..and the 'Rule of Law' ? ..words these days that republicans in congress chant to one another over and over while in the process of law breaking
Lawrence O’Donnell had two of the wisest women in these times, give their appraisal of the republican party’s dereliction of duty to defend the United States Constitution; Joy-Ann Reid and Joan Walsh.
— The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell | June 30th, 2017
How is the Constitution holding up in the era of Trump? Lawrence O'Donnell discusses with Joy Reid and Joan Walsh.
The only way I know how to answer is, Yes. Yes the founding fathers did foresee an unfit swindler of a character like Trump. They also had deep flaws in themselves, yet, were also intelligent and educated, and maybe more importantly, realistic enough to recognize and consider, not all, but some of their own shortcomings and built something into the U.S. Constitution to deal with those flaws in order to protect the Constitution, country, and its people against those vices and a con man like Trump.
They just didn’t anticipate a congress made up of politicians from all over the land that would, in lockstep*, ignore the rule of law, reject the vital principle of the separation of powers, and abandon their sworn oaths to protect the Constitution, and allow, even aid in its undoing
# # #
Here are a few excerpts written up from the discussion with a lot more wisdom added by the folks in it:
Lawrence O’Donnell:
“On July 4th 1776 the Declaration of Independence announced that from that date forward the United States of America would be an independent country. The Declaration said..
“..two hundred and forty one years later we do not hold that any truths are self evident. Least of all that all men are created equal, or that women are the equal of men. We have a pr*sident that does not hold that the truth of Barack Obama’s birth certificate is self evident…
“..we have one political party that holds that the long term human influence on climate change is self evident. And another political party and pr*sident that do not.
“Some people hold the abortion is murder, but most do not. Some hold that black lives matter, some do not. As a result of inadequate education including inadequate college education for people like the current pr*sident of the U.S. and because of centuries of prejudice and out of control hatreds, we hold no truths to be self evident now. The pr*sident calls perfectly truthful news reports fake news and millions of his supporters agree with that lie.
“If anyone in the American government today produced a document containing the sentence: ‘we hold these truths to be self evident’ — almost everyone in the opposing party would attack that document.
“So how is the American government whose first declaration was; ‘we hold these truths self evident’ holding up after 241 years in a political world of no self evident truths ?
“Thirteen years after the Declaration of Independence, the founding fathers who could not see beyond their own sexism to allow us to have any founding mothers, created what may be the most important document in the history of government worldwide. It is certainly the most important document in the American government.
“The Constitution of the United States has been the fundamental law of this land for 228 years because it was written with a kind of astonishing vision that has allowed everyone not granted rights by the Constitution, to use that same Constitution to obtain those rights through the amendment process established by that Constitution..
“..People, very deliberately left out of the original document, now have Constitutional Rights. Women now have the right to vote. An African American in the south is no longer three fifths of a person. And thanks to the Constitution; in the United States today, men can marry men, and women can marry women. Something that was inconceivable to the founding fathers that wrote the document that unbeknownst to them, granted that Right.
“The American news media has made the president the most important person in American government. The founding father didn’t see it that way. The president was to be a functionary to them. An executive charged with executing the desires and orders of the congress. The president of the United States is the sixth job mentioned in the Constitution. The first job described in the Constitution is the House of representatives. The second job specified in the Constitution is speaker of the House of representatives. The third is U.S. senator. The fourth job mentioned is the vice president, but the VP’s first mention is only as president of the senate, with the right to cast a vote in the event of ties in the senate. The fifth job mentioned is the temporary president of the senate when the VP is absent from the senate. And the sixth job; the sixth job mentioned in the Constitution is the president…
“..and that very first mention of the president in the Constitution is about impeachment of the president. Something the founding fathers expected to happen. The founding fathers expected the voters, at some point, to be tricked into electing a president who would have to be removed from office. Presidents who would commit crimes. Presidents who would abuse power. Presidents who would violate their oaths of office…
“The founders knew that that would happen. And they make that very clear. That expectation is very clear in the Constitutions very first reference to the president..
“When. Not if...When.
“The founders were careful about each word. When they came to that sentence they could have written ‘If the president of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside' ,
“But no...
“..Because they believed it was inevitable, absolutely inevitable, they wrote "when the President of the United States is tried..”
“The Constitution grants the congress, what the founders believed, were most of the governments most important powers, and yes the president could nominate a supreme court justice, but only the U.S. senate could confirm that justice. Over time, with the congress acquiescence, the modern president in the age of intercontinental ballistic missiles has usurped some of what used to be congresses war-making power.
“We now have a president who knows nothing of the Constitution, and knows nothing of our history, and by all appearances, arrived in the job surprised that congress had any power over him at all...or that the courts had any power over him. And so, two hundred and forty one years after the Declaration of Independence, two hundred and twenty eight years after the Constitution.. how are the founding documents holding up against what might be the only pr*sident who has never read them ?”
