Constitutional Crisis?
I have remained silent on all my anti-social media platforms. As much as I have wanted to respond, correct, engage and persuade, I have resisted. In private, with friends, (real friends), family, associates and a few others, I have had “those” conversations and in those cases, while they have been cordial and respectful, they have also been unproductive. I have not convinced anyone of anything. I cannot compete against the machine that has created the polarization we are seeing today. It is the worst I have ever seen in my life, and of that, about five decades of political awareness. The results of it manifested once again last night.
This nation is a petri dish. It has been from its constitutional beginning (which was 1787, not what is, sadly, commonly believed to be 1776) when we became the United States of America. Prior to that, we were an unworkable, loose confederation of states; it was not working and our founding fathers, through a lot of debate and compromise formulated the government we have today. It is not perfect, and they all knew it, but they were confident that, because built into that Constitution is a means of amending it, we, the people, could and would adapt it. And we have, through much debate and compromise — and one terrible war.
Our grand experiment in self-rule is unlike any other in the world, before or since. It is precarious, always on the edge. It depends on us and our faith in those founding documents, our founders’ vision, and each other. It has been tested, many times. So far, our Constitution has proven stronger than any one person, party or outside influence. We have grown, not because of some piece of paper, but because of that faith in each other, into the strongest nation in the world. We have made mistakes, we have done some bad things, but we have also done immense good and made vast improvements. We have taken far more steps forward then we have taken steps back.
We are at yet another crossroads, another constitutional test. There are forces at work — people — who see our constitutional protections as a barrier to whatever it is they see as “American.” It is almost laughable. The core of what is American is the Constitution and what it contains. However, if enough people lose faith in it, if enough people agree that certain elements of it are “in the way,” then they will no longer matter. The Constitution itself will no longer matter.
In every constitutional crisis over the past 237 years — including that very first Constitutional Convention that formed the government we now have — it was the Constitution that prevailed. From the Civil War to the Great Depression, WWII, McCarthyism, civil rights, equal rights, Watergate and others — all of them presented serious challenges to the very fabric of our nation and, ultimately, we, the people said, “no, the experiment does not end here.” It has often come with great pain and angst, but in the end, our flag was still there.
It is no secret that, for reasons that I will not elaborate on here, I am no fan of Donald Trump. But he was just elected be President of the United States, again. The people, enough of them, have spoken. We can talk about (and should) the liabilities of the Electoral College system, but that would take an amendment to the Constitution. The election was by the book, it was constitutional, he will be our president. The experiment, however, does not end there. Trump has made a variety of statements, some vague policy positions that I assume appeal to a large number of people, and that’s fair enough, but he has also spoken about doing a number of things that are absolutely unconstitutional. Prosecuting and jailing his opponents, shutting down media and free speech, using the US military on our own soil against citizens are just a few of his “musings” on the campaign trail.
Maybe this was just campaign bluster, the “bravado” that seems to appeal to a certain segment of his followers. Let’s hope that is all it is. If so, there might not be any crisis, just a lot of handwringing from the left when what they believe to be overly conservative policies are enacted into law. But that is how democracy works. Those policies, too, will be tested and if they prove unsuccessful, the Democrats will have the opportunity to put the brakes on them at the midterms. Whether people believe Trump crossed the line of Presidential privilege or not or whether they believe he acted unconstitutionally or not in his last administration is not the same as whether people believe the president is allowed to act unconstitutionally. If they do, enough of them, then we are in deep trouble.
My other hope is that the teamsmanship, the side-taking, taunting, the denigrating, the questioning of who is or what it is to be “American” will stop. The only team is Team USA and there is only one flag. All of our policies belong to the will of the people. We will get shit we don’t like sometimes. We will get shit we do sometimes. Ideally, we will get compromise where we get some of what we want, but not all. When government works best — check that — when government works, that’s how it works.
I still have faith in our Constitution. I still have faith in the common sense of the vast majority of the people who are not on the extremes, despite what the echo-chamber tells each side about “the other side.” The fact is that most of y’all are a lot like y’all. If you would just talk to each other and stop talking at each other, you might find that the extremes are lying to you, manipulating you, and it is hurting this country.
I know I’m going to get a lot of “what aboutism” in response. Save it. There is plenty of blame to go around. We have had enough of that. How about looking for consensus, for solutions, for places where we do agree and can get behind. Maybe we can start with the Constitution. It needs us. Indeed, it only has us. It always has had only us.
