or state litigation during the Biden years. On March 20 Trump announced on Truth Social:
'Today, President Donald J Trump agreed to withdraw his March 14, 2025 Executive Order regarding the Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP law firm ('Paul, Weiss'), which has entered into the following agreement with the President:
…
Paul, Weiss will dedicate the equivalent of $40 million in pro bono legal services over the course of President Trump's term to support the Administration's initiatives, including: assisting our Nation's veterans, fairness in the Justice System, the President's Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, and other mutually agreed projects.'
To date, federal judges – including Judge Howell, the Lewis Carroll fan – have blocked the enforcement of Trump's executive orders against the law firms Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block, WilmerHale, and Susman Godfrey. In his opinion striking down the order against WilmerHale, Judge Richard Leon, who was appointed by Republican president George W Bush, wrote: 'The order shouts through a bullhorn: If you take on causes disfavoured by President Trump, you will be punished!' Leon concluded that to rule that Trump's executive order was constitutional 'would be unfaithful to the judgement and vision of the founding fathers!'
Undeterred by these legal setbacks, Trump has continued to do his imitation of the Queen of Hearts. Recently he has gone so far as to threaten to strip US citizenship from critics.
When he broke in public with his former ally Elon Musk, Trump said that he would 'have to take a look' at denaturalising Musk, an immigrant from South Africa. Trump, who for years spread the baseless rumour that Barack Obama was not a legal American citizen by birth, has also questioned whether Zohran Mamdani, the Ugandan-born socialist who won the Democratic mayoral primary election, should be deported. 'A lot of people are saying he's here illegally,' Trump said, and promised that the administration would 'look at everything'.
Then there's Rosie O'Donnell, a media celebrity with whom Trump has feuded in public for two decades. After O'Donnell declared that she had moved to Ireland and was seeking Irish citizenship to protest Trump's second election to the presidency, Trump told his followers via Truth Social:
'Because of the fact that Rosie O'Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship. She is a Threat to Humanity, and should remain in the wonderful Country of Ireland, if they want her. GOD BLESS AMERICA!'
Trump doesn't have to resemble Hitler for a statement by a president that an individual American citizen 'is not in the best interests of our Great Country' and is 'a Threat to Humanity' to be chilling.
In reality, the president of the United States under the American constitution does not have the power to strip any US citizen of citizenship. At the same time, of course, the president almost certainly does not have the power under the constitution to use executive orders to pressure law firms into paying for pro bono projects he favours, or to use lawsuits to raise money for his presidential library from media corporations. Nor is there any law that authorises the president to block a stadium deal for a National Football League team unless it adopts the name he prefers.
All of these petty, personal abuses of power fall in the crooked-mayor category, not the authoritarian dictator category. Genuine tyrants do not sue their critics, who are silenced by more effective methods. And the use of threats by officials at all levels and all branches to extort campaign donations or other favours from firms is as old as the American republic and not unknown in other democracies.
Even so, the plurality of the electorate who put Trump into the White House for a second time deserve better than this. They voted for a president – not a Queen of Hearts.