Monday, December 5, 2022

Terminate the Constitution? The GOP seems to be OK with the idea!

This one is a double MAGA!! story. Several sources are reporting that Trump has issued a call to terminate the constitution. Newsweek writes:
Donald Trump has sparked a furious backlash after he called for the “termination” of parts of the Constitution to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

The former president, who announced in November that he would run again for president, reiterated his baseless claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election in posts on his Truth Social platform on Saturday.

But he went further by suggesting that the U.S. abandon one of its founding documents.

“A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution,” Trump wrote in response to Elon Musk’s “Twitter Files.”

Musk had claimed the files would reveal how the social media platform had suppressed a New York Post story about Hunter Biden prior to the 2020 election. However, some people described them as a “snoozefest” that did not bring to light anything that was not already known about the platform’s handling of the story.
So, as one commentator quipped, not only is Trump trying to protect the Constitution by nullifying it, he is a repeat offender after his 1/6 coup attempt to nullify it.

As party leaders remained silent, a few Republicans on Sunday rejected Donald Trump's extraordinary suggestion for "termination" of the U.S. Constitution and his installation as president. 

Mike Lawler, an incoming House Republican from New York, told CNN's State of the Union that “obviously, I don’t support” Trump’s demands, and that the Constitution exists “to protect the rights of every American.” Lawler and others suggested that Trump needs to get past his 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden: “I think the former president would be well-advised to focus on the future, if he is going to run for president again.”  
Higher-ranking Republicans remained silent, while Democrats and others condemned what some described as a call for dictatorship.
Note that Lawler did not say he does not support Trump as a candidate for president. Instead, he gives Trump advice on how to win the 2024 presidential election. 

Trump's call to suspend Constitution not a 2024 deal-breaker, leading House Republican says 

Republican Ohio Rep. Dave Joyce said Sunday that he didn't want to be drawn into commenting on Donald Trump's recent call to suspend the Constitution over baseless claims of 2020 election fraud.

Joyce, the chair of the Republican Governance Group, a centrist group in the House, was asked by ABC "This Week" anchor George Stephanopoulos to respond to Trump's post on Saturday on his Truth Social platform. The former president wrongly asserted that the "massive fraud" -- which did not occur -- "allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution."
Note that Joyce is being called a centrist. A centrist? Really? What the hell is a good, solid rightist in the GOP, Hitler? What does all of this tell us, or at least suggest? At least four things come to mind:
  • It tells us, yet again, that Trump is a dictator wannabe who naturally opposes democracy, the rule of law, and civil liberties right down to his rotten, corrupt, bigoted, mendacious dictator core
  • It tells us, yet again, the Republican Party leadership is no different than Trump, other than being more practiced at deceit, and therefore are far more subtle and deceptive about their bigoted anti-democracy, pro-theocratic tyranny, kleptocratic agenda
  • It tells us that less sophisticated anti-democracy, pro-tyranny Republican liars like Mr. Lawler are blatantly incoherent and mendacious in their pretense to be pro-democracy (given the obvious stupidity of his comments, one has to wonder if he really is that stupid)
  • In view of the practiced, intractable mendacity of Trump and the GOP elites, it strongly suggests that they believe that overt calls for dictatorship won’t alienate most rank and file Republican voters (if the elites thought otherwise this would not have played out as it has so far, i.e., the GOP leadership would have jumped on Trump instantly and unanimously condemned him - instead, they see him as an OK candidate for president and are just weighing the public reaction to see what, if any, public response they need to make to help them stay in power - they will opt for the popular and effective KYMS* tactic if they can get away with it) 
* KYMS - keep your mouth shut

The grave, imminent threat to American democracy, the rule of law, civil liberties, truth, secularism and tolerant pluralism has not gone away. It is not going to go away for the foreseeable future. Both Trump and the Republican Party leadership and elites really are cynically and deeply mendacious anti-democratic, pro-theocratic tyranny and pro-kleptocracy.


Q: Is my threat assessment to democracy, the rule of law and civil liberties too hyperbolic or otherwise false, unreasonable or nutty because things like tyranny, theocratic Christian Sharia law, Christian Taliban theocracy, capitalist and Christian kleptocracy and/or bigoted fascism just can’t happen here?

No comments:

Post a Comment