The Far Right's One True Plan

There's a simple reason why trump's lawyers couldn't answer this question about their fight over birthright citizenship before the Supreme Court (via Amanda Frost at the Atlantic (paywalled)):

Forty-six minutes into the Supreme Court’s oral argument in the birthright-citizenship litigation, Solicitor General D. John Sauer got a question he couldn’t answer. Arguing on behalf of the government, Sauer wants the Court to prohibit nationwide injunctions, allowing President Donald Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship—along with many of his other policies—to go into effect. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a Trump appointee, wanted to know how, exactly, the government would administer a rule denying citizenship to potentially hundreds of thousands of babies every year.

“On the day after it goes into effect,” Kavanaugh asked, “how’s it going to work—what do hospitals do with a newborn? What do states do with a newborn?”

“We don’t know,” Sauer candidly told the Court, saying that “federal officials will have to figure that out.” Later, he added, “Hopefully, they will do so.”

Really? With this one exchange, Sauer inadvertently revealed why nationwide injunctions are at times the only way to protect the public. The administration has no workable plan for its unconstitutional order, yet it wants to take away the best legal pathway for those affected to challenge the government’s action.

The Trump administration has had plenty of time to prepare for this moment. During his first administration, Trump claimed authority to end birthright citizenship by executive order. Last year, he repeated that threat at rallies across the nation. His campaign website prominently featured a video in which he personally pledged to end birthright citizenship on “day one” of his presidency.

On January 20, 2025, Trump delivered on that promise, signing an executive order denying citizenship to all children of undocumented immigrants, as well as all children of immigrants with temporary legal status, who are born after February 19, 2025.

That order is at odds with the clear text of the Fourteenth Amendment, the original understanding, long-standing judicial interpretation, and multiple federal statutes. And it would destabilize the citizenship of many of the 3.6 million babies born, on average, in the United States every year—including those born to U.S. citizens. According to the executive order, a birth certificate alone would no longer demonstrate citizenship. All of those parents would have to somehow prove their own citizenship or immigration status before their child could be recognized as a citizen. Additionally, even babies born to lawful temporary immigrants—including temporary workers and students who have been living in the United States for years—would be denied citizenship, losing access to Medicaid, SNAP, and other federal and state benefits. Those children would be born undocumented, some stateless, all at risk of being deported on the first day of their life.

Yet Sauer conceded that the Trump administration does not have a plan—does not even have a concept of a plan—to implement this radical change in U.S. law and policy...

For one thing - as an aside - trump and his anti-immigrant allies especially Stephen Miller likely do a have in place. They just didn't want to admit it in open court, knowing full well that on-the-fence Justices like Roberts, Gorsuch, Barrett, and maybe even Kavanaugh would recoil from it.

Because the real answer - not even part of what Kavanaugh asked - is that the Republicans led by trump and by a score of Far Right sycophants who've spent decades railing against their culture war enemies want to go farther than just denying citizenship rights to newborns.

This has always been about the hardcore Conservatives of the Far Right wanting the power to take away citizenship rights of everybody else.

Remember what Frank Wilhoit spelled out: 

Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.

By taking away a person's citizenship here in the United States, you're taking away any legal protections they may have to things like Due Process, property rights, voting rights, employment rights, the right to their own bodies for God's sake. We're seeing part of that now as trump and his ICE brigands are rounding up every documented migrant - even the ones who have legal rights to be here in the US - and loading them into planes to ship them to overseas prisons, ignoring every judicial order to uphold Due Process and maintaining their rights as human beings.

Unspoken in all of this right now is how these acts can lead to American citizens - even those who can trace their lineages back well before the turn of the 20th Century - losing their rights as well. Because if birthright citizenship can be taken away by the Executive branch on the President's orders for any contrived excuse, that birth certificate you think protects you becomes a worthless piece of paper.

This has been an issue among the Far Right well before trump showed up on the political stage: I noticed this back in 2010, and it was worrisome then: 

See, one of the ongoing issues with the crazed Far Right Wingnut crowd is how... emphatic they are about going after those they oppose.  Anyone who makes the Republican Party looks bad gets personally demolished by the next FOX Not-News cycle.  Anyone questioning the efforts of Republicans to lower taxes for the super-rich and deregulate every industry to the point that nothing will be safe or reliable will get demonized as SOCIALIST ZOMG.  And above all, the best way they can dismiss, ignore or invalidate anyone that wants to debate them?  All they have to do is point a finger and accuse their opponents of being "Un-American."

What could happen then in a world where Citizenship is not an automatic given based on birth but instead vulnerable to the whims and interests of whichever political party is in charge of Congress, the White House, and the Courts?  Nowadays the Republicans can call you "Un-American" and that would be just another insult.  If the 14th Amendment were gone... A Republican With Authority can call you "Un-American" and mean it... which would also mean no rights under the law, no protection from immediate arrest, no Habeas, no home, no life...  This is the true danger of what the Republicans are proposing to do by getting rid of the 14th Amendment.  They claim it'll be to get rid of unwanted Illegals... but also consider that the Republicans have no love of Muslims right now, and not much love for Blacks, and very little love for Liberals... and so on, and more, and also...  Repeal the 14th Amendment and NO ONE would be safe from the charge of being "Un-American."

When we're talking about a Republican Party controlled by Far Right extremists obsessed with denying rights to Blacks, Women, Gays/Lesbians/Trans, college students, anybody they deem a "Pinko-Commie Agitator" and how the Far Right would LOVE to take away their rights to vote, work, even live in their own homes... We're talking about purges of entire populations from every legal protection we're supposed to have.

We went through this kind of nightmare before, during the McCarthyist era of "Commie" witch hunts going after anyone the Republicans deemed "Un-American." Back then, there was still a 14th Amendment in place that protected their victims' Due Process rights and overall status as citizens. People still lost jobs and livelihoods and spent decades under hostile surveillance, alas.

But if trump and his cohort can ignore the 14th Amendment when it comes to defining WHO is a citizen, they will happily take away those rights for every one of trump's perceived enemies as well as everyone on the GOP Shit List since 1972. We'll be getting McCarthyism on steroids, where not only will people lose jobs, lose homes, lose families, they'll lose any chance to fight back in the courts.

The reason we HAVE birthright citizenship in the 14th Amendment comes from the fallout from the odious Dred Scott decision, where the conservative (slave-owning or slavery-friendly) Justices like Chief Justice Taney ruled that not only did Black slaves have no rights under the law, neither did the freeborn Blacks in Free Soil states. It took a Civil War and that amendment to undo the damage of Dred Scott, but the goddamned Far Right want to bring that power to deny citizenship to any group they deem a lesser class. 

Only this time, they're looking to take away citizenship from everyone not in their own ranks, not genuflecting to trump, or not offering up their worship and their fear to the Far Right Gods of Hate and Violence.

I am praying to the better Gods of Sanity and Hope that our current Supreme Court sees the dangers of what will happen in a trumpworld devoid of the Rule Of Law for all citizens and residents of the United States.

Because if trump gets his way, if the wingnut Republicans get their way... Every Black, every Woman, every Latino, every Gay/Lesbian/Trans, every Democrat, every anti-trumper will suffer. And we'll be deep into another bloody civil war cleaning up the mess of racism and hate we didn't resolve the first time.