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The Pitch

The official student newspaper of Walter Johnson High School

The Pitch

The official student newspaper of Walter Johnson High School

The Pitch

Trump’s authoritarian behavior cannot be excused

Trumps+authoritarian+behavior+cannot+be+excused

Since Trump’s inauguration, sales of George Orwell’s classic dystopian novel 1984 shot up, with the book jumping to the top of Amazon’s best seller list and remaining there even now, a month after the inauguration.
It is not hard to see why people find the story and its themes of historical revisionism relevant to today, with Trump’s administration talking about “alternative facts” and outright lying about pretty much everything. The clear parallels between 1984’s censorship and manipulation of the public and Trump’s cries of “fake news” to describe any facts that portray him in a negative light make it seem more and more like Trump sees himself as more of an absolute monarch than a democratic president.
I’m sure we have all heard more than enough about Trump’s extremely controversial Muslim ban executive order. In case you haven’t, the order put a stop to any immigration from a list of specific Muslim-majority countries. This action was not surprising. Trump said he was going to enforce a Muslim ban throughout his entire presidential campaign. Also unsurprisingly, a federal judge almost immediately overturned the order, issuing a temporary stay on the immigration ban.
What was unusual, however, was Trump’s reaction to all of this. On February 4, he tweeted “What is our country coming to when a judge can halt a Homeland Security travel ban?”
Apparently, nobody told our president that the United States has three branches of government. Apparently, he has no idea what “checks and balances” are. Apparently, Donald Trump does not realize that he does not actually have absolute power.
That response is not the only recent occasion where Trump has sounded terrifyingly authoritarian.
Only a few days before, he fired acting Attorney General Sally Yates for refusing to defend the same executive order. Of course, it is his right to fire Obama’s administration and replace it with his own. The firing itself was not the problem. The controversial part was how Trump’s people explained it, describing Yates as having “betrayed” her department.
Is it now considered traitorous to dissent with the president? Just that one incident would be disturbing, but that attitude keeps showing up in how Trump deals with dissent.
It is impossible to even write about it, because every day the Trump administration says something else shocking and borderline fascist. By the time anything about it is published, the fact that Trump preemptively blamed terrorism on dissenting judges is old news, and the only thing people are talking about is how his spokesperson said Trump’s actions “will not be questioned.”
We cannot accept these authoritarian behaviors in our president. These incidents are extremely dangerous signs, and it is important to always remember: this is not normal. This is the behavior of a dictator. Trump’s actions should disturb all of us; just because we live in a “democratic country” doesn’t mean it could not happen here. If we don’t call it what it is, we just encourage it to happen more.

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About the Contributor
Yael Hanadari-Levy, Editor In Chief
This is senior Yael Hanadari-Levy’s second year working on the Pitch and first year as editor-in-chief. She doesn’t have any free time between school, her internship and the Pitch, but if she did she would probably spend it writing. Yael is an officer in the GSA and the WJ She’s The First chapter, and is a member of Feminism Club.
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Comments (8)

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  • A

    anonymousMar 27, 2017 at 10:35 am

    yea

    Reply
  • C

    Cranges McBasketballMar 24, 2017 at 7:59 am

    This is liberal, make it less biased.

    Reply
  • A

    ANONMar 23, 2017 at 11:36 am

    The pitch is very much biased and I hope we see some more conservative articles.

    Reply
  • A

    AnonymousMar 21, 2017 at 2:20 pm

    Just another left wing liberal article that goes out to destroy the current president just because their party didn’t win…sometimes I wish Maryland wasn’t such a one party state.

    Reply
  • J

    Jonathon elwigMar 9, 2017 at 11:59 am

    This is some lib. its a horrible extremely left article with no supporting facts

    Reply
  • A

    AnonymousMar 6, 2017 at 9:07 am

    I would also like to see a conservative opinion piece from the pitch one of these days. It would lend more credibility if there was more of a balance of opinions.

    Reply
  • A

    AnonymousMar 6, 2017 at 9:03 am

    Liberals said the same stuff under the Obama administration. Their were constant accusations that the Republicans were traitors for opposing Obama.

    Also, Trump has done nothing fascist. He has every right to fire people in his cabinet. Obama was the one who massively increased the power of executive orders, but when Republicans challenged him on that they were called traitors. Trump has every right to fire people in his cabinet, because it is allowed by the laws we passed democratically. Trump also isn’t banning Muslims. I do support the ban given that I think it won’t stop terrorism, however, the list of countries comes from the Obama administration and it doesn’t include the biggest Muslim countries in the world such as Indonesia or Pakistan. Trump also wants to arm the masses, which isn’t fascist at all.

    Conservatives were called racist for criticizing Obama. I will defend your right to criticize Trump to my death. I don’t even like Trump and I think he’s completely unqualified for the job and many of his policies will be very harmful to America. However, he’s not a fascist.

    Reply
    • A

      AnonymousMar 15, 2017 at 9:49 am

      typo in my comment

      I meant I don’t support the ban

      Reply