Jonathan P. Baird

Possibly readers recall the livestream discussion last August between Elon Musk and Donald Trump. Then-candidate Trump lavished praise on Musk for his talent in firing workers. Trump enthusiastically said striking workers should be fired. It was a result he embraced.

So it should not be surprising that the new Trump administration has turned out to be the most anti-labor government of my lifetime, even surpassing the Reagan-era of mass PATCO firings. The Trump-Musk blitzkrieg through federal agencies has been a continuing assault. Layoffs and federal agency closures have been the agenda.

President Trump has tried to close entirely U.S. AID, the Department of Education, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Other agencies like Health and Human Services, the IRS and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have faced huge layoffs and cuts. The Trump administration even cut 300 staffers at the National Nuclear Security Administration who were tasked with managing the nation’s nuclear stockpile. They had to rescind those terminations when they realized the job duties of the people fired.

Tens of thousands of employees across the federal government have lost their jobs and thousands more remain worried they are next. The Washington Post has obtained an internal White House document outlining plans for 22 federal agencies to cut between 8 and 50 percent of their employees.

The Musk/DOGE chainsaw has been butchering. There is a trail of litigation behind the anti-worker measures with some initial results favorable to workers. Court orders have forced some reinstatements but it is hard to imagine how devastated agencies will be made whole again.

The Trump administration has also targeted specific individuals at a number of independent agencies. These were people in positions of power who they saw as opposing their agenda like leaders at the NLRB and the EEOC. Litigation remains ongoing about whether leaders who were congressionally authorized to serve will be able to complete their terms.

The effort to purge diversity, equity and inclusion from the federal government must be mentioned. The Trump mission is the re-establishment of white and male supremacy. This is part of an attempt to rewrite our history to whitewash our national sins of racism and sexism. Trumpers want a faux America historical fantasyland where the past is blindingly white, pure and censored.

Still, all the anti-worker efforts are less consequential than Trump’s newest Executive Order that claimed to end collective bargaining rights for nearly the whole federal workforce. It is estimated that 700,000 to one million federal workers could be affected.

It is not an exaggeration to say this is an existential threat to the entire American labor movement. The tech sector of the capitalist class as well as other major companies like Walmart and Target have no time for unions and they fight them relentlessly. If the billionaire class can destroy federal unions, they will be coming for private sector unions next.

We are past the time when the billionaire class accepted accommodation with unions. They believe in hierarchy and the tech sector especially sees itself as a cognitive elite who deserve to rule without restraint. The billionaire class is teeing up cases to argue that the NLRB is unconstitutional. Their game plan is to get rid of unions altogether.

Trump’s Executive Order says its purpose is to “enhance the national security of the United States”. But the federal unions have had collective bargaining agreements for many years with no issues about safety or security. As the President of the AFL-CIO, Liz Shuler, said:

“It’s clear that this order is punishment for unions who are leading the fight against the administration’s illegal actions in court – and a blatant attempt to silence us.”

I think retaliation against federal unions because of their success in litigation against the Trump administration is the most likely reason for the Executive Order. Also, Project 2025 called for banning all public sector unions and, despite denials, Trump has been a slavish follower of that agenda.

The Trump administration is arguing that the federal unions cannot represent federal workers at the bargaining table or in court. It is not just that they are opposing what has been agreed-to in collective bargaining agreements. They are saying that based on this Executive Order, the federal unions do not have the right to represent the workers. It is a way to kneecap all workers and leave them without a voice.

In looking at how this story has been reported in the mass media, one thing has not been appreciated. Executive Orders are not law. Even though the Trump administration is relying on such decrees, they are not equivalent to statutes or regulations passed by Congress but you might think they are. Of course, it will ultimately be up to the Supreme Court to decide how much deference executive orders get. The Court will decide if such directives are within a President’s authority.

There is a strong legal argument Trump is overreaching. And federal unions will certainly contest the new Executive Order. Trump has issued 104 Executive Orders in his first 70 days in office. He is ignoring the reality that the presidency was created as part of a compact specifying limited government with three co-equal branches. He is using Executive Orders as a new form of dictatorial rule where he bulldozes the other branches of government.

