The Process of Dismantling Due Process in USA Started Decades Before Trump

One of the most common complaint about the second Trump presidency on multiple social media sites is about how his administration has been openly flaunting their disdain for judicial due process. Not a single day goes by without one or several new instances of how some governmental agency has “accidentally” imprisoned a citizen, “accidentally” deported a permanent resident, “accidentally” imprisoned and deported some tourists etc. On some days, Trump and his coterie of old white retards come up with yet another brain fart about trade tariffs or unexplained change to what they said yesterday. On other days, his dumb plastic-surgery victim AG comes up with another ridiculous attempt to show she is doing something. I could go on, but you get the main point- Trump is acting like the dictator of some third-world country, surrounded by sycophants, rather than the president of a country which claims to be a superpower. Then again, USA has been a rich third-world country masquerading as a developed country for the past two decades.. at the very least.

However this post is not about how USA is a third-world country still coasting along on its previous image and prestige. Instead, it will focus on how many presidents and administrations prior to Trump slowly but surely dismantled judicial due process in USA- paving the way for Trump’s current behavior. Some readers might correctly point out that for most of its existence as a nation, judicial due process in USA was largely restricted to rich white men. But for the purposes of this post, we are going to restrict our time window to the post-1965 era, because it is possible to accept that we did have a fair semblance of judicial due process between the passing of two major laws in 1965 (Voting Rights Act, Immigration and Nationality Act) and September 11, 2001. While nobody is claiming that this period of about 36 years was perfect, it was as close as USA has ever gotten to having a fair and functional society.

While this 36-year timespan was pretty good, we could see the beginnings of the path that would lead to Trump towards the end of this era- specifically in the later half of 1990s. See.. most people think that the “Global War on Terror” began after September 11, 2001- but that is not true. In fact, somewhat ironically, this failed and dumb “war” began in the aftermath of the first WTC bombing on February 26, 1993. Until then, the USA has been largely isolated from any consequences of its questionable actions in a number of Middle-Eastern countries. While that bombing had little last effect on those buildings, it is the event which set in motion a number of other events which would lead us to the current situation. Some of you might wonder why I ignored other similar events such as Ruby Ridge, Waco siege and the Oklahoma city bombing. In my opinion, those events were a carry over from domestic governmental policies, but the WTC bombing in 1993 was something new and directly led us to what we see in 2025.

But why was the government response to, and “investigation” of, the 1993 WTC bombing different from the Waco siege and Oklahoma city bombing, though the number of deaths in the first (6) was much lower than the subsequent two? Well.. it came down to the ethnicity and religion of the perpetrators. Even though USA had race-neutral immigration since 1965, it is fair to say that the majority in USA saw non-whites as second class citizens who had no right to be in “their” country. That is why Illegal surveillance and attempts to infiltrate mosques in USA began years before 9/11. Some readers might see such actions as a legitimate response to terrorism- but they forget to answer some important related questions. Which countries were funding them? What were their grievances? How much of a role did previous American involvement in Afghanistan in 1980s, and Iraq in 1991, have in the sentiments behind such actions?

Though the 1993 WTC bombing was the largest event of its type in USA, other similar events occurred all throughout the late 1990s and very early 2000s (Bojinka plot in 1995, USA embassy bombings in 1998, USS Cole bombing in 2000 etc). In any case, the idea of treating non-whites as second class citizens was already established by second half of 1990s. Notably, this is the first major instance of government policy approving such racially disparate treatment of people who either citizens or otherwise lawfully in USA. Of course, and to no ones surprise, the preparators of the 1993 bombing were finally identified and apprehended through a series of chance events and cooperation by law enforcement in other countries. It turned out that all that illegal surveillance of American Muslims was of little use in solving the case. But it did establish an major post-1965 precedent, namely that non-white citizens had fewer rights than others.

Now let us talk about the hugely unsuccessful and costly GWOT launched by the Bush administration in the aftermath of 9/11- an event of which they almost certainly had foreknowledge. While people often fixate on the costly and unsuccessful occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan in the aftermath of that false flag attack- there is another side of that era which many seem to have forgotten. We are talking about the amount of resources and money spent on everything from illegal spying on American citizens of Muslim faith, lawfare including cancelling visas without cause, making up fake tenor plots to ensnare a few mentally-retarded young men, kidnaping and torture of innocent European citizens of Muslim faith and much more. To be blunt, the first and second Bush presidency treated judicial due process with the same contempt as Trump. It is jus that between 9/11 and late 2006, most white Americans supported this behavior. However once the Iraq occupation became a costly fiasco, all these “good people” conveniently forgot what they had vocally supported just a couple of years ago.

And the Obama administration, in both his presidential terms, was not much better. Let me remind you that it was under the Obama administration that the government made up a rule out of thin air justifying assassinations of American citizens, including children, not to mention hundreds of drone strikes against civilians in Pakistan and Yemen. Of course, Yemen ended up getting anti-aircraft weapons from Iran and now American drones that dare to fly near Yemen have a lifespan measured in hours. Notably, Obama did not stop or reverse most transgressions of judicial due process put in place by previous administrations. Trump, in his first term, also did nothing to reverse the abuses of previous administrations and expanded many of them. However, Democrats said almost nothing about such violations and instead spent all their free time making loud noises about Russian influence and Putin. At this point, it is fair to say that neither of the two mainstream parties ever cared about judicial due process.

The presidency of Joe Biden, if you want to call it that, was also marked by further abandonment of due process. If you don’t believe that, have a look at how the Biden administration treated non-violent protestors who went into the capitol on January 6, 2020. Or read about how the Biden administration tried to use lawfare in the form of multiple rigged lawsuits to stop Trump from running in the 2024 election. But the worst and most egregious example of abandoning due process can be seen in how they responded to the largely manufactured COVID-19 pandemic. In case some might not remember, the Biden government invented all sorts of new powers to justify a host of draconian rules and regulations that were not backed by objective scientific evidence, common sense or due process. They pushed all sorts of stupid ideas such as mandatory vaccination for COVID with vaccines that did not work, nonsense rules about visiting assisted living facilities and hospitals, ridiculous laws about ineffective facemasks and much more. At this point, it was obvious to anybody with a brain that the American government did not give a shit about due process or even pretend.

Once you appreciate this unfortunate historical trend, it is much easier to understand why somebody like Trump was able to tear down even more of whatever was still left of due process. Trump, for all the dumb and dangerous things he has done to date in his second term, did not start the process of destroying due process in this country. His predecessors in past thirty years- including three Democrats and one Republican, had already done a lot of that work. His main contribution, in my opinion, is that unlike his predecessors he openly flaunts such behavior without any concern for the consequences. Nothing that Trump has done until now, however atrocious, is anything more than what his predecessors tried to or succeeded. The real difference, in my opinion, is that USA and world has changed a lot in that timespan and he will soon find out that American economic and military power is a mere shadow of what it was alleged to be in the 1990s. Not to mention that the demographic profile of USA has changed irreversibly in multiple way which work against this sort of behavior- but he and his supporters will have to find that out the hard way.

What do you think? Comments?