*Note from the editors: All opinions expressed in the following piece are those belonging to the writer and not those necessarily held by the publication or by GRHS.
On January 20th, 2025, former 45th President Donald J. Trump was sworn in as the 47th president for his second term, to the joy of many and dismay of many others. Ever since, he’s broken several laws, the constitution several times, and stated an incredible number of false and downright insane things, and he has plenty of other “no other president has done it” moments.
A great place to start would be Trump’s Twitter (Now X) and Truth Social accounts, which have become infamous for his incoherent, all-caps tweets full of run-on sentences and false statements. These infamous posts followed through his first term and have continued during his second. Except this time the tweets have gotten much more unhinged, false, and downright insane.
For example, he just recently “Retruthed” (Reposted) this post on his personal Truth Social account, promoting the conspiracy theory that Joe Biden was executed in 2020 and a clone has been running the country during his term. Now, regardless of your political affiliation, I’m pretty sure we can all agree that No, Joe Biden was not executed in 2020, and a clone has not been running the country during his term. It’s just common sense!
Another lowlight of Trump’s Truth Social was his memorial day post, which among a rant about illegal immigrants, democrats, and judges, did not honor or even mention our fallen soldiers. Now compare this incredibly disrespectful tweet to a previous one made by Joe Biden. You see how he honors our fallen soldiers and isn’t a crazy rant? This is what a holiday tweet from a president should look like, not an incoherent mess that doesn’t even acknowledge what the holiday is for. Biden’s also doesn’t say 21 million million.
The worst part is that a tweet like either of these two has become a weekly or bi-weekly occurrence and nothing to even bat an eye at. This happens so much that I would bet good money that there will be another tweet like the previous two posted in between the time the article is due and the time it comes out, which is four days.
“President Trump began breaking the law on day one of his term, and immediately pardoned hundreds of violent criminals upon taking office. The Trump Administration is breaking the law and undermining the Constitution every day by illegally stealing funds for the programs that help American families and businesses, firing career civil servants without cause, and dismantling agencies created by acts of Congress,” said House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member, Rosa DeLauro.
Alongside breaking the law, Trump has also broken and tried to break the constitution several times. The first and most major case is his breaking of the fifth amendment, specifically due process. If you don’t know, due process is the name of the right that EVERYONE inside of the U.S, citizen or not, has the right to a fair trial.
He has done this through his ICE raids, where they would round up undocumented, and, in some cases, documented immigrants without any warrants or outstanding criminal charges and put them into detention centers, jail, or even worse, El Salvadoran prisons.
Now, the U.S. sending their prisoners to another country to be held in their prison(s) is both illegal and unconstitutional on several levels. For example, this clearly violates the eighth amendment as this is very clear a “cruel or unusual” punishment. The fact that the vast majority of people being sent there are innocent migrants, not from El Salvador, who did not receive due process makes it just that much worse.
An example of Trump trying to break the constitution was his day one promise to get rid of birthright citizenship, which is spelled out in section one of the fourteenth amendment.
“…Don’t you need to uphold the Constitution of the United States as president?” asked Kristen Weller on NBC News’s “Meet the Press.”
“I don’t know,” Trump replied to the basic civics question we were all taught during eighth grade.
Now this is incredibly important because Trump just showed that he literally does not know his job description, as the president’s (and the rest of executive branch) job is to enforce and uphold the constitution. Again, the president of the United States did not know what his job required of him. However, for some reason, this died out in a few days and has become largely forgotten, just like everything else he’s done.
One final thing Trump has been trying has been to weaponize the Department of Justice and prosecute his enemies. Not only is this something unprecedented he’s done, but it goes against what our founding fathers created. They created a country based on democracy, freedom, and checks and balances. These same checks and balances and the very thing Trump is trying, and to a degree has, change said checks and balances to favor the executive branch.
In conclusion, the lesson I have learned from our president is that as long as you have money and power, you can do and say whatever you want with zero consequences. As despite all the laws and amendments he’s broken, along with everything he’s said, he’s had little to no consequences outside of the occasional “No.” And no, Trump’s not playing chess while everyone is playing checkers–he’s playing monopoly and actively flipping the board.
