Submitted by Jonathan Perloe, Cos Cob
With Donald Trump back in the White House, we are about to experience an attack on civil rights, freedoms, marginalized people and our democracy that is unprecedented in U.S. history. This isn’t hyperbole; it’s based on what President Trump and his choices to run the federal government are saying.
Events of the past four years make clear that historical norms that protected us from authoritarian power since the nation’s founding no longer hold. The Supreme Court gave presidents virtually unlimited immunity from criminal prosecution. The Special Prosecutor’s recently released final report concluded that Trump “engaged in an unprecedented criminal effort to overturn the legitimate results of the election in order to retain power.”
We should take Trump at his word. After all, he got away with trying to prevent the peaceful transfer of power and has been told by the highest court in the land that he is above the law. So, what are Trump’s words, and those of his nominees to key positions in the federal government?
About the January 6 defendants who violently attempted to overturn the 2020 election, Trump told Time magazine, “A vast majority should not be in jail, and they’ve suffered gravely.” His vice president, J.D. Vance and his nominee to run the Department of Justice, Pam Bondi, have both refused to acknowledge that Trump lost the 2020 election. Bondi called the transition “peaceful.”
Kash Patel, Trump’s nominee to lead the FBI, published a list of 60 people he considers to be members of the “deep state.” Patel said he’s “on a mission to annihilate the deep state,” which includes Joe Biden, Eric Holder, Bill Barr, Hilary Clinton, Mark Milley and Cassidy Hutchinson. Many believe Patel will pursue criminal investigations as retribution against Trump’s perceived enemies. Trump himself believes leaders of the January 6 Congressional investigation “should go to jail.”
Trump has a long history of attacking press freedoms, issuing threats to revoke broadcast licenses of news media he considers unfavorable to him and routinely attacking the media during the run-up to the election. At one of his campaign rallies, he said he wouldn’t “mind so much” if reporters were shot during an assassination attempt.
About reproductive rights, Trump bragged that, “after 50 years of failure…I was able to kill Roe v. Wade.” But plans during his second administration go further.
Russell Vought, Trump’s nominee to run the Office of Management and Budget—which prepares and oversees the $7 trillion federal budget, has called for Congress to outlaw drugs used in medical abortions. In the chapter he wrote for Project 2025, Vought proposed an assistant to the president to ensure “implementation of policies related to the promotion of life and family,” code for a national abortion ban.
Vought is a Christian Nationalist whose ideology threatens the Constitution’s separation of church and state. He has written that Muslims have a “deficient theology” and no one can “know God” unless they embrace Jesus Christ. Trump is right alongside Vought in his embrace of the idea that America should be a Christian-centric nation. Speaking to evangelical broadcasters during his campaign, Trump asserted, “We have to bring back our religion. We have to bring back Christianity in this country” and promised “If I get in, you’re going to be using that power at a level that you’ve never used before.”
Where to begin with Trump’s bigoted views on race and ethnicity? Calling white supremacists in Charlottesville “very fine people?” Asking why four Democratic Congresswomen of color don’t “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came,” which for three of the four is the United States? Or calling African countries, Haiti and El Salvador “shithole” nations? Or referring to the jobs held by undocumented immigrants as “Black jobs?”
For more than 150 years since the 14th Amendment was ratified, almost everyone born in the United States is granted citizenship, regardless of their parents’ status. Trump calls birthright citizenship “ridiculous” and vowed to end it on the first day of his presidency. While there is bipartisan consensus that immigration reform is long overdue, Trump’s plans for mass deportation are as inhumane as his first-term policy of separating undocumented immigrant children from their parents. Tom Homan, Trump’s choice to lead the effort, said it will create “shock and awe” and he would have no qualms deporting the parents of U.S.-born children.
Trump’s regressive views on gender are summed up in his statement that, “Under the Trump administration, it will be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female.” He calls gender-affirming care for minors “child sexual mutilation” and promises to “stop the transgender lunacy” on the first day of his presidency.
These attacks on our civil liberties, freedoms and human dignity must be resisted. That’s why I have joined with six like-minded local residents to invite the ACLU of Connecticut to host a Civil Rights Town Hall at the YWCA Greenwich on January 29 at 7:00pm. RSVP at bit.ly/greenwich-aclu-town-hall.
The event is one of the ACLU of CT’s town halls happening around the state where their legal, policy and communications experts outline how they plan to use every tool at their disposal – litigation, advocacy, and grassroots organizing – to protect our rights.
They’ll also discuss the critical role we can play in Connecticut to create a local firewall for freedom and share ways we can be part of the movement to protect civil rights. There will also be time to ask questions about the issues you care about most.
Paraphrasing President Obama, protecting our rights “will not come if we wait for some other person, or if we wait for some other time.” We are the ones who will determine if American values survive.
Jonathan Perloe
Cos Cob
The author is joined by Michelle Abt, Nicole Heath, Rachel Khanna, Cheryl Moss, Nerlyn Pierson and Alma Rutgers in hosting the ACLU Connecticut Civil Rights Town Hall at the YWCA Greenwich on January 29.