This is not the first time federal workers have faced a brutal attack. It also happened during the Joe McCarthy period when loyalty investigations were used to derail pro-worker advocacy. Now though, the billionaire class faces a less cowed, better-organized opposition. Workers have had enough of the regressive cutbacks Trump, Musk and DOGE are pushing. We must not let them gut the federal government.

There is no more central concept in American law than due process. Due process laws act as a safeguard from arbitrary denial of life, liberty or property by the government. Typically, there is a balancing of the interests of the individual and the state and figuring out what process is legally due in a circumstance is dynamic and creative.

In our federal constitution, due process appears twice, first in the original Bill of Rights in the Fifth Amendment and then again in the Fourteenth Amendment where it was applied to all the states. No other constitutional provision gets two mentions. Due process also shows up in every state constitution. It is sometimes referred to as “the law of the land”.

The roots of due process run deep, all the way back to the Magna Carta. It was a concept that engaged the Founding Fathers. They compared the tyrannical rule of King George III to the arbitrary rule of King Charles I in 1628 when the British parliament struggled against the King.

So it remains a shock when the whole concept of due process is tossed overboard by the Trump administration. Their handling of the Venezuelan migrants abducted and renditioned to El Salvador is a travesty of law. These unfortunate people got no due process in complete contradiction to the normal requirements of the law.

The Trump administration treated the case like a reality TV show. They wanted the photo ops of chained and manacled men who they could label terrorists, monsters or gang bangers. They believed sending them out of the country was a political win that made Trump look strong.

The Venezualans were disappeared from America without notice and a hearing. The process was anything but normal. The government offered no proof of whether the individuals being renditioned were gang members. The word “deportation” should not be used because that implies some kind of legal process. Rendition or abduction are closer to the truth.

The case drew attention because the Federal Court judge assigned to the case, Judge James Boasberg, had ordered the flights to El Salvador to turn around and the Trump administration did not comply with the verbal order (as if verbal orders don’t count). But, of course, judges issue binding verbal orders from the bench all the time.

The Trump administration has used a 1798 law, the Alien Enemies Act, to justify the rendition flights of more than 200 Venezualans they sent to El Salvador, a country to which the Venezualans have no connection. That 1798 law has only been used three times in American history, the last time being the awful World War 2 internment of Japanese Americans. The law can only be used in war time and can be invoked when the United States faces an invasion.

President Trump is saying a gang in Venezuela, Tren de Aragua, is equivalent to a nation and that the actions of their members in the U.S. are equivalent to an invasion. The argument is preposterous even for bad lawyers.

The President is also asserting that he has King-like, limitless power to decide who can be in the United States. It that were true, it would render all the actual law there is about asylum and deportation meaningless. There is no law or court case which gives President Trump the legal authority he is asserting. There was an Executive Order, a post hoc rationalization, that didn’t get signed until after events unfolded and Trump later denied he signed it.

So far, the Trump administration has failed to release the names of the abducted Venezualans and, as noted, they have not offered proof of gang membership. On the contrary, family members of those abducted have come forward to say they recognized their relative in a photo and they deny the abducted are criminals or gang members.

To understand the rationale for the Administration’s actions, the declaration of Robert Cerna, the acting Director of ICE removal operations, is revealing. In a court filing, Cerna wrote:

“While it is true that many of the Tren de Aragua do not have criminal records in the United States, that is because they have only been in the U.S. for a short period of time. The lack of a criminal record does not indicate they pose a limited threat. In fact, based upon their asscciation with Tren de Aragua, the lack of specific information about each individual actually highlights the risk they pose.”

Cerna is apparently a mind-reader who can tell the future. He is actually saying the fact they don’t have a criminal record is why they are dangerous.

Many of those abducted were victimized by ICE because they had tattoos. But Tren de Aragua is not a gang that mandates tattoos. ICE is simply misinterpreting tattoos and utilizing them as justification. For example, Jerce Reyes Barrios was a professional soccer player. He was seeking asylum in the U.S. as an opponent of the Maduro government. He had a tattoo of a crown sitting atop a soccer ball and it was part of the reason he was considered a gang member but the tattoo was the logo for the Real Madrid soccer team, his favorite team.

