Letter-writing time again.

Dear Senator _____ and Staff--

I write to ask you to stand up to the Executive Branch's defiance of the separation of powers and the rights of due process for all people.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia remains in custody in the brutal El Salvador prison that President Trump's ICE sent him to thanks to an "administrative error." Mr. Garcia has been neither tried nor convicted of breaking any law. He was here legally under a withholding of removal order issued by a judge in 2019. The Executive Branch could have challenged this order in court through well-established procedures. They chose not to. Now they claim--implausibly--that they are powerless to correct their errors and that Mr. Garcia is where he deserves to be.

Circuit judges and all nine Justices of the Supreme Court have disagreed. In response, the Executive Branch issued threats about impeaching judges and defunding federal courts. Every day, White House spokespeople spread misleading, unproven, or simply false stories about Mr. Garcia and his case. The Vice President has ridiculed those who dare criticize the Administration's actions, suggesting that due process is too cumbersome an obstacle to surmount in immigration matters. Most chillingly, President Trump himself has affirmed that he is looking for ways to send "homegrown" criminals--U.S. citizens--to foreign prisons.

The Executive Branch's stance is surreal and frightening. Today the Fourth Circuit forcefully turned back yet another attempt by the White House to dodge its responsibilities. In his decision, U.S. Circuit Judge J. Harvey Wilkerson summarizes the situation well: "The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order. Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done." Judge Wilkerson continues, "This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear."

As an American "far removed from courthouses," I agree completely with Judge Wilkerson. I am shocked at the speed and ferocity of the administration's blitzkrieg attack on Constitutional norms. More than that, I'm scared. A government that can disappear anyone it wants to simply by declaring them "really bad people" is the stuff of nightmare regimes we used to fight against.

Due process for everyone protects everyone. Suspending due process for "really bad people" threatens everyone. Declaring due process too inconvenient or too time-consuming threatens everyone. Due process for all is elemental to any democratic republic worthy of the name.

At this moment, April 2025, we apparently need the other two branches of our government to reinforce that lesson to the Executive Branch and its supporters. Circuit Judges like Wilkerson are doing their part. I ask you, my Senator, to help Congress do theirs. Stand up for the democratic good of due process. Reclaim the Legislative Branch's power to check the Executive. Publicly refute suggestions that the Executive branch can ignore due process. Rebut notion that the Judiciary or Congress is bullying the Executive by expecting it to abide by Constitutional norms. Affirm--loudly and often--that you stand for our system of checks and balances, not government by royal whim.

In his conclusion, Judge Wilkerson writes, "We yet cling to the hope that it is not naïve to believe
our good brethren in the Executive Branch perceive the rule of law as vital to the American
ethos. This case presents their unique chance to vindicate that value and to summon the
best that is within us while there is still time."

I am asking you to summon the best that is within you--the best that is within America--to stand up for basic democratic rights.

Thank you.

The Search for Reds

 Today's mood has improved over yesterday's, which is good. After I posted the down-in-the-dumps post, I did push myself to do a short workout, take a shower, and . . . well, absorb the news about the helicopter-passenger jet collision in Washington, DC. God be with the victims' families. 

Today's press conference by President Trump featured the expected bromides about togetherness in tragedy before (apparently--after I stopped listening) detouring into the expected scapegoat for the crash from the administration: Biden (and Pete Budigeig) and DEI. He offered no evidence or substantiation, of course, even after some (admirable) pushback by some reporters. Trump is well beyond the need for proof. Apparently, so are his supporters. Some news media are instead noting how the FAA chief had stepped down at Musk's command on Jan 20, how air traffic controllers had been suffering from overwork and shortages for years, how the (again, Musk-spawned) scare letter to all federal employees yesterday provide at least some points of curiosity--for other people, obviously, not for Trump or his administration.

Just before sitting down to write this (after cleaning up yet more of Solo's projectile barfing--I'm really worried about our little guy), I read the report of a national call from Braver Angels (the depolarization group I'm part of). The call concentrated on the results of a long survey/study about one of the major problems Braver Angels faces: red (i.e., conservative) recruitment. The results identified two familiar reasons. First, reds report feeling unwelcome in BA spaces, usually thanks to offhand comments from uncareful blues. Second, many reds simply don't see why BA is worth their time and trouble; it's all talk and no action. I've heard the latter expressed by many of our red attendees. 

With effort, I quash my first reaction--how far back to we need to bend over in order to make reds feel welcome? In no other realm of society or politics do I ever see reds worrying about whether they're making blues feel welcome. Looking beyond that, I think there are some other issues going on--at least where I am--that contribute to the red-recruitment problem.

The first is that partisan sorting into reds and blues (Braver Angels's longstanding default) leaves out a great many self-identified independents, often (but not exclusively) of some flavor of libertarian. Now, a lot of times BA will label these (or encourage them to self-label as) red. But that shade of red doesn't fit well. 

One of the solutions offered by the BA official in charge of the call (whom I know as a really stand-up red-identifying guy) involved including a prominent red, a podcast host, on the call. But this prominent red is described as having "a personal relationship with a Trump nominee for the NIH"--the nominee being of course Robert Kennedy. Here's the thing: Kennedy is much more libertarian than MAGA red. He's kissed the ring enough to be NIH nominee (he'll likely get through despite a long history of cackle-brained, anti-vax opinions). Trump has recruited more libertarian bros like Kennedy and Musk into his circle this time around. I'm assuming that this podcast host falls more into that red-leaning libertarian mold, not the bright-red MAGA. (Checking Wikipedia--apparently he's been described as libertarian but now rejects that label--which is still different than a full-on-Trump loyalist a la Kash Patel.)

It remains to be seen how stable such libertarian-authoritarian bonds will remain. Libertarian authoritarianism is increasingly a thing, but it's not quite the same as MAGA white-nationalist-Christian-fundamentalist authoritarianism (not that everyone is white or Christian in that group, e.g., Patel). Some fractures between them have so far been slight, and it may be that Trump's main feat this time around involves forging and maintaining that fusion between "no government telling anyone what to do" and "no government telling me what to do--but definitely telling those other people what to do."

In any case, I don't know that we have that many dyed-in-the-wool MAGA Trump supporters in the organization. When I hear folk complain about BA being "all talk, no action," I hear more the libertarian streak than the authoritarian streak. 

Why is that? Well, one reason is that I don't hear the authoritarian streak at all. Religious fundamentalists and [substitute whatever gradation of white nationalism you'd like here] just don't come to Braver Angels meetings so far as I can see. And why would they? What's in it for them?

There's a difference, in other words, between "BA is all talk and no action, so it's not worth my time" and "BA is interested in getting the two sides to talk to and work together for the common good--and thus it's not worth my time." If you really believe that you have a deadlock on the True and the Right and that the other side really is just fundamentally Wrong and Malicious--well, it's immoral to work with them or talk to them. Authoritarians do not care to depolarize. They aim to conquer, and anything that reeks of compromise is a turnoff.

Frankly, I think both modes of thought--no government at all! and much stronger government that makes others do what I want!--represent dealbreaker positions for Braver Angels, which if anything embraces democratic governance moderated by protected liberties.  

As for the second objection--blues are mean--well, I agree that's a complaint I often here (more at the national level than at local levels). But again, I'm not sure it means what we think it means.

More tomorrow.