Joy-Ann Reid and Joan Walsh are then introduced and join the conversation
Lawrence O’Donnell:
“Joy, how’s the Constitution doing? How's it doing ?
Joy-Ann Reid:
‘'Actually I love that set-up, my geeky little heart is very happy to hear you go through that because I am fond of reminding people that the first branch of government is congress and that if you want a better president you need to get a better congress. It’s a lesson that America has failed to learn because we have so much emotionally invested in the presidency. And if you think about what you've laid out; what the president does; sign Bills sent by congress..try to veto if he wants; appoint justices..
“..the other thing that the president has done, really going back to the beginning, is sort of set the American ideal. Sort of explain American to itself, as the only elected official ostensibly elected by a majority, at least the states, if not the people. That is kind of his job.
“Donald Trump is the first pr*sident in my lifetime, probably in anybody's lifetime, who does not understand the American ideal, and even if he did I’m not sure he would explain it because all he does is talk about himself." [...]
Lawrence O’Donnell:
“Joan, how's the Constitution doing ?"
Joan Walsh:
“The Constitution is okay.. except what the founder failed to anticipate is that we would wind up with men and some women in congress who would be so compliant and refuse to take their job seriously and allow this pr*sident to walk all over them and also to violate the constitution from noon on January 20th right? The Emoluments Clause we all knew, as it was happening, that he is in violation, he is getting foreign payments.. we don’t know how much because he’s never shown us his taxes. And then it’s proceeded from there. A week later he imposes a Muslim Ban which, again, is a Constitutional violation of the Establishment Clause. ..He pays no attention to Voting Rights which are guaranteed under the Constitution. So you just have this go-along republican leadership. and most of the republican party, and I don’t think they [founding fathers] anticipated it.”
Lawrence O’Donnell then raises the subject of political parties
Joy-Ann Reid (a few excerpts):
“ ..parties would be more interested in defending themselves than defending the country...the congress I think has been shameful in their defense of their own institution. We’ve seen this before with GWB when the rush-to-war.. the congress said ‘this is hands off, it’s whatever you want to do mr. president' and everyone slapped on a lapel pin and said ‘it's whatever you want to do Dick Cheney, it's your world' .. and so you’ve seen congress walk back further and further from their authorities…
“But here’s the problem with that; Walking back from your authority depends on always having an Eisenhower or an FDR, and by the way, even great presidents have failed utterly the test of sort of the basics of the Constitution. FDR interned Japanese Americans. We’ve had awful presidents, let’s not pretend Trump is the first one. We’ve had Andrew Jackson who slaughtered Native Americans then marched them across the Trail of Tears. We’ve had Woodrow Wilson who was a venal racist..you know screening racist movies in the White House, and refused to do anything about lynching...We’ve had bad presidents.. the founders owned slaves, some of them. So not all of them lived up to the ideals..
“ So now..what we have now is a complete surrender. A complete surrender of the congress to try and defend the institution. And a pr*sident who’s already long since surrendered to Russia.”
# # #
There is more of interest in the discussion. What really stood out and all three; Lawrence O’Donnell, Joy-Ann Reid, and Joan Walsh made crystal clear, is that the republican politicians from the leadership on down, have willingly (and from most every angle I’ve come up with to look at it), purposefully abandoned their sworn oaths to defend the United States Constitution and surrendered to Trump and therefore to a foreign influence - Putin. Today’s republican politicians are not only allowing for the intervening and subversion of American elections, but aiding and abetting it and the grifter squatting in the White House
— with one last observation that I gathered from the discussion and has been dawning on me lately as something important, if I'm not too far off:
That even from far flung regions of the country; states that are many hundreds of miles apart, with different industries, different cultures, and different demographics; what seems to have been unanticipated by the founding fathers was that the republican political party would end up so reactionary as to move in lockstep*. Like a cult
The result of that congressional lockstep* spawned an agenda/political platform designed for the deliberate deterioration of three crucial guardians of a democracy: 1) Rule of law 2) Separation of Powers and 3) Upholding the Constitution — This phenomenon, or whatever it could be called, is the direct result of the massive concentration of wealth in the hands of a tiny elite minority that can buy propaganda by the ton, politicians by the dozen, lobbyists too many to count, “think tanks", media outfits, and legislation from one stop legislation mills — imo — and with that comes the decay of all manner of things; Civil Rights, Voting Rights; Civil liberties; Women’s Rights, LGBTQ Rights; PoC Rights; immigrants Rights...
...iow’s everything representing a democracy systematically stamped out; democracy itself — the people's voice
— To resist is the good thing :)
note: transcripts aren’t yet available so any wrong spelling and other goof-ups are on me.