"President Donald Trump has spent a decade painting large swaths of the United States as a hellscape, dating back to his dark 2017 inaugural address and his demagogic 2016 campaign. But increasingly, he's upped the ante on trying to leverage that supposed hellscape. He's used it to float a crackdown on his political opponents and to justify deploying the military on US soil. The message is increasingly that things are so bad that you must give Trump more power to deal with it."
"There is a major problem with this, though. And that's that as with so many of Trump's claims he rests his case on a series of falsehoods and exaggerations. That doesn't mean there aren't real problems in our country, but they are not as Trump says they are. But Trump's moves to act on the picture he has painted has at least provided a valuable reality check. Repeatedly now, judges have said Trump's proclaimed hellscape isn't reality."
President Donald Trump has portrayed large parts of the United States as a hellscape since his 2016 campaign and 2017 inaugural address. He has increasingly invoked that portrayal to justify crackdowns on political opponents and to deploy military and National Guard forces on US soil, arguing conditions require more executive power. Many of these claims rest on falsehoods and exaggerations, although real problems exist. Judges have provided a legal reality check, ruling against recent National Guard deployments to Chicago and Oregon. In Chicago, Trump likened the city to a warzone and federal authorities’ justification was rejected by a federal judge.
Read at www.mercurynews.com
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