There were many Americans who voted for Donald Trump hoping, thinking, choosing to believe that he didn’t mean all of the more “extreme things” he was saying.

Certainly you heard it from some of your own friends in the run-up to the election: “He’s just saying that to get his Party’s nomination” or, “he’s an entertainer, the other branches of government wouldn’t let him ever do those things” or, my favorite (I actually heard this from a group of seemingly well-informed women on a commuter train) “it’s not like he could actually push ‘the button’ unless the military agreed….right?”

Right?

The first 30 days of the Trump Administration have clearly evidenced an intent to establish an authoritarian regime in the United States of America.

It is a presidency that defies any historical precedent. But it is something about which many of the Founding Fathers warned; including Alexander Hamilton.

It was Hamilton who warned in Federalist #68 that the day would come when the people would elect a despot. A despot who would enjoy, for a while, a far greater degree of popular support than he deserved.

The time has come, and that day is now.

Hamilton’s advice: “withstand.” Not the contemporary catchiness of “resist” or “rise up,” but the point is the same.

The last 30 days of watching Donald Trump’s performance in our Presidential Office has been — for many, not all — like watching someone desecrate the altar of our own house of worship.

His mastermind strategist — and now top advisor on national security — that white-supremacist-with-an-Irish-surname, Stephen Bannon, told a conservative gathering outside Washington: “the deconstruction of the ‘administrative state’ has begun.”

Note well: by ‘administrative state’ he means your federal government and the Constitution which We, the People, established to protect our freedoms and our children’s safer, better future (not that Bannon’s people were actually here when Hamilton et al. established it but hey — we’re all Americans now…)

Setting aside the raft of circumstantial evidence pointing to criminal campaign collusion with the Russian government, let’s just review three of the topline bottles of democracy poison that Mr. Trump has pulled so far from his “made in Croatia” liquor cabinet.

#1. The immigrant round-up has begun, and the stocks of the for-profit prison industry are soaring.

America already maintains the largest network of for-profit immigrant internment camps in the free world. And now, they are about to get bigger. “A military operation” is what our new commander-in-chief — whose sons, father, grandfathers, and himself never served in the military — calls it.
Photo by U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar

According to news reports (real news, not fake news) a church in Los Angeles is encouraging its members to construct secret apartments in their homes to hide immigrant families so they won’t be dragged away in the night, broken up, or deported back to the hands of drug gangs.

Fair play to a church who lives the gospel in times of political crisis. Perhaps the Pope in Rome can send testicular implants to the American Bishops of my own Catholic faith and then they’ll encourage all of us to do the same. It’d be a great way to teach the kids about Anne Frank, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Bishop Romero.

#2. The Muslim travel ban. Now some of us might be thinking, “all those places sound foreign and scary, so if it keeps one terrorist out, go for it.”

But here is the problem: as Americans, we pride ourselves on the freedom to come and go as we please wherever we please, at home or abroad.

You can say it’s just Muslims today, but history has taught us that if we don’t speak up, it will be other groups tomorrow — until they get to us.

Despots and authoritarian regimes close borders, limit travel, and build walls. See East Berlin, Russia, and Communist China.

Free people build bridges and understanding.

The ideals of the America Revolution are universal; and they travel as our people travel — including our Muslim American people. For the sake of our nation’s security, we better hope those ideals travel back and forth to Muslim countries.

When Mr. Trump asked the Department of Homeland Security for a memo to justify his ban on select Muslim countries, they told him there was no security rationale.

Good for them. Perhaps honest and patriotic civil servants will save our Republic.

# 3. The Free Press. Golly, it’s hard to pick between the undermining of judicial authority and the crackdown on our free press.

Every time I start to write about the crackdown on the free press, I think of what a tabloid entertainment disaster our press has made of our national politics. I think of how they lifted up Trump because he was good for ratings. I think about what a charade they made of our presidential primary debates. How gleefully they continue to kick aside any notion of equal time or fairness.

But Mr. Trump in month one has decided that the New York Times and CNN are fake news that must be denied access to White House press briefings.

It’s not his White House. It is ours. We make the rules in our House not him. And the rules in our House are called the Constitution — with all of its amendments — including the first one.

Thomas Jefferson said it best: “Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.”
Photo: NBC7 in Coronado Beach, CA

So, God love our very fallible free press, this is their moment for redemption. And without them, the judiciary doesn’t have a chance. If the press doesn’t protect the power of judicial review, printing Batman signs on those black robes won’t save them either.

So, national press corps one and all — even cable — rise up!

This guy is a menace to the Republic. Take him down just like you built him up.

The only silver lining at the start of this authoritarian regime is that it holds every promise of not lasting very long.

Finally, to those of you in the various intelligence services of our nation — CIA, FBI, NSA — thank you for your service to our country. The only reason I did not mention his despicable treatment of you directly is that I know you can take care of yourselves.

Better days are coming, America.

Hold strong.

Resist.

Rise Up.

And “withstand.”

- Martin O’Malley