L’analyse de l’article
en français : La déconstruction rampante des USA
Wayne Madsen est un journaliste et
essayiste américain de gauche.
Article
original :
“Not since the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s have tensions been
so high between a U.S. administration and the states of the federal republic.
During the civil rights era, it was the federal government that was playing the
role of protector of the U.S. Constitution in pressuring segregationist states
like Arkansas, Mississippi, and Alabama to comply with federal civil rights
law. Today, the shoe is on the other foot. A racist and xenophobic U.S.
administration has actually commenced imposing travel and other sanctions on
states like New York and California, merely because they are upholding U.S. and
international human rights law, particularly that dealing with asylum for
foreign refugees.
A major rift has opened up between the Trump
White House and the Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, over Trump’s decision
to prohibit residents of New York from participating in Trusted Traveler
Programs, including Global Entry, Free and Secure Trade for Commercial Vehicles
(FAST), NEXUS, and SENTRI, which speed Americans through immigration controls
at airports and land borders with Canada and Mexico. At issue is New
York’s Green Light Law and more than a dozen other states’ policies that permit
undocumented immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses. Acting deputy secretary of
Homeland Security Ken Cuccinelli, a racist and xenophobe Republican Party hack
from Virginia, banned New York and other states from participation in Global
Entry because the states barred U.S. immigration officials of accessing state
motor vehicle databases to determine the identities of undocumented immigrants.
Banning New Yorkers from participation in Global
Entry will have a drastic effect on New York truck drivers who regularly cross
the U.S.-Canadian border. A leaked Department of Homeland Security memo stated
that the Trump administration is intent on “punishing” states that refuse
federal access to their driver’s databases and offer “sanctuary” to
undocumented immigrants fearful of arrest and detention by federal law
enforcement authorities.
Cuomo offered Trump and compromise, stating that
New York could offer federal agencies limited access to New York driver’s records
in the Department of Motor Vehicles database. That was insufficient for the
increasingly authoritarian Trump. Trump tweeted a response to Cuomo’s offer on
February 13, just prior to a scheduled meeting between the New York governor
and impeached president at the White House. The tweet stated: “New York
must stop all of its unnecessary lawsuits & harrassment [sic], start
cleaning itself up, and lowering taxes. Build relationships, but don’t bring
Fredo!”.
Trump’s reference to Fredo, an Italian Mafia
character in “The Godfather,” is a bigoted anti-Italian nickname for Chris
Cuomo, the governor’s brother and an anchor on CNN. The Cuomos’ father was New
York Democratic Governor Mario Cuomo, a major political force in the Democratic
Party in the 1980s and 90s.
In an open display of extortion, Trump demanded
that New York, through its Attorney General, Letitia James, drop all lawsuits
against him in both his role as president and as a principal of the fraudulent
Trump Foundation and Trump University. The extortion, which is how Governor
Cuomo referred to it, is a clear attempt to run roughshod over a state’s
independent judicial and law enforcement authority as enshrined in the
separation of powers clauses in the U.S. Constitution. The Trump-Cuomo meeting
on February 13 yielded no agreement or compromise by Trump.
New York Attorney General James had a pointed
response to Trump’s extortion tweet. She tweeted back, “When you stop violating
the rights and liberties of all New Yorkers, we will stand down. Until then, we
have a duty and responsibility to defend the Constitution and the rule of law.
BTW [By the way], I file the lawsuits, not the Governor.”
Trump’s war with New York is not limited to that
state. There have been federal threats made to California over everything from
environmental protections to that state’s sanctuary policies. The Republican
Party was once fond of championing states’ rights. However, as the Trump
administration adopts more fascistic policies, states’ rights has been replaced
with the diminution of the authority of state, county, municipal, tribal, and
territorial governments and its transfer to the central government.
Trump has been nothing but vicious with
California. During Trump’s 2020 State of the Union speech to Congress, he
singled out California for “costing taxpayers vast and unaffordable amounts of
money” and also criticized the state’s sanctuary law protecting undocumented
immigrants. While cutting massive amounts from the federal budget for
firefighting and housing support for the homeless, Trump has lambasted Newsom
and California for the state’s handling of homelessness and wildfires. Trump
treats California, New York, and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico as foreign
nations with whom his government is at war.
States that have been ostracized and alienated
by Trump have set forth their own policies, even those affecting U.S. foreign
relations. After Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement,
twenty-four states and Puerto Rico joined the U.S. Climate Action Alliance. The
state governors vowed to commit to the Paris accord’s original carbon emission
reduction goals, regardless of Trump pulling out of the agreement while
scoffing at climate change as a “Chinese hoax.” To the chagrin of Trump,
the alliance includes three Republican governors who oppose Trump: Larry Hogan
of Maryland, Charlie Baker of Massachusetts, and Phil Scott of Vermont.
Even municipalities have bolted from the
anti-Palestinian and pro-Zionist policies of the Trump administration regarding
Palestine. Despite the Trump administration severing all diplomatic links with
Palestine, including expelling the Palestinian diplomatic mission in Washington
and freezing all aid to the Palestinian Authority, U.S. municipalities have
maintained “sister cities” relationships with Palestinian towns and cities.
These include Joplin, Missouri; Burlington, Vermont; Sacramento, California;
and Orlando, Florida with Bethlehem; Boulder, Colorado with Nablus; Muscatine,
Iowa with Ramallah; Camden, New Jersey with Gaza City; and Olympia, Washington
and Madison, Wisconsin with Rafah.
While Trump has imposed draconian trade tariffs
on China, Canada, Mexico, the European Union, and other nations, U.S. states
have opened their own trade offices and missions in capitals around the world,
thus bypassing the increasingly feeble U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and
Trump’s senior trade adviser, Peter Navarro. Twenty-seven U.S. states have
trade missions in China, all of which act relatively independent of the U.S.
Departments of Commerce and State. The United Kingdom may have exited from the
European Union, but that has not deterred U.S. states from opening trade
missions to the EU in Brussels. These include Alaska, Ohio, Oregon, and
Tennessee. North Dakota maintains its only trade office abroad in Ukraine, wile
Maryland’s only trade office is in Nigeria. Florida, Iowa, Pennsylvania,
Washington state, Maryland, Hawaii, and Missouri have trade missions in both
China and Taiwan. If Trump continues to attack individual states, particularly
those with Democratic governors, trade missions can easily be turned into de
facto diplomatic offices that can challenge in various world capitals
particular destructive Trump policies emanating from Washington.
Pushback against Trump’s renewed embargo on Cuba
has seen pushback from some states, which once sent trade delegations to Cuba
and participated in the Havana International Trade Fair. Bolting from Trump’s
embargo, Virginia Agriculture Secretary Bettina Ring thumbed her nose at the
anti-Cuban interests in the White House and led a state trade delegation to the
2019 fair in Cuba. Other states may follow suit in advancing sister cities and
other relationships with Palestine and Cuba, regardless of the bluster and
chest-beating from the Trump White House.
The last “war between the states” was between
the federal government in Washington, DC and the states remaining in the United
States on one side and the pro-slavery Confederate states in the South. If
Trump continues his war against certain states that policy may develop into a
war between the most populous states and Trump’s Washington, with a lot of
state sympathizers within the federal government and military. That is a
recipe for disaster for Mr. Trump and his loyalists.
Wayne Madsen »
Jean Vinatier
Seriatim 2020