I would suggest removal to El Salvador is like rendition flights during the war on terror when suspects were flown to black sites in other nations to be tortured. There is a massive racist dehumanization going on where faceless Venezuelans are being sent to a hellhole maximum security slave labor prison for an indefinite period where they have no rights. There is no legal authority for disappearing people like this and it violates international law. It is a Kafkaesque fate beyond lawyers, judges or rules.

President Trump’s response to the litigation about the Venezuelans has been predictable. He accused Judge Boasberg of being “crooked”, “a radical left lunatic of a judge” who should be impeached. Any judge who demonstrates independence immediately draws that type of response.

What the Trump administration has done to the Venezuelans is a lawless and sadistic spectacle. It is an embarrassment to the rule of law. Trump is testing the limits to see what he can get away with and I think he believes the system is too broken to stop him.

Occasionally a legal case comes along that captures attention both because of the drama of its circumstances and also because of the importance of its issues. Such a case is the arrest and disappearance of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian masters degree graduate of Columbia University.

Khalil was arrested in New York in a most disturbing fashion. A squad of four unidentified men waited outside Khalil’s residence in an unmarked vehicle. When Khalil and his American wife who is eight months pregnant showed up, they asked if he was Mahmoud Khalil. They refused to identify themselves and they produced no warrant. One said he was from Homeland Security and said Khalil’s student visa had been revoked.

Khalil’s wife explained that Khalil was a legal permanent resident of the United States. He had a green card. The agents were thrown by that and they retreated to make a phone call. Returning quickly, they then announced Khalil’s green card had been revoked. Normally green cards can only be revoked after notice and a hearing before an immigration judge. That didn’t happen in Khalil’s case.

The agents then disappeared Khalil. First he was driven to New Jersey and then he was flown to Louisiana. ICE was playing a a jurisdiction forum-shopping game, hoping to get the case heard before a kangaroo court judge in the Deep South rather than a New York federal court judge. That way ICE hoped a court with no sympathy for immigrants would fast track Khalil out of the country.

The deportation was not fast tracked because of quick action by Khalil’s lawyers. They immediately filed a habeas corpus petition in New York and the court required that Khalil have access to counsel. The court ruled that Khalil must be allowed to stay in the U.S. while his case was pending.

There has been no allegation that Khalil committed any crime and he has not been charged with committing any crime. Khalil was apprehended because he was a prominent leader of pro-Palestinian demonstrations at Columbia last spring. He had served as a negotiator between Columbia administration officials and protesters at the Gaza solidarity encampment.

The seeming offense Khalil committed, according to the Trump administration, was to be “aligned with Hamas”. On social media, President Trump stated he wanted to deport Khalil for participating in pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia. He said it was the first “of many to come”.

The most common way to deport a green card holder is to prove the holder committed a crime. Because there was no crime, the government is relying on a little-used authority from the Immigration Nationality Act. Secretary of State Marco Rubio designated Khalil as someone whose activities “aligned with Hamas”. Rubio argued that he has reasonable grounds to believe Khalil’s presence would have “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the U.S.”.

Essentially, the deportation they desire is based on not liking Khalil’s speech although they have failed to cite with specificity anything he has said they find objectionable. Like so many, Khalil protested Israel’s war crimes in Gaza. He saw himself as a human rights advocate.

Under our First Amendment, no one can be punished for the ideas they express. The Supreme Court has been clear: government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds that idea offensive or objectionable.

The First Amendment protects freedom of speech for both citizens and noncitizens. The government has provided no evidence for the proposition that Khalil is a Hamas supporter or that he is anti-semitic. Opposing Israel’s policies is not the same as antisemitism.

I am Jewish and I am revolted by Israel’s disgraceful conduct in Gaza. The October 7 Hamas attack was criminal but that does not let Israel off the hook for its extreme over-reaction killing over 46,000 people in Gaza since the war started. I hate antisemitism but under the First Amendment even if someone was expressing hateful antisemitic ideas (which Khalil wasn’t) that is protected speech.

The deportation action against Khalil is intended to have a chilling effect to inhibit people and make them afraid to speak up. Trump is opting for a tactic commonly used by dictators. Simply announce and label your enemy is a terrorist. Then you can disappear him and remove him from the country without any due process. This is Trump’s way around the law.

