Image: In his second term, Donald Trump has taken the use of “national security” to new, absurd extremes.Kent Nishimura/AFP/Getty

Sophie Hurwitz of Mother Jones reports: “President Donald Trump has a favorite justification for everything he does: “It’s a national security matter.”

After 9/11, the United States built a vast, powerful, and generally unchecked national security apparatus. Twenty-five years later, Trump is using agencies and emergency powers that sprung up in the aftermath of the 2001 attacks—and have never been abolished or repealed—to threaten domestic dissidents and anyone else he views as an enemy, claiming that those who oppose his policies constitute threats to America…”

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