The Constitution. My feelings about it? Fuck the constitution. That superannuated paen to the rich and the immoral should have been scrapped long ago, and been replaced with something progressive and relevant. The very worst of people worship that ragged document, twisting it to support evil ideologies and actions; much like people with their holy books of myths (for the hard of thinking, yes, that includes the bible). Gun fondlers adore it, as do all manner of right wingers. Republicans routinely mouth off about their constitution love, and how great and grand it is, etc. It isn’t grand. It isn’t great. It’s a document of its times, put together in the flush of a successful genocide, by wealthy, bloodthirsty men, who weren’t overly concerned with moral or ethical behaviour. You can, of course, see the appeal to republicans, but more than anything else right now, the constitution highlights the abject hypocrisy of all conservatives.
Republicans are always the first to scream “constitution!” whenever there’s something proposed which they don’t like, and they are always the first to search for the tiniest of constitutional violations in the case of someone they find appalling, like President Obama. The conservatives went lunatic fringe, searching for anything which could constitute a violation, so they could oust him from office. Now, the pres-elect will be violating the constitution in the same manner he violated a very long line of women, but who wants to bet the republicans will be zealously pursuing those violations with an aim to impeach? I don’t imagine I’ll have any takers on that bet. I’d be willing to say they are going to find every gorram excuse in the book to absolve Donny in all the violations, and with that, they will demonstrate how little they actually care about that supposedly hallowed document.
What kind of nation allows the loser of a national election to become president — and then does it again 16 years later?
What kind of nation retains an electoral process that was originally designed to inflate the influence of slaveholders?
What kind of nation permits its Congress to write a time bomb into law that periodically forces rival factions into a game of chicken that could wreck the world economy?
What kind of nation fights a civil war over the question of whether people of African descent are people or property, and then looks the other way when the loser ignores the resolution of that war? What kind of nation waits until 1965 to guarantee black people’s right to vote?
Americans speak of our Constitution as if it were a religious text. To label a law “unconstitutional” is not simply to say that it violates some procedural rule or legal technicality, it is to label it fundamentally unAmerican. To do so is to question the values of any lawmaker despicable enough to support such a law, and to suggest that those values are at odds with who we are as a nation.
But our Constitution has not served us nearly as well as we would have been served by other systems adopted by our peer nations. Nor has it lived up to the expectations of its drafters.
Now, our country is facing a man of superlative ignorance. A racist. An admitted sexual assaulter of women. A man poised to violate the Constitution the very instant he takes the oath of office. A man who openly encouraged Russia’s efforts to usher him into the White House. A man who owes his election to the underhanded efforts of deep state actors within our nation’s internal police agency. A man who lost the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes. And the Constitution has placed this man in the White House.
The Constitution gave Donald Trump command of the world’s most powerful military and an nuclear arsenal that can eradicate all life on Earth. It let him name a racist as our nation’s top enforcer of its laws. It let him use his office to sell hotel rooms to foreign diplomats. The Electoral College has voted. Trump will be our next president. This is what the Constitution hath wrought.
It did this because our Constitution remains the product of a compromise with moral monsters who believed that human beings could be owned as property. It did this because our Constitution offers no guarantee, or even much in the way of likelihood, that the men and women elected to lead the country will share the preferences of the nation as a whole. It did this because our Constitution fosters voter ignorance. It did this because our Constitution can be gamed — and was gamed quite successfully by the Republican Party.
Emphasis mine. And right there is exactly what the constitution means to conservatives: a means to get their way, to make sure fascism comes marching in, wrapped in a flag and carrying a bible. Nothing is sacred to conservatives, nothing at all. Well, no, a couple of things are sacred to conservatives: the state of their wallet, and the power to oppress and destroy other people.
The full story is at Think Progress, a highly recommended read.
ETA: It seems that even those republicans who might have spoken out are now too overcome by fear to do so. Ain’t fascism fun?
ETA: It’s begun, let’s write special laws, and Donny can just pardon people as he goes along!
Fuck every single person who has brought us to this, and fuck all those who will stand by silently, letting it happen.
It seems that even those republicans who might have spoken out are now too overcome by fear to do so. Ain’t fascism fun?
Fear of losing their access, fear of losing their jobs, fear of losing their place at the feeding-trough. It’s not real fear.
It’s enough to keep them silent. Does it matter if it’s not true fear on their part, when their actions constitute true fear on my part, and the part of many other people?
Newt Gingrich has now said that Congress should write special laws so Trump can do whatever he wants with his businesses while in office so he can ignore the conflicts, and anyone in the Trump administration found to be doing anything illegal should just get a blanket pardon from Trump.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/donald-trump-administration/2016/12/newt-gingrich-trump-ethics-laws-congress-232828
Kengi @ 3:
And so it begins…
Kengi, #3
And that is precisely what they’ll do. And everyone else will stand by and watch.
Saad:
Yes, they will. We’re looking into bugging out, to Mexico. Spent a lot of time there when I was young. Before long, Trump’s gonna have to build a wall to keep people in.
@Caine
That was the real purpose of the Iron curtain, behind which I spent the first decade of my life. It was not to keep the evil capitalists out, it was to prevent inteligentsia to flee.
The intelligentsia that wasn’t already deported, that is.
…
Charly:
I can see it happening here all too easily.
There are 2 ways to change the constitution: specific amendments (which on the progressive side have a hard time passing as the requirement in Article V is for a2/3 vote in the house and senate (or 2/3 majority in a constitutional convention), and ratification by 3/4 of states), or by overthrowing the government and writing a new constitution (but the people with the guns tend to not be fans of progressive causes). So you’re pretty much stuck.
