by Vanguard Staff
In a recent article published in The Nation, journalist Sasha Abramsky examined the Republican Party’s role in supporting the second-term agenda of President Donald Trump, focusing on efforts to dismantle birthright citizenship and pass major legislation impacting healthcare, immigration, and the social safety net.
The article begins by outlining the legal challenges to Trump’s executive order targeting birthright citizenship, which came in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling narrowing the power of lower federal courts to issue nationwide injunctions. Abramsky notes that “hours after the Supreme Court issued its ruling,” the American Civil Liberties Union and several other legal organizations filed class action lawsuits aimed at blocking the executive order.
The ACLU’s case, filed in New Hampshire, is scheduled for oral arguments next week. Another case, brought by Georgetown University Law Center’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection, was filed in Maryland. The state of New Jersey has also filed a lawsuit arguing that the executive order would cause harm by creating a population of residents born in the United States who are denied citizenship and therefore ineligible for state and federal benefits.
Omar Jadwat, director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, told The Nation that while the Supreme Court’s ruling on injunctions could have “destructive” long-term effects, he believes the Court left “enough wiggle room for significant push back” in this case. He said that children born in the U.S. to undocumented immigrants or those on temporary visas “won’t ultimately be denied citizenship and ordered deported soon after being born.”
Jadwat also cited the Administrative Procedure Act, which allows courts to vacate agency actions that are unconstitutional or otherwise illegal, as another potential legal avenue. According to Abramsky, attorneys challenging Trump’s order argue that federal agencies would violate multiple laws by denying Social Security numbers, passports, and birth certificates to children born in the U.S. “Trump is,” Jadwat said, “taking a real run to rewrite the Fourteenth Amendment, [but] at the end of the day, they’re not going to get what they want.”
Abramsky contextualized the birthright citizenship battle as part of a broader pattern under Trump’s second term. “That the president and his team could… make a serious go of flouting one of the most consequential of constitutional amendments speaks volumes to where the country is six months into the second Trump administration,” he wrote.
The article also focused on the recent passage of a major legislative package in the U.S. Senate, described by Trump as his “big, beautiful bill.” Abramsky wrote that the legislation “will strip millions of people of access to Medicaid and millions more of access to other health insurance policies via the provisions of the Affordable Care Act, and will take nutritional assistance away from millions of Americans.”
He noted that many provisions of the bill affect longstanding social programs rooted in the Progressive Era, the New Deal, and the Great Society. “If you thought that after a decade-plus of sparring, the increased healthcare coverage generated by the Affordable Care Act was now a generally accepted part of the social fabric, you were, it appears, sorely mistaken,” he wrote.
Abramsky criticized Republican lawmakers who supported the bill, including Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. He noted that Murkowski voted for the bill after securing limited carve-outs for her home state. “Every so often, Murkowski gets props for saying she is horrified or appalled by one authoritarian action or another,” he wrote. “Yet, when it came to voting on what may be the most consequential and destructive piece of legislation in Trump’s second term, she held out for a few carve outs to protect Alaskans… before voting in favor of the legislation.”
The article referenced media reports that the Senate vote was decided by Vice President JD Vance, who broke the tie. Abramsky argued that since Vance’s vote was expected, “it’s more accurate to say that Murkowski… was the tiebreaker here.”
Murkowski later described her vote as “agonizing,” a characterization Abramsky contrasted with the real-world consequences of the legislation. “One assumes it wasn’t as agonizing for her as the consequences of this vote will be for the tens of millions of already low-income Americans whose lives are about to get a whole lot worse,” he wrote.
The article drew comparisons between Murkowski’s actions and those of Senator Susan Collins, who voted to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh after receiving assurances he would respect precedent. “Murkowski went one better than Collins: she didn’t even get fake promises… all she got were a few minor carve outs regarding precisely how many poor people in Alaska would be fed into the woodchipper and at what speed,” Abramsky wrote.
He concluded the piece with a broader warning about the current political landscape. “If you are looking for GOP ‘moderates’ to ride to the rescue, you are setting yourself up to be disappointed,” he wrote. “Murkowski won’t save America, just like Susan Collins didn’t save abortion rights.”
Abramsky is The Nation’s Western correspondent and the author of several books on poverty, inequality, and American politics. His most recent book is Chaos Comes Calling: The Battle Against the Far-Right Takeover of Small-Town America.
Wouldn’t it be logical that the leader of the GOP would be backed by his party?