lack of regard for truth or basic actual facts... It's a whole new low for a presidency. Put a temporary ban on immigration? ok.. so this administration isn't the first. Put a temporary ban on immigration without checking with Legal first? New feature. Put a temporary ban on immigration and fire the Attorney General for questioning its legality? New feature. Put a temporary ban on immigration and then throw a talking head in front of some cameras to make shit up as justification? SO... maybe this administration isn't the first... but they probably could have picked something a little less completely-bull-shitty to use as justification.lack of regard for justification
Everything you list is a first for a sitting president, and it's ugly, no doubt. I think nearly all thinking people would rather not watch this stuff go down. But the government is several million professionals who all work together and nobody wants to unthinkingly, unfeelingly flush it down the toilet. Last weekend, DHS and ICE could have rolled over and gone "awright! Let's crack skulls, boys!" and the shit would have been neck-deep instead of waist-deep. Their implementation of Trump's muslim ban was half-hearted at best, however, and there was a great deal of outrage expressed by the entire world. The argument I see from pessimists is "he's going to keep doing this shit until we stop objecting to his insanity." I rarely see "he's going to keep doing this shit until we stop taking him seriously." Governance is either by consent or by force and the Trump administration lacks force. There comes a time when even the playground bully learns not to make threats with his mouth that his ass can't keep. So far, Mexico and Australia have both basically hung up on Trump. Both of them have billions/trillions of dollars worth of entanglements and that shit ain't gonna stop. So. Do you take the president at face value when he says he's going to invade your country if you can't stop the "bad hombres?" Or do you deal directly with the lower-level adminstrators you've always dealt with, less efficiently, with less mandate, but with a great deal less crazyness and bloviation? The world can't take the presidency seriously. They have to take the United States seriously. Between that rock and hard place lies compromise and improvisation, both of which are the hallmarks of government. What we're watching is the process of everyone finding the "new normal" while we all learn to work around the Madness of King Donald.
I think it's worth noting the the Supreme Court has never actually officially overturned Korematsu v. United States (the ruling that said interning Japanese and Americans of Japanese ancestry was legal). Perhaps President Trump (stop and puke in my mouth a little every time I write or say that) will finally give them an opportunity to do so.
What the supreme Court says is the law of the land. Nobody seems to realize or care that despite the fact that we all talk about how wrong that episode was, it was then and remains today perfectly legal. I would hope that the court would reverse course if they were given an opportunity, but they've had opportunities (e.g. Guantanamo cases) and have opted to rule narrowly.