One way for progressives to take back control: put forward better candidates. Almost anybody but HRC would have beaten Trump.
david #10
For example, who?
Clinton got almost 3million more votes than Trump.
You gotta love Newt, the guy who went after Bill Clinton will all of his rhetorical guns blazing, talking about changing the law to legalize all of Trump’s ethic violations.
As for the constitution and its “pesky” amendments: I think soon enough some Trump aid will come forth and claim that the constitution was never meant to be taking literally and we must let the GOP controlled White House interpret the spirit of those words.
The times, they really are a-changin’.
david:
HRC did beat Trump. Try paying attention next time.
HRC did not beat Trump.
Winning the popular vote sounds warm and fuzzy but it’s not how it works. Our constitution explicitly calls for electing the president via the electoral college, and she lost.
My point is that by blaming the system, you are blaming things that can’t be changed, and that dooms us to repeat the mistake and lose, over and over again. Progressives needed a candidate who could deliver an inspiring message to the entire country, not just to where progressive votes are concentrated.
Fix the things that can be fixed, fight the next battle in a way that can win, and stop ineffective complaints about the system. The electoral college won’t be changed. So unless you want to face defeat every time, adapt your strategy to work with the reality we actually have.
david #14
why not?
did GOD write them?
Fuck off, david. Your casual concession to the way things are is annoying and unproductive. I see you telling others what to do, while offering no actual suggestions yourself.
It sounds like how democracy is supposed to work to everyone who doesn’t have their head firmly located in the ass of US exceptionalism.
david, how is a progressive candidate supposed to appeal to brazen racists? And yes, everyone who voted for Trump is a brazen racist, it is not an oversimplification, it is a statement of demonstrable fact.
They don’t need to -- they just need to appeal to some of the people who didn’t show up. Get the Dem turnout back up to 2012 levels in a handful of key states and Trump would have lost the EC as well as the popular vote.
Chigau: “why not? Did GOD write them?”
If you had read the constitution you would know why not. Or you can read my first post on this page. A vote to amend the constitution on this point is exceedingly unlikely as would require 3/4 of the states to approve. So we are stuck with the system we have. I don’t like it either. You can choose to mope and whine unproductively or you can choose to change your actions to work with a system that won’t change. One course of action is mature and effective.
As for the remaining replies to my post, the lack of content and intolerance speaks for itself. With the attitude shown here, progressives will continue to loose elections. Democracy is about compromising just enough and working with others to convince a majority. If you are unwilling to compromise then you will loose every time.
david:
Wrong. Your empty rhetoric is tiresome, stupid, and ignorant. You aren’t welcome here, because all you can do is say the same stupid shit over and over.
Also, learn how to spell, david.
There are things where compromise is possible. Like how progressive taxes should be, what and how should be taxed, how to split public money between infrastructure/education/art/healthcare/army/police etc.
There are things where compromise is not possible. Open, state-sanctioned racism and persecution of minorities are some. Appeasement politics with tyrants does not work, it has been demonstrated ample times throughout history.
Note that in some of the key states Trump has won because Grand Fascist Party has spent last twenty years implementing voter supression and many people lost their right to vote -- and we do not know why they did not re-register, but their economical situation/loss of faith in the system hell bent on screwing them might have played a role.
Here in EU some of my friends were surprised that Trump could have won, that more people did not vote against him. They all were shocked when I explained to them that unlike in EU, in US the voting registration is not automatic on the day you become of legal age, but people have to register (and if they are POC sometimes re-register after being illegaly struck out of the register). That you do not have free, automatic state ID with you photo in it, you must use passport or drivers licence for that -- and those cost money and therefore if you do not have money, you do not have picture ID, so requiring picture ID to vote is normal in EU, but a supression tactisc in USA.
Judging by my friends, most people in EU do not know much about USA voting system, and when they find out how it works, they just shake their heads -- just like I did.
Your constitution (and your voting system, and de-facto your whole legal system based on precedents and juries) might have been advanced two hunderd years ago, but today it is backwards, fossilized and frankly primitive in comparison with any country in EU I know about.
And I want to add that I would be really happy if EU politicians did not try to introduce some aspects of US politics into EU, because they seem to be always hell bent on introducing the most idiotic ones (like direct vote for president).
Charly:
Truth. Can’t say it was advanced two hundred years ago though, because much of what’s in the constitution was placed there in order to protect slave owners.
Oh, I think it’s more than slave owners. My husband took up a keen interest in the Civil War 20+ years ago and I have _benefited_ from listening to him thinking aloud. Looking at the constitutional convention and the arguments around various topics, he concluded that -- like most of us -- these were men of their times who couldn’t conceive of any way to organise themselves other than the ways they already recognised. Monarchy with aristocracy or revolution with stale bread.
Their fairly clever contrivance got rid of the real monarchs and aristocrats and instituted a system where a man was elected by other men -- best described as landed gentry and others graciously admitted into their company. His governing role and activities were basically much the same as the king-in-council they were familiar with. They fundamentally tied the role up in knots and double bindings so that the president was a kind of king with little free exercise of power but, like a British king, he did retain more or less unrestricted powers of pardon and mercy for convicted criminals.
Basically, they did a pretty good job of making sure that their new form of “king” couldn’t behave in the ways they objected to in rule from Britain. However, that certainty and explicit line by line rule-based arrangement meant that, as centuries passed, other former colonies of the Brits as well as the Brits themselves, were able to let their governments’ roles and relationships with the nominal head of state evolve more or less naturally while the USA was stuck with its prim, prissy and way out-of-date president-as-not-very-powerful king.
Canadians and OZNZers and most other commonwealth countries quite happily ignore the monarch and her representative in our various countries until and unless we want them to show up for a commemoration-celebration