Olivia Telecky-

Executive orders are not a new thing in politics. Even George Washington signed eight executive orders while in office, because they are a duty of the president baked into the Constitution. Article Two, Section Three states that the president must “take care that the laws be faithfully executed”, and an executive order is simply a written explanation, signed by the president, of how the executive branch plans on doing just that. Because an executive order is a plan to carry out the law, it cannot contradict laws that are currently in place. However, the amount of executive orders signed has significantly increased over the years. As Congress has become more divided, it has been harder and harder to get new legislation passed. As such, executive orders have become more powerful tools over time, in some ways becoming legislation in their own right, because it is much easier to “beat Congress to the punch” and sign an executive order before a proper law is passed. This is a large reason why more and more presidents have been using executive orders to their advantage.

During former president Joe Biden’s term in office, he signed 42 executive orders in his first 100 days, surpassing Trump’s 33 executive orders in his first 100 days of his first term. Trump’s 33 executive orders surpassed Obama’s first term 19 that he signed in his first 100 days, and Obama surpassed Bush Jr.’s first term’s 11 signed in his first 100 days. While this exponential growth implied that Trump would likely surpass Biden’s numbers, the speed at which he has done so is shocking. Though he had only been in office for 16 days (as of February 4th), he had already signed 53 executive orders. Many have argued that this calls into question the validity of these orders as a whole. The true question of validity arguably comes from what the orders themselves entail.

Trump’s executive order entitled ‘Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government’ requires that the U.S. only legally recognizes two genders, male and female. Within this order, a female is defined as “a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell”, and a male is defined as “belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the small reproductive cell”. This definition is not only confusing but also biologically incoherent. At the time of conception, no reproductive cells are produced by any fetus. Sex organs are typically used to determine sex, and even those are produced six to seven weeks after conception. It is also important to note that some babies –commonly labeled as ‘intersex’– are born with both male and female reproductive organs. However, not only does the previous definition not account for the intersex population, it doesn’t accurately apply to any of the human population. Thus, according to this order, no one in the U.S. is a male or a female. 

This oversight is arguably quite comedic, but it also has caused some real issues. After all, if no one meets the qualifications to be male or female, while everyone is required to be qualified as one or the other, then what are federal agencies supposed to do to carry out this order? Another issue comes from the fact that later executive orders signed by Trump refer back to this definition, making them difficult to carry out as well. Because of this, trans people have faced issues receiving a passport or renewing their previous passports, which has led to a lawsuit. 

Another executive order with questionable implications is “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling”. This order reestablishes the 1776 Commission within the Department of Education and threatens to withhold funds from schools that teach kids that “An individual’s moral character or status as privileged, oppressing, or oppressed is primarily determined by the individual’s race, color, sex, or national origin”. A vast majority of people would agree with the first half of this definition, that your moral character is not determined by those factors, but to not teach children about white privilege, the privilege of males, or the privilege of people born in America would mean to also not teach about the gender pay gap, the racial pay gap, hurdles immigrants face to become nationalized, or practically any of the issues facing our country today. 

Furthermore, the order lays out plans to give schools more money if they give children a “patriotic education”, which the order defines as “an accurate, honest, unifying, inspiring, and ennobling characterization of America’s founding and foundational principles, a clear examination of how the United States has admirably grown closer to its noble principles throughout its history, the concept that commitment to America’s aspirations is beneficial and justified, and the concept that celebration of America’s greatness and history is proper”. There are many issues with this idea, most notably the fact that it is impossible to give a characterization of America’s founding that is accurate and honest while also being unifying and inspiring because the founding fathers themselves were not unified in what they wanted the country to look like. Another large problem is how to teach that America has grown closer to its founding principles throughout history when Jim Crow laws and the Trail of Tears happened after the founding of America. It would be impossible to only give a description of “the good parts” of history because every good aspect, like allowing women to vote, has a negative aspect, like the fact that women weren’t allowed to vote for over a century. 

These are only two orders riddled with problems that show the true issue with Trump’s executive orders. Trump has shown in the beginning of his presidency that the America he is running is not the same America that we live in. His lack of understanding of the very concepts he is attempting to control is what will create the largest issues for America, which could take decades to unravel. It can be hard to see hope since this is only the beginning, but one bright spot is that these orders are so far from reality, that many have already been challenged by the courts and others may simply be unenforceable.