The Defeat of the Constitution

Waking up several mornings ago, I finally realized what it is: A Constitutional nation would never have elected the continual travesty that is Donald Trump.

Somewhere between the end of World War II and now, we lost the authenticity of character that defines a democratic people.

Despite all the criticism of the president*, we are failing to adequately describe the calamity of the “extinction level event” his illegitimate ascension to power is to America, the world, and civilization.

The left during the McCarthy hearings recognized, and opposed:

End justifies the means rationalization 
Groupthink 
Guilt by association 
Conformism.

Today, the rejection of groupthink is a sin against solidarity. We now understand liberalism so poorly that the democratic press speaks of AOC and the Squad(1) as the most liberal segment of the House when they are clearly antiliberals whose deepest affinity is to Marx, not the Constitution (which The Newspaper of Record, in the “1619 Project,”(2) described as hypocritical).

Today, collectives are thought of as liberal, although they are based on “moral ties antecedent to choice.” But when de Tocqueville surveyed the young American democracy, he marveled at our penchant for forming “voluntary associations.”

Nations which admired us when Obama was President (which, it was thought, would be “transformational,” — McConnell made sure that didn’t happen, and we let him) they now pity us.

We have fallen so far that the “news” gives no inkling, for all its 24-hour coverage, that the left is not liberal. Today the news has no opinion, although it has constant insinuation. Once, as Sorkin’s “The Newsroom” said half a decade ago, Edward R. Murrow had an opinion, and that ended McCarthyism; Cronkite had an opinion, and that ended Vietnam.

Today forty percent of us will follow Trump come hell or high water, will follow him if he shoots someone on Fifth Avenue at high noon, will follow him into the grave.

That’s not a metaphor.

/*****/

(1) “What makes "The Squad" such a tantalizing and obvious political target for President Trump is that all four are on the wrong side of every major 2020 issue. From their calls to “abolish ICE” and the Department of Homeland Security, a position that even the ultra-progressive Center for American Progress suggests is bonkers, to their support of the Green New Deal, Medicare-for-all, impeachment for Trump and outright disdain for Israel, they are the 2020 gift that keeps on giving for the Trump White House.” - https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/456033-trumps-greatest-allies-for-a-2020-win-aoc-and-the-squad

(2) Andrew Sullivan: “The original ideals were false, and then the country was founded on “both an ideal and a lie.””

Constitutional Crisis in Three Parts, Nullifying Congress, Acting as judge in his own behalf, and Tanking the Constitution

Part I: “Trump's stonewalling of Congress is a Constitutional crisis”

On April 25, 2019, Julian Zelizer wrote:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is mad as hell. Her spokeswoman released a statement saying: "President Trump and his Administration are engaged in unprecedented stonewalling and once again using the legal system to conceal every area of his life as well as his wrongdoing and improprieties from the American people."

We are getting deeper and deeper into a constitutional crisis.

The president* is “trying to act in imperial fashion”:

Many presidents have attempted to use this power [executive privilege] under specific circumstances with specific hearings. But Trump is making a much bolder claim. The president is being very straightforward. He will defy all subpoenas because he does not believe the investigations are legitimate. His claim has nothing to do with national security. It isn't even being sold as an effort to protect the ability of his advisers to speak freely. He just doesn't agree to participate, claiming that the Democrats are being driven by partisanship. The President will flex his executive muscle because he believes he can. He is daring anyone to stop him.

This is exactly the kind of attitude that has driven much of his presidency, and the guiding philosophy that pops up in the second part of special counsel Robert Mueller's report. Not surprisingly, the way that he is handling the post-report period, with grandiose claims of presidential authority and aggressive postures toward the legislative branches, are confirming the worst impressions to come out of Mueller's investigation. This is the ultimate example of a president trying to act in imperial fashion.

How far will the president* go?: “The President keeps forcing the nation's hand in considering how far it is willing to let a president go before finally saying that enough is enough.”

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Constitutional Crisis, Part II: By Trump’s standard, “Congress could never investigate anything.”

Lee Moran:

Mueller’s report, released with redactions last week, contained a number of damning revelations about the president. Trump has falsely claimed it totally exonerated him.

“If that were the standard, then Congress could never investigate anything,” the Post wrote. “Mr. Trump’s Republican colleagues must remember the battles they fought with President Barack Obama over transparency only a few years ago when they ran the House.

