Joshua Matz is a constitutional lawyer based in the District. He is also the publisher of the legal analysis blog Take Care.
President Trump is hard at work making animus the law of the land. Justice Department lawyers revealed his latest effort Friday night, announcing a revised plan to exclude nearly all transgender soldiers from the armed forces.
As many commentators haveobserved, the reasoning offered to support Trump’s policy is riddled with empirical errors and anti-trans stereotypes. It comes nowhere close to disproving the comprehensive study in 2016 that recommended allowing transgender people to serve openly. Like so many other missives from this White House, it makes only a token effort to conceal the disdain and disgust that underlie it.
Trump’s original “transgender ban” was blocked byfourfederal courts. After two of those rulings were affirmed on appeal, the administration decided against seeking Supreme Court review. It’s therefore safe to assume that Trump’s latest order will not go into effect unless it survives constitutional challenges.
And in thinking about that litigation, it’s hard to escape a feeling of deja vu. A little more than 14 months into Trump’s presidency, a pattern has emerged in cases challenging some of his most despicable decisions.
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It remains to be seen when and where these arguments will succeed. As a logical matter, there must be some limits. Evidence that Trump originally acted with impermissible motives cannot (and should not) permanently preclude him from making policy.
But that isn’t the situation we confront. Trump has made no effort whatsoever to dispel or deny the aura of animus that envelops so many of his orders. To the contrary, he and his advisers have leaned into the hate. With each passing day, it spreads like a poison.
We thus live in a strange new world, where bigots serve openly and soldiers are forced into closets.