Democratic system of the United States under pressure

Jakarta –

US President Donald Trump has only returned to serving for three months. During that time, the United States experienced a great unrest that shook its democratic foundation.

Brookings Institute based in Washington has identified ‘Dangerous cracks in the pillars of American democracy’. Attacks on these pillars are found at different levels.

The rule of law and compliance with judicial orders is one of the basis of Western democracy – but this is increasingly at stake in the United States.

Firstly, Trump’s government has ignored and deported various judicial decisions that contradict judicial orders.

The case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, which was wrongly deported to the famous maximum safety prison in El Salvador, was in a broad spotlight. The American Supreme Court has ordered the government to strive for Garcia to return to the US. “There has been no action so far,” federal judge Paula Xinis criticized in a hearing.

Judges such as James Boasberg, who oppose the government of Trump and his deportation plan, were ridiculed in public as ‘crazy left -wing radicals’. Trump threatens them with the accusation process and consider replacing Boasberg with a more profitable judge.

At the same time, Trump used the Ministry of Justice to combat his critics. In the first weeks of the office he had fired a number of employees or moved during the investigation into him.

Trump also forgives almost all 1,600 people who were punished for invading the Capitol on January 6, 2021. He filled the Ministry of Justice with Pam Bondi, a party assistant who was very loyal to him.

Limitations on freedom of press

Critical reporting has long been a thorn in Donald Trump meat. “They are corrupt and illegal,” he said the American broadcasting institutions such as CNN and MSNBC in his speech at the Ministry of Justice Halk.

He accused them of making negative reports about him “97.6 percent always” and became “the political arm of the Democratic Party”. During the election campaign, Trump threatened to withdraw unwanted temporary employment permits.

Trump has completely stopped financing for international media such as Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Liberty – threatened to be closed.

The government of Trump has also withdrawn the AP News Agency Accreditation for the Press Room of the White House, because it refused to call the Mexiko Bay as ‘American Gulf’, as Trump asked. Again, the court has stated that this cannot be accepted – and again, the US government has ignored it. AP reporters are still not allowed to enter the White House. Now, in addition to AP, the Bloomberg and Reuters news agency no longer has a guarantee for a place at a press conference in the White House.

Restructuring of the state apparatus

When Trump stated in his congress speech that “bureaucraat days that had never been chosen” had finished, he was greeted with a laughing laughter from the Democratic Party. By the way, it was Elon Musk, a presidential adviser who had never been democratically approved, who had cut off the entire state apparatus since January to match the Trump line.

“They did not enter the institutions and departments that did things they liked. They entered a public institution that they did not approve,” Douglas Holtz-Akin, former director of the Congressional Budget Office, criticized in February.

Massage dismissals also occur in the field of tax, environment, health, pentagon and other ministries. Environmental regulations are reduced and social and health expenditure is dramatically reduced. The USAID Development Assistance Agency and other settings were also frozen.

Trump officers are also suspected of using artificial intelligence to spy on government officials. It is said that at least one federal institution has checked internal communication in this way – reportedly with the aim of filtering and firing employees those statements made as harmful to Trump. Some critics called the policy as “political cleaning” of the state apparatus.

This article was first published in German DW

Adapted by: Hendra Pasuhuk

Editor: Agus Setiawan

(Ita/Ita)