If Utahns expect their members of Congress to represent their values, they are going to have to start speaking up, and often.
It has become clear that, like many Republicans across the nation, members of our congressional delegation won’t do anything to oppose the creeping fascism of the Trump administration unless they decide they are more afraid of their own voters than they are of Donald Trump.
Not afraid of their constituents in the physical sense. Not altering their behavior due to threats of violence — like the recent arson attack on the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion. But wary of losing support, contributions and votes if they don’t start calling out, investigating, even legislating against, the administration’s excesses.
One hopeful sign was the large crowds that turned out in the deep red states of Utah and Idaho in support of the “Fighting the Oligarchy” Tour headlined by Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. No violence. Just people, lots of people, turning out to stand for their values.
Trump has nothing on his side but fear. Not valid legal arguments. Not respect for the Constitution. Few if any court rulings going his way. Just the fear that he stokes in his followers and across right-wing media, telling lies about who he has sent his goons to arrest and deport and why his actions aren’t subject to judicial review or the constitutional guarantees of due process.
It can be difficult, even dangerous, to counter fear with reason and respect for the law. The threats faced by American politicians of either party today are much more likely to include not just withheld contributions and switched votes, but threats and actual cases of physical violence.
That fear may explain why Mike Lee, who once had a claim to being the best friend the U.S. Constitution ever had, has completely turned his back on our nation’s basic charter. (Fear and, perhaps, a lingering hope Trump will appoint him to the U.S. Supreme Court.)
The senior senator from the state of Utah has thrown in with the Trump administration’s disgraceful defiance of our Constitution and our courts.
Lee has taken to social media to repeat the administration’s bald-faced lies about some of the people our government has illegally shipped to a prison in El Salvador. He expresses admiration for that nation’s dictator and support for Donald Trump’s willful failure to recognize the power of the courts or the Constitution’s rights of due process.
Lee’s behavior stings because it is the most visible and the biggest flip-flop among Utah’s six-member congressional delegation — Lee having once styled himself a constitutional scholar and enemy of executive overreach.
But the rest of Utah’s delegation to Washington has been silent on this issue. Sen. John Curtis and Reps. Burgess Owens, Celeste Maloy, Blake Moore and Mike Kennedy all declined to comment when approached by The Salt Lake Tribune.
Shameful.
The specific case getting most of the attention right now is that of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia. The Maryland resident was living in the U.S. under the protection of a 2019 court order that blocked deportation out of concerns for his safety.
The Trump administration had him deported anyway, relying on false claims he was a member of a criminal gang. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously the deportation was illegal and that the administration should bring Abrego Garcia back to his family and job in Maryland.
Trump has defied the order, making absurd arguments that some people aren’t entitled to due process and that the courts were somehow interfering in the executive’s right to carry out foreign policy.
The president has also openly toyed with the idea that U.S. citizens who are convicted criminals could also be deported to El Salvador without any recourse to the courts. Lee denies that Trump said that, which is simply not true.
The constitutional balance of power that has stood us in such good stead for the past 236 years will collapse utterly unless each branch of government stands up for that balance and for its own duties and powers.
A Congress that closes its eyes and keeps its silence in the face of such brazenly illegal behavior as the Trump administration now demonstrates will mean the end of the constitutional system Utah politicians claim to champion.
If that’s not what you want, you had better speak up. Before it’s too late.
Editorials represent the opinions of The Salt Lake Tribune editorial board, which operates independently from the newsroom.