The editorial board also argued that Trump’s “own words” proved he was motivated more “by concealing anything that might land him in political jeopardy” than by “any specific concern about protecting presidential decision-making or some other crucial executive-branch function.”

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Constitutional Crisis, Part III, “Blatant … obstruction of the lawful processes of a coequal branch of government.”

Dylan Scott wrote:

That’s about as blatant an obstruction of the lawful processes of a coequal branch of government as I’ve ever seen,” Laurence Tribe, a Harvard constitutional scholar, told the Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin on Wednesday.

From [Matthew] Yglesias:

Trump’s statements about NATO and the leak of Democratic National Committee emails likely pilfered by Russians have raised questions about Trump’s financial relationships with oligarchs tied to the Russian government. Tax disclosure would let us see how Trump’s businesses work — how successful he really is and how much that success hinges on investments from foreign actors who may have a more nefarious agenda than real estate development.

“Trump has set a culture of secrecy that rivals Richard Nixon. He won’t release his financial records. He has been investigated for obstructing justice by Robert Mueller. Now he doesn’t want administration officials testifying in Congress, one of the most routine and sacrosanct examples of the country’s systems of checks and balances. In court, Trump’s lawyers have made a sweeping case to curtail Congress’s ability to investigate the executive branch.”

In conclusion:
1. Stonewalling Congress

2. “Congress could never investigate anything.”

3. “Blatant … obstruction of the lawful processes of a coequal branch of government.”

4. Trump is 1. Nullifying Congress, 2. Acting as judge in his own behalf, and 3. Tanking the Constitution, violating the oath to “protect and defend” it. He is behaving in a dictatorial fashion.

Americans elected today’s Democratic House to demonstrate their disgust with the most corrupt president* in history. The response of the Pelosi-led House is beginning to look like a profile in cowardice.

Americans elected today’s Democratic House to demonstrate their disgust with the most corrupt president* in history. The response of the Pelosi-led House is beginning to look like a profile in cowardice. 

Brian Beutler, Crooked.com: “Their irresolution has allowed Republicans to drown the public in unanswered lies about what Mueller found and what the response to it should be. … The evasive way House Democrats have responded to the report so far has done Mueller a real disservice.”

The victims of the crimes under investigation, which include the voters Trump defrauded in 2016, have only one backstop offering them any hope that justice will be served, and it is House Democrats, who are determined not to impeach the president under almost any circumstances.

1. “Republicans … drown the public in unanswered lies about what Mueller found”

2. Retaliatory, brazen Republican “counter-investigations”

We are now likelier to witness months of full-throttled counter-investigations—of Mueller himself, and everybody who played a hand in the Russia probe—than we are to get the impeachment inquiry Mueller all but declared we need.

3. “The party leadership’s [cowardly] desperation to avoid a confrontation with Trump has been comically unsubtle”

When Mueller finished his work, House Majority Whip James Clyburn immediately described the Russia investigation as a “closed” chapter, and called on Democrats to turn their attention to “everyday issues.”

4. “Their certainty that holding Trump accountable will backfire politically stems from a combination of bad history and poor reasoning”

Because Democratic candidates campaigned successfully in 2018 on protecting people’s health care, Democrats have convinced themselves that it is Trump’s only vulnerability.

5. We needed “the realization that the Trump presidency is an emergency and that building a check on his power was a matter of historic importance”

6. “Trump has predictably abused his inherent powers to work around the divided government, and Democrats can’t protect people from him by avoiding confrontation”

All they can do is demobilize their supporters by communicating that they don’t actually believe Trump is much of an emergency after all.

7. We act as if the president* is allowed to act as judge in his own behalf by buying into the “view that Trump can end or throttle those investigations if he claims to believe they’re bogus”

8. “The victims of the crimes under investigation … have only one source of hope that the federal law enforcement apparatus won’t ruin their lives to boost Trump’s political prospects, or help him seek revenge, and it is House Democrats, who are determined not to impeach the president under almost any circumstances”

9. The House Democrats “fear that if they do the right thing, they will not do as well in the 2020 elections as they will if they do the wrong thing … we do know that the wrong thing causes real harm to people right now”

10. “Without the threat of penalty, Democrats will proceed under the impression that abdicating their obligations is costless”

11. “We should all demand that they stand and be counted while it’s still an option, and should interpret failure to do so as a profound, collective failure of character”


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