Dictators disappear people. What is worrisome about the Trump administration’s actions with Khalil is their emulation of the disappearance model pioneered by Latin American dictatorships during the Operation Condor dirty wars in the 1970’s-1980’s. In countries like Argentina and Chile, students, artists, intellectuals and leftists were singled out as enemies of the regime. Anyone considered suspicious could be put on a list and disappeared. Thousands were never seen again.

Unidentified goon squads in unmarked cars (like happened with Khalil) cruised the streets, seized those targeted and took them away to secret concentration camps. Thousands ended up drugged and tossed out of helicopters far out in the ocean. Fortunately we are not there yet and hopefully we never will be as courts still function.

These societies were so terrorized it became impossible for a legal system to function. Fear dominated public life. People, including lawyers and judges, did everything to avoid drawing attention to themselves.

The idea of disappearing people as happened in Latin America had Nazi origins under Hitler’s 1941 Night and Fog Decree. Field Marshall Wilhelm Keitel, who had been Chief of the German High Command and who was hanged at Nuremberg for war crimes described Night and Fog this way: “ The prisoners will disappear without a trace. It will be impossible to glean any information as to where they are or what will be their fate”.

If we are honest, we must acknowledge the lack of information we have about what the Trump Administration is doing now as far as rounding up immigrants, disappearing them into camps and deporting them. President Trump and his henchmen like Stephen Miller do not want us to know what they are doing. They just announced they are using the Alien Enemies Act, a zombie law, to allow for summary deportations.

Unlike in Latin America during the dirty wars, citizens and noncitizens in America still have some protection from courts but the Trump administration appears to have every intention to shred the constitution as they are doing in the Khalil case. Our situation is hardly reassuring. Whether you are Republican, Democratic or independent, all of us are threatened now by a regime of soulless nihilists who care only about their money. If Khalil can be deported, no one is safe.

I took these photos when I was on the Nation civil rights trip. They were all from the area around the Edmund Pettus Bridge. There are memorials around the bridge. March 7 was the 60th anniversary of the March from Selma to Montgomery.

Last Sunday morning, on March 2, my dog Shady died suddenly and unexpectedly. He was eleven. He had not been sick. He wolfed down his breakfast, then threw it all up, pooped in the house (very unlike him) and then had trouble getting up. He managed to go outside to pee but he was definitely out of sorts and he cried and whimpered a little. Within an hour, he was gone. I remain in a state of disbelief that Shady is no longer with us.

People often said he was the biggest golden retriever they had ever seen, He weighed over 120 pounds but he wasn’t fat, just very large-boned with beautiful body lines. As my friends Sally and Kim have said, Shady was a gentle giant. He was a big presence in my not-so-big house.

It is funny because when I picked him out of a large litter, he was the runt. There was no way to predict his eventual size. At the same time he was so big, he was a scaredy-cat. He hated to go over his head in water. He rarely wandered off too far.

When I would take him out at night, he sometimes didn’t like to go past my mailbox. He was tuned into sounds and smells that were way beyond me. He would freeze and be immobile and unmovable. He wanted back in the house. I always figured there was some animal lurking in the dark that I could not detect. We do live in a very rural place with woods all around.

Shady was extremely stubborn. He had a mind of his own and occasionally he would take off. There is a two mile loop near my house we call the Dingle and one time we were walking it, Shady took off into the woods and would not come back. I yelled quite a bit and then returned home. No Shady. It was starting to get dark and I was getting worried. Around dusk, a neighbor who lives about a mile away called me and he said Shady was there. I drove right over and when I arrived, Shady bolted and jumped in my car so fast. I guess he was scared too.

He was a chow hound and kind of an omnivore. He was one of those dogs who would eat so fast you would want him to slow down but it was impossible. He was not part of the slow food movement. He loved treats and I admit I loved to spoil him. Donuts were his thing, especially apple cider donuts.

He had a way of spreading out around the house. When he slurped water, he left a big trail. He was a perpetual shedding machine who with his long hair lived to destroy vacuum cleaners. Golden retriever hairballs seemed to inhabit every corner of my home. My car also featured golden retriever hair and there was no dog-free zone there. Dog truly was my co-pilot.

