Recently Trump most clearly revealed his authoritarian nature. He claimed there is a possibility he can change a core interpretation of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution with an Executive Order. Of course, his apologist – in an effort to control messaging, rushed to point out that there is an argument that the amendment was not meant to include the children of undocumented people. However, USA Today reports that most legal scholars, both Republican and Democrat disagree.
…according to legal scholars Akhil Reed Amar and John C. Harrison. The Supreme Court had ruled in 1857’s Dred Scott v. Sandford decision that people of African descent, whether slave or free, were not entitled to full citizenship.
“At the simplest level, the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause was meant to repudiate Dred Scott,” Amar wrote. “However, it was also meant to root post-Civil War America – America’s Second Founding – in an inspiring Lincolnian reinterpretation of one of our nation’s Founding truths, that we’re all created/born free and equal.”
USA Today Oct 30, 2018
Anyone who claims to support Trump because they think he is a strict constitutionalist or follows the rule of law should wake up from that delusion. His willingness to flippantly say that he can change an amendment to the U.S. Constitution with an executive order reveals he does not take our nation’s governing document seriously. His support for the 2nd Amendment is purely political and feeds his need to look tough. It has nothing to do with following the Constitution. Trump has repeatedly shown disdain for the 1st Amendment. He has called the press the enemy of the people and pushed for rules in Washington DC that will suppress people’s ability to assemble and petition government for redress. He constantly undermines a core mechanism of our concept of democracy, separation of powers, by challenging the legitimacy of courts and judges.
It is my great hope that Democrats win both the House and Senate to offset this man and his entourage’s grab for power. Trump and his apparatus unrelenting attempt to accumulate power is profound. It is an outright effort to define reality.
Every government tries to control messaging and shape what people are thinking, but Trump takes it further than any president in my lifetime. He lies to us and his network amplifies his lies making the lies truth for many. He lies about anything and everything. He has no shame with his lies and will double and triple down on them. Eventually, his lies become his reality. He then projects his personally constructed, self-centered and lie-based reality on others, convincing them to believe it. He gains trust by saying what people want to hear, saying things others would never say and reinforcing people’s beliefs. This reality-shaping power has proven very impactful in changing what is acceptable. It has unleashed hateful forces the old Republican Party never wanted to see unleashed. It tried to purge the most virulent strands of hate when Patrick Buchanan left the party. Now hate runs the party.
Understandably, there are many people who do not want to vote for a Democrat because on many economic questions Democrats and Republicans views are the same or closely aligned. There are and have been for a long time, many basic economic agreements between the two parties. For people like me who want change that will lead to policies that invest in education and support people and communities rather than fatten the bank accounts of the rich, voting for Democrats was at best choosing the lesser of two evils. However, the lesser of two evils does not accurately describe today’s reality.
Hate-Monger: Marvel Comics villain. Magnifies feelings of dread, fear, and anger to unreasonable levels
Donald Trump does not represent what the Republican Party was before him. Hate was in the party. It was a controlled wing of the party and an undercurrent of the party – demonization creating the Other. Now hate animates the party. We must recognize what Donald Trump represents. I see him as the Hate-Monger; with the ability to elicit rage and extreme emotions from people. Trump said so himself, “…I do bring rage out, I always have.” (Watch video 1:19 to 1:35).
The Donald Trump’s Republican Party is the party of hate led by the Hate-Monger himself. Today, one’s vote should primarily take into account rejecting hate and embracing new possibilities. More times than not, rejecting hate means voting for a Democrat. But vote for whoever will hold Trump accountable, Independent, Green or Republican. Any politician who embraced Trumpism either in votes or rhetorically – praising Trump and seldom if ever holding him accountable, must be defeated.
Finally, a vote for a Democrat if it contributes to halting or delaying the march of Trumpism is very good for the possibility of real change for the people. Obama’s latter year’s as president, the transition period of Bernie Sanders and now the era of Trump has also brought into clearer view structural flaws with our society and economic outcomes. Racism, sexism, religious intolerance and general xenophobia are being examined and confronted in new ways. There is a demand for a fairer economy and a pent-up energy to address climate change. Left, progressive or whatever politics is moving in the right direction and Democrats must move with it or risk their alliance falling apart. And the alliance, which at this time includes some Republicans, is not a return to the status quo. In the age of Black Lives Matter, MeToo, The Women’s March, Transgender activism, undocumented justice, the Poor People’s Campaign, Living Wage campaigns and mass demand for affordable healthcare, will not tolerate a return to the past. We have a new progressive future to move forward. The main short-term political task is to defeat at the ballot box the forces of hate. That is not picking the lesser of two evils. Hate is evil.
