The liberal world order, with its supposed commitment to the rule of law, human rights and equality for all, met its demise in Gaza.
There is more than enough evidence confirming the genocidal nature of Israel’s campaign in Gaza. Yet, political leaders in the West have been uncompromising in their support of Israel’s efforts. At the United Nations, the majority of the world has consistently passed resolutions condemning Israel’s actions in Gaza and called for an end to the occupation. Israel has responded by making UN agencies and personnel targets of war. The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants against Israeli leaders. The United States has rejected the court’s decision and Israel has continued to bombard Gaza. All of this has happened under a Democratic US leadership. With the return of US President-elect Donald Trump, we can expect a fast-track dismantling of whatever is left of this liberal order.
Smith on Monday dropped both the 2020 election subversion prosecution against Trump and the charges accusing Trump of mishandling classified documents.
The special counsel stressed his decision was not about the strength of his case against Trump, but his reasoning hung on the Justice Department’s long-held belief that the Constitution prohibits prosecutions against sitting presidents.
Even if prosecutors had believed that they could have kept the cases on life support into the second Trump presidency, the president-elect had already indicated that he planned to fire Smith and his team, a vow that breached the usual norms surrounding a special counsel investigation.
This time around, Trump will feel confident that he has the mandate to go further. From the first day in office, he has promised a return to the restrictive immigration policies of his first term. It’s important to remember that, in 2023, the administration of outgoing US President Joe Biden “outpaced Trump deportation totals for any single year”. But Trump and his allies have claimed that the Democratic administration’s immigration policy is too weak, “treasonous” and “national suicide”. The president-elect’s incoming border czar Tom Homan has promised a “shock and awe” approach with militarised raids, mass detention and mass deportation of undocumented migrants. Rights groups have argued that such actions would “tear apart families”, involve racial profiling, lead to xenophobic actions and increase the chances of abuse by “law enforcement during mass roundups”.
But the offensive wasn’t just rhetorical. As regular readers might recall, Trump also made clear that he hoped to use governmental power to crack down on journalism he dislikes. It’s why he invested so much time and energy talking about the FCC stripping TV networks of their broadcast licenses for airing coverage he disapproves of. We saw some abuses along these lines during his first term in the White House, and these tactics are almost certainly going to get worse in his second term.