Trump-era Republicans who have fallen in love with the President's "law and order" stance are doing their part in trying to forward that agenda, even if the President can't. Blasting News reported on the latest bill signed by Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbot on Sunday, which bans sanctuary cities that do not follow federal law. The bill is the kind of overreach by a Governor that will likely be fought tooth and nail in the courts before it's supposed to go into effect on September 1.
Getting around Trump's opposition
The ban says that the state of Texas will crack down on sanctuary cities that do not comply with orders to turn in illegal immigrants with heinous crimes.
They will face a daily $250,000 fine and other civil and/or criminal penalties. As the mentioned Blasting News article opines, this is Greg Abbott's way to get around the opposition against Trump in Congress and the courts to strip federal funding from those sanctuary jurisdictions.
The article points to when the administration signed an executive order to strip funding before it was blocked by a 9th District federal judge. It was widely reported that the Trump administration stomped and roared over judge's decision, and referred to the Obama-appointed judge as a "so-called" judge. It mentions briefly that President Trump is considering dismantling the 9th District, but despite this, he cannot remove the federally appointed judge for blocking him.
Trump and Republicans still dismantling the Obama-era
Trump has made it his agenda to dismantle everything that Obama has done and essentially erase his history and his legacy. The District Judge appointed by Obama which blocked Trump's order is Judge William Orrick III, which would give more reason for President Trump to want to and maybe try get rid of him.
But Governor Greg Abbott's new bill also adds something far more menacing for our version of Democracy in the United States which is to remove elected and appointed officials from office.
This would clearly suggest that elected leaders such as Mayors could be removed for not submitting to "federal law" and perhaps even appointed judges for blocking them.
Getting rid of an Obama-appointed official would certainly be a dream come true for President Trump -- who has no problem firing those who oppose him -- and a dream come true for Abbott as well, as he has gone after the former president with other Republican state leaders who promoted the view that the Obama presidency was government overreach.
Descending further towards authoritarianism
Abbott has done his part in meeting right wing extremist agendas halfway with passing an open-carry law in 2016 and dispatching the state guard to monitor a Navy SEAL/Green Beret training exercise, believing it was President Obama declaring martial law. But now that Donald Trump is president, the Governor can now depend on better cover by the administration to push a more extreme agenda, and able to leverage power for a despot-in-chief (or just plain old despot) to overthrow elected and/or appointed officials.
Many have never doubted that Greg Abbott had it in him to become fascistic in how he governs a state that manufacturers the most Republican congressional seats for Washington. Now in President Trump's first year, we see a Governor who is more than happy to oblige.
