Commentary: Should America return the Statue of Liberty?

A French politician recently called sarcastically on the United States to return the Statue of Liberty to France, arguing that President Donald Trump’s administration no longer represents the American values of liberty and democracy the statue was given to this country to symbolize.

There’s no way we’re giving back Lady Liberty, but the French lawmaker, Raphaël Glucksmann, a member of the European Parliament, has a point. “Give us back the Statue of Liberty,” Glucksmann said last month. “It was our gift to you. But apparently you despise her.”

Trump’s second term has been a disaster for liberty so far, from his often lawless or unconstitutional executive orders to his attacks on freedom, democracy and civil liberties, and it’s only been three months. This nation, under its present leadership, is fast losing its once-earned claim to hold liberty’s torch high.

Twelve weeks into his so-called “Golden Age,” Americans are witnessing horrifying scenes as masked and hooded ICE agents whisk legal residents off the streets. Others smash car windows to get at a migrant. Trump’s minions mistakenly take a father away from his autistic son, ship him illegally to a Salvadoran gulag, defy court orders and argue they are powerless to get him back. Americans believe in the rule of law and due process. They didn’t vote for a constitutional crisis.

Trump promised to be a dictator only on day one, but he has continued to act like one day after day, using police state tactics on migrants and international students alike. He also promised to end inflation and stop Russia’s war in Ukraine on day one. Instead, the war goes on, and inflation is worse. Promises made, not so much kept.

His foreign policy has been just as reckless, ceding democratic leadership to others, threatening friendly nations and foes alike with nonsensical tariffs, rattling the global economy and turning “America First Trade Policy” into America alone — or increasingly isolated.

He has effectively switched sides to favor Russia over Ukraine and sown mistrust and fear among America’s vital allies. His top officials put American service members at risk by sharing war plans on an unsecured app and then lying about it or denying that attack plans are top-secret.

For more than 100 days, this America has self-deported from defending liberty, democracy, national security and free speech, tarnishing the image of the Statue of Liberty lighting the way to freedom.

Trump has dropped that torch in his retreat from law, liberty and the Constitution. Not just Democrats but also many Republicans and independent voters are finding this new Trump nation chaotic, weak, lawless, authoritarian and mean-spirited. They are right to push back by the millions in street protests, in numerous court decisions, even increasingly in the Congress, despite the threats.

“We are all afraid,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski R-Alaska, told a gathering of nonprofit leaders in Anchorage this month. “I’m often times very anxious myself about using my voice, because retaliation is real. And that’s not right.”

After being knocked down in the November election, Democrats are finding their voices, and Americans of all political stripes are picking up the torch now and fighting back in defense of the law and the Constitution. Courage is contagious.

To be fair, support among Trump’s core Republican MAGA faithful remains strong, and it has grown to 36% in one recent NBC poll. But Americans increasingly disapprove of how he’s handling his job. A recent Gallup poll showed a majority, 53%, disapproved, while his 45% approval rating for the first quarter was well below other post-World War II presidents.

This administration attacks free speech, independent media, elite universities and academic freedom. Some of this may be popular with his populist base but not with a majority of Americans. Despite Trump’s claims that he can push the limits because he has a mandate, he won the 2024 popular vote with the support of less than 50% of voters and tiny GOP margins in Congress.

Authoritarians despise critics. This one seems to like using extortion rackets to silence them. He takes research grants away from universities if they don’t bow to his will, bullies law firms he perceives as disloyal, sues independent media that tell the truth about his regime and attacks judges who rule against his policies. These are the tactics of a tyrant, and America doesn’t love kings, especially if they threaten citizens, instill fear and abuse power.

Having accused former President Joe Biden of weaponizing the Justice Department, Trump is the one who actually is doing it. He pardoned some 1,500 Jan. 6 rioters who stormed the Capitol, attacked police and tried to overturn a free and fair election. He ordered his Justice Department to target and investigate two former U.S. officials who criticized him.

Even The Wall Street Journal criticized this targeting of perceived enemies by a president who campaigned against “lawfare” and accused the Democrats of doing the same thing to him. “This is a broken promise, an abuse of power and another twist down the spiral of politicized law enforcement,” the Journal wrote in an editorial.

Americans agree that the country must better control its borders, but judges appointed by both Republicans and Democrats correctly have insisted the administration do it legally. Some judges halted Trump’s dubious executive order to end birthright citizenship, a status enshrined in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.

Many have been particularly appalled by Trump’s agents arresting a Maryland resident and father, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, and shipping him to a notorious prison in El Salvador. Immigration and Customs Enforcement admitted Garcia was wrongly deported there because of an “administrative error,” but it has done nothing to get him back for a fair legal hearing. An appeals court ordered his return.

“The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order,” conservative Judge Harvie Wilkinson wrote in a unanimous decision by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

“This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear,” Wilkinson wrote, asking whether the next step could conceivably be the deporting of U.S. citizens.

It’s time for all American citizens to take up the torch. Lady Liberty will be watching.

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Storer H. Rowley is a former national editor and foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune.

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