I typically refrain from writing political commentary here. But these are no ordinary times, at least in the United States.

The January 29, 2017 edition of The Washington Post reported:

Sharef once worked for a U.S. government subcontractor in post-invasion Iraq as a translator and a program manager. He got his visas, after two years of vetting, through a special U.S. resettlement program for Iraqi employees of the American government. Working for Americans was filled with perils, he said. He and other colleagues faced death threats; he knew co-workers who were kidnapped or killed.

On Sunday, he and his family — his wife, Arazoo, 41; his son, Bnyad, 19; his daughter Yad, 17; and another daughter, Shad, 10 — boarded a flight back to Irbil after spending the night inside the airport terminal.

The abusive treatment of the Sharef family raises a basic question. Why should any foreign resident ever run risks to assist a country that would only forget and discard them afterward? Little could be more at odds with basic humanitarian decency.

The Sharefs are not unfortunate exceptions. They are among a growing number of people affected by Donald Trump’s executive order that was issued supposedly to protect national security. No credible empirical evidence that demonstrated that the executive order would, in fact, enhance national security was ever provided. In fact, the usual vetting process was circumvented altogether.

Perhaps one should not be surprised by the haphazard approach that was undertaken. The candidate who had threatened to roll back First Amendment protections of the press, asserted that a federal Judge’s ethnicity impaired his objectivity, promised a “Muslim Registry,” and praised ruthless authoritarian dictators is now President of the United States. All of those actions suggested an illiberal nature, absence of reverence for limits of authority, and even greater lack of respect for basic liberties.

Even worse, parts of the U.S. government seem to be reflecting Trump’s illiberal nature in their own actions. The Guardian reported:

Customs and Border Protection agents defied the orders of federal judges regarding Donald Trump’s travel bans on Sunday, according to attorneys who rallied popular protests around the country in support of detained refugees and travellers from seven Muslim-majority countries.

“Rogue customs and Border Patrol agents continue to try to get people on to planes,” Becca Heller, director of the International Refugee Assistance Project, told reporters on Sunday. “A lot of people have been handcuffed, a lot of people who don’t speak English are being coerced into taking involuntary departures.”

If the opening days of the Trump Administration are representative, the United States could be sinking into a very dark period in its history. As it descends into darkness, its constitutional framework will undoubtedly be put to the test at a time when at least some of the “checks and balances” one could normally count on won’t be available. At present, it appears that some in the Republican-led House of Representatives and Senate have put power ahead of principle. They have given the Trump Administration wide latitude. A larger number of others have morphed into 21st Century versions of Neville Chamberlain, so timid that they are unwilling to challenge the early excesses of the Trump Administration.

With some of the expected constitutional restraints in disrepair, President Trump is transforming the United States into just another illiberal state. He is doing so, executive order by executive order, policy by policy, and tweet by tweet. Seemingly with each passing day, a once generous and big-hearted country capable of inspiring, is becoming as small and petty as Trump’s narrow worldview.

As an American, I take little comfort from my not having voted for Mr. Trump. I am profoundly saddened to see America so rapidly diverging from the lofty principles set forth in its Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Its rapid fall into a post-Enlightenment netherworld is a most painful journey that, if it is not stopped (more likely by the courts than a seemingly captive Congress), will affect not only Americans, but also peoples all across the world.