It is easy to dunk on this title and dismiss it to the land of headlines already adjudicated by Betteridge’s Law, and I am not going to fight back against its undefeated winning streak, but I do think there is value in asking simple questions that you can answer with provable reality. A lot of people dunked on the Wall Street Journal’s front-page story about how data revealed that—like everyone who ever accidentally stumbled into an economics class knew would happen—Trump’s tariffs have been passed down to Americans. While those of us losing our minds on social media may know many clear truths about the authoritarian depravity of this regime, the vast majority of Americans who don’t use text-based apps are not stuck in the same echo chambers as us. Sometimes it’s helpful to state the obvious that is backed up by objective reality just in order to break through the noise.

And I know some on the right may look at this as an uncharitable description of the movement they wholeheartedly endorse and depict as the one filled with Real Americans, but I can point to actual court cases that raise these fundamental questions about whether they are more loyal to the Constitution or to dear leader. The Trump Administration is demonstrating a staggering lack of respect for the first ten amendments, also known as the Bill of Rights.

First Amendment

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Alex Pretti was disarmed, then murdered by masked goons of the state for expressing his 1st Amendment right to peaceful assembly. ABC News’ legal expert James Sample said that “Everything that [Pretti] did and everything that we have seen is consistent with his Second Amendment rights while exercising his First Amendment rights.” This as the heart of ICE’s authoritarian project. It’s an ethnic cleansing operation targeting some of the most vulnerable in our society, but it is also an open assault on Americans choosing to exercise their First Amendment rights to assemble in public and document the state violating other people’s inalienable rights. That’s why they get caught pointing their guns at people so often. ICE and CBP are pursuing a coercive vision of government, not a democratic one that requires the consent of the governed.

But the Trump regime’s First Amendment violations didn’t begin when they sent their shock troops into cities to trample all over the Bill of Rights. The Pentagon press policy has been aimed directly at bypassing the First Amendment, culminating in a lawsuit filed by the *New York Times *in December challenging the Pentagon’s policy of requiring their propagandists to only parrot pre-approved information. The ACLU backed them up in a brief supporting the NYT, saying that “The ACLU warns that this unconstitutional policy must be understood as ‘part of a broader assault on free expression’ that resembles authoritarian tactics seen in other countries that have experienced democratic backsliding.”

The FBI recently raided the home of *Washington Post *journalist Hannah Natanson, something Reporters Without Borders said was “likely illegal and puts Natanson and her hundreds of sources at risk.” The cult of Trumpism can simply be understood as an all-out assault on the First Amendment and an attempt to replace it with Trump himself. It has become crystal clear in the wake of the right trying to get everyone who ever quoted Charlie Kirk fired that Trumpism is wholly incompatible with the First Amendment.

Second Amendment

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

The Department of Homeland Security’s explanation as to why their jumpy masked goons murdered Alex Pretti was because he was expressing his 2nd Amendment rights and carrying a gun he had a permit for. Conservatives’ God-King is now stating their new and updated values very plainly. Time to give up all your guns and concealed carry permits MAGA, daddy says so.

Trump: “With that being said, you can’t have guns. You can’t walk in with guns. You just can’t. You can’t walk in with guns. You can’t do that. But it’s just a very unfortunate incident.”

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) January 27, 2026 at 10:42 AM

Liberals, in the biggest upset in the history of the planet, somehow won both football and the Second Amendment in the national divorce. We sure do live in extraordinary times.

Third Amendment

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

One cruel joke of our era is that we all joked about the supposed uselessness of an amendment that felt outdated by the end of the Revolutionary War. Turns out that our Founders were on to something, as federal agents occupying cities is one way we will celebrate our 250th anniversary, and we may need to utilize this right to fight back and actually adhere to America’s founding values. This one is a lot less firm than the blatant First Amendment violations this regime engages in, or even Trump now stating that conservatives don’t need the Second Amendment after all, but there are actual legal questions being raised about whether Marco Rubio and DHS’s posting war against Hilton Hotels’ refusal to house ICE agents in Minneapolis violated this supposed appendix-like amendment. I am far from a legal expert and cannot answer some of these murkier questions, but I can link you to legal experts trying to figure out just how fucked up our present state of affairs is.

**Fourth Amendment **

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

This one is cut and dried, and backed up by a judge’s ruling against ICE, who got caught red-handed trying to hide a memo that said they were allowed to bypass the entirety of Fourth Amendment. Trump and his Praetorian Guard of unemployable chuds genuinely believe that they are above one of our most hallowed rights that draws a firm line in the sand between state-sanctioned barbarism and a civil and enlightened society.

Fifth Amendment

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

The chief federal judge in Minnesota issued an extraordinary order this week, saying that acting ICE Director Todd Lyons must appear personally in court. It is the furthest thing from normal for a judge to formally demand that the head a federal agency appear in court, but Chief Judge Patrick J. Schiltz said that “the extent of ICE’s violation of court orders is likewise extraordinary, and lesser measures have been tried and failed.” Trump’s regime is simply not following “due process of law” in their bid to deport as many dark-skinned Americans as possible. Some may think I am hysteric when I call this an ethnic cleansing campaign, but that is what it acts like. If this was a law-and-order campaign, it would be at least be pretending to try to follow the law. And for those poisoned by the MechaHitler CSAM site’s propaganda who think that this judge is some hysteric leftist, Schiltz is a former Antonin Scalia clerk and was appointed by George W. Bush. Get off Twitter—it’s melting your brain.

Sixth Amendment

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

After Trump’s masked goons murdered a VA nurse in the street and left him to die, they detained witnesses to the murder and held them at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, a deliberate sketchy practice the regime has been engaging in since they invaded. “Four attorneys told ABC News they have been denied access to their clients at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis, where they are being held,” reported ABC News six days before ICE and CPB agents executed Alex Pretti. “Which they say would violate 5th and 6th Amendment rights to due process and the right to consult with counsel.”

And this isn’t the only front where Sixth Amendment rights are being eroded by a federal government who believes they are above the law. Trump’s rampage through the federal budget combined with the longest government shutdown in history has also led to a situation, deliberate or not, where 6th Amendment rights are being violated by a lack of capacity. Criminal Justice Act panel attorneys, known as court-appointed lawyers, represent about 40% of cases where the defendant cannot afford an attorney. “The system’s about to break,” said Michael Chernis, a CJA panel attorney in southern California, to the *Associated Press *during the shutdown. By simply not having enough lawyers to litigate the cases on hand, that delays people’s “right to a speedy and public trial.”

Seventh Amendment

In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

This one is safe for now, as it’s difficult to find any possible 7th Amendment violations by the regime, just them using a 2024 Supreme Court case that ruled 7th Amendment violations took place as justification to “repeal regulations that are unlawful.” It is the most on-brand thing for this bankrupt ideology to wipe its ass with the bulk of the Bill of Rights, then use a more obscure right to rule in favor of deregulating the industries the regime’s billionaire financiers are bribing them to deregulate. This is modern conservatism in a nutshell.

Eight Amendment

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Trump and Stephen Miller are genuinely trying to take as many rights from immigrants as they can, and this fight began last year with lawsuits like the ACLU’s over the regime stripping bond eligibility for millions of Americans. This is another one where it seems cut and dried that the regime believes the Constitution does not apply to their ethnic cleansing campaign, and unfortunately, once people find their ways inside the Geo and CoreCivic concentration camps the masked police are denying Congressional oversight to, it is likely we shall see many “cruel and unusual punishments inflicted” on people. But hey, at least Geo and CoreCivic stock is up since Trump won, that’s what really matters to American capitalists, right? Not some silly Bill of Rights that underwrites all the prosperity they exploit and take for granted.

Ninth Amendment

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

This one is trickier to litigate, but these are the grounds on which women’s healthcare rights are established. *Griswold v. Connecticut *ruled in 1965 that the Constitution did protect the right of marital privacy against state restrictions on contraception, and Justice William O. Douglas wrote in the Court’s opinion that “the Ninth Amendment simply lends strong support to the view that the ‘liberty’ protected by the Fifth And Fourteenth Amendments from infringement by the Federal Government or the States is not restricted to rights specifically mentioned in the first eight amendments.”

The right’s broader anti-abortion initiative boils down to providing rights to a fetus in order to deny “certain rights” that are “retained by the people.” Again, I am not a lawyer, just some schmuck with a political science degree, but it is difficult to not see the right’s anti-abortion argument as an explicit anti-Ninth Amendment argument.

Tenth Amendment

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

I am of the belief that the First Amendment is the greatest innovation in the history of democracy and that democracy in America would not even be possible without it and the Fourth, Fifth, Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments, but my favorite Amendment after the ones too many take for granted is this one. It is an explicit message from the framers to our modern politicians who refused to listen to them that this is a living and breathing document. You can tell that after they got all the big stuff down, they got to the 9th and 10th Amendments and knew they had to address their own blind spots in a government that didn’t allow most of the people it was governing to vote. This amendment is a message to the future: anything big we didn’t see coming, it’s on you in the laboratories of democracy to figure out how to fix it.

What we are witnessing in Minnesota is the value of state sovereignty in our federalist system. We’re so used to hearing states’ rights bullshit emanating from the former slave colony’s list of excuses for why they fought a war over owning human beings, and in the cacophony of the right’s bad faith arguments, we have lost track of what states’ rights actually means as a Constitutional principle. Tenth Amendment violations can seem abstract, but a federal court in Minneapolis heard arguments this week alleging that the Trump Administration was violating Minnesota’s 10th Amendment rights with this invasion and occupation. Something like this in the past would never make it this far in court, but when Operation Metro Surge is alleged to “punish plaintiffs for adopting sanctuary laws and policies” thanks to the regime’s own rhetoric, yet another extraordinary thing is happening in our extraordinary times.

So to end this blog tallying up the scoreboard, I’d argue that the Trump Administration has demonstrated clear-cut hostility to the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Eighth Amendments, especially when it comes to immigrants with legal status, and I don’t think anyone is prepared for how weird a theoretical Hilton Third Amendment case could possibly get in our increasingly bizarre reality. The regime and its adherents are clearly are not fans of the Ninth Amendment either because of how it formed the basis of *Griswold *and then *Roe *afterwards, and Trump and his backers have proven that they are only in favor of the Tenth Amendments as it pertains to the states who tried to secede from the union, and only in order to aid their ongoing efforts to subvert the rest of the Bill of Rights.

Now Trump and his goons are saying “you can’t have guns” and that they executed an American citizen because he was expressing his Second Amendment rights. What part of the Bill of Rights do they actually like? This is an explicit anti-Constitutional movement, and it’s time we started echoing Antonin Scalia appointees and stating the obvious.

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