Shady loved toys. Of all the toys he ever got, he liked this little toy duck we named Ms. Quacky best. He proudly would carry Ms. Quacky around in his mouth as he pranced around being King Dog. My younger dog, Blue, also loved Ms. Quacky. The two of them had a competition about who would get control of Ms. Quacky. That competition never stopped

Of all the things we did together, I think hiking mountains was Shady’s favorite. He would run ahead and come back. Usually he didn’t go too far ahead. One time when my friend Steve and I hiked a back trail on Mt. Chocurua, he took off ahead up the trail and was gone for almost an hour until we caught up with him. There were other dogs in a party ahead that were more interesting than us.

He was the friendliest of dogs. I was always proud of Shady’s good nature because he was so friendly to everyone, dogs and people. It was like he expected to be loved . He didn’t have a mean bone in his body. Sometimes he would jump up on people which was not always appreciated but it was out of enthusiasm.

One great thing about living in the country is all the back roads and trails where you can roam and mostly get away from cars. I guess I am paranoid about cars. I once lost a dog when I lived in Berlin NH who was struck by a hit-and-run driver. I have been determined to never have that experience again.

You have to be careful, though, about hunters. Shady did not like gunshots. It was a primal thing for him. One thing about living in North Wilmot, gunshots are always going off. He hated fireworks too. With those noises he would freeze and he would not want to walk outside. Sometimes, I would take him home if he was too freaked out.

I think running free everyday was and is essential for my dogs. Maybe we overdomesticate our animals and they need dog-time when they can run in the woods, even if not for that long. They thrive on that and tend to be more settled after running around.

I named Shady after the former Philadelphia Eagles running back, Lesean “Shady” McCoy. That Shady had great moves.It was disconcerting when that Shady got traded to the Buffalo Bills when my Shady was still young. I wanted Shady to be on the Eagles! That trade was one of Chip Kelly’s worst moves.

During Covid, working at home, Shady and Blue were my constant companions and they helped me cope with the social isolation and helped to get me through. It did make me think more about the human-dog relationship. Dogs fill a gap. Their unconditional loyalty surpasses human loyalty. Maybe part of why humans love dogs so much is that their love and devotion is undivided. It is rare to get that same level of affection from our fellow humans.

Shady was a little atypical for the breed. He had no interest in retrieving. He wasn’t the type of dog who would run repeatedly and get a tennis ball you threw 100 times. For whatever reason, he wasn’t into that.

There are a couple shout-outs connected to Shady that I need to offer. My friend and neighbor Wendy Lavallee is a dog person extraordinaire. For almost Shady’s entire life, Wendy helped me, took Shady and Blue and cared for them while I was at work. Any time I had to leave town, she generously would keep my pups and care for them. Wendy has her own dog care business and my dogs could not have been in better hands. Wendy has a magical connection with dogs.

I also need to thank my union, the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE). Our union negotiated a great collective bargaining agreement featuring telework rights which allowed more time to work from home. Needless to say, my dogs loved it (as did I). As a federal worker, that now is threatened. If we lose that and have to return to the office full time, I don’t know how I could explain it to Blue.

We had a bunch of nicknames for Shady: the Shademeister, Mr. Shady, Shady Boy, Big Puppy and Shade. He was my Dog Emeritus.The dog had an amazing ability to make people happy. He had a radiant spirit. His passing is a reminder of the importance of loving and telling your love because you never know what will happen next. I don’t know why Shady died and it happened so fast. I totally did not expect that.

I saw a dog quote that I like: “Dogs are not our whole life but they make our lives whole”. I was privileged to have Shady in my life. You could not ask for a better friend.

Everyday since the onset of the second Trump administration Americans who care about civil rights have suffered a barrage of blows aimed at turning back the clock and reversing all gains that have been made in the struggle against racism since the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v Board of Education. There are almost too many items to list but I will mention some important ones:

– Trump’s challenge to the 14th amendment and birthright citizenship
– Trump overturning LBJ’s Executive Order 11226 which sought to end racial discrimination by the federal government in contracting
– the Executive Order banning diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts not only from federal government hiring and practices but also from state and local programs receiving federal dollars
– the Executive Order requiring schools teach “patriotic education” and banning accurate teaching in K-12 schools of the history of racism
– the purge of competent, experienced and capable black and female military leaders who were accused of “being woke”
– the reversal of seven earlier Executive Orders designed to combat environmental racism
– Trump firing two Equal Opportunity commissioners who were confirmed by the Senate to serve set terms, leaving the EEOC without a quorum so the agency can’t take votes on policy or enforcement of civil rights laws
– renaming military bases after traitorous Confederate generals, segregationists and enslavers
– co-President Musk’s racist and xenophobic attack on a federal judge of color, Amir Ali, who has ruled against DOGE

It is easy to treat each shocker as an isolated, individual event. The problem with that approach is that it fails to delineate patterns. There is no effort to place events in a historical context or to connect how individual occurrences tie together.

Donald Trump, his administration and the MAGA movement are trying to roll back America’s commitment to the value of equality. This struggle has been ongoing since our nation’s founding. The two greatest American sins are slavery and the genocide against Native Americans. From the very start of the nation, our commitment to multi-racial democracy was opposed by an alternative set of illiberal values rooted in racism.

The fight has always fundamentally been about white supremacy and whether America would maintain that hateful tradition. Our history has a ping pong-like quality where that struggle has gone back and forth with gains followed by reversals.

The Civil War was fought to end the slave system that dehumanized African Americans, denied them the right to vote and brutalized them through terrorist acts of violence. Even though the Union forces won the Civil War, the Reconstruction period that followed was short-lived. Particularly after federal troops pulled out of the South in 1876, the racist forces again prevailed.

From around 1890-1940, all the positive civil rights gains that happened in the aftermath of the Civil War were wiped away. White southerners called for Redemption – the return of white supremacy and restoration of the old, pre-Civil War order.

The historian W.E. B. DuBois described the era as one where “The slave went free, stood a brief moment in the sun, then moved back again toward slavery”. The KKK and white racists in the South enforced a form of racial fascism where black people were racially segregated and frozen into a status of subjugation. Over 4000 lynchings reinforced racist rule. These social relations remained the norm until the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950’s-1960’s.

The Brown v Board of Education decision ushered in a period of advance in the struggle against segregation. Our society started to recognize its legacy of voter suppression and discrimination in every area of life, including housing, employment, education and health care. Barriers like the denial of the right to serve on a jury, have an interracial marriage, swim at a racially segregated beach, eat at a restaurant, travel on a bus or stay in a hotel disappeared.

There was undeniable improvement in the economic well-being of many people of color and that was complemented by increased representation in elected political office.

Unfortunately, that success stands threatened as we hover on the cusp of a new period of backwardness. The many actions I outlined show that the coalition of illiberal forces organized around the Trump administration and MAGA are actively working to restore white supremacy. In our era, they wear suits instead of Klan robes.

Their patriotic history is a fairy tale based on suppressing black history. America hasn’t acknowledged the depth of racist poison undergirding our institutions and our way of life, We have not done well in many areas like fair housing, employment discrimination, mass incarceration, racial hate crimes, police violence, and unequal public education. Adam Serwer calls what is going on now the “Great Resegregation”, the restoration of America’s traditional hierarchies of race and gender.

The Trump side has argued that efforts to end discrimination are themselves a form of discrimination. They indulge the fantasy racism is over, maintaining that we should all be color-blind. Colorblindness rhetoric is about the idea of solving our race problem by ignoring it. It is a convenient way to head off public discussion of racism.

I believe that the current onslaught against DEI is a cover to justify the rollback of civil rights. It is code. The intended message is support for white supremacy. Conservatives don’t usually publicly use the N-word now. They talk about DEI causing plane crashes and black immigrants eating dogs and cats. That way they can be racist and have plausible deniability.

Many white people still mistakenly believe racism serves their interest but it is the billionaire class that is hogging the money and screwing over black and white workers. Racism remains the billionaires’ most effective divide and conquer tool. The civil rights movement advanced the economic and political rights of all working people and white people have benefited when racism is beaten back.

We have come too far and learned too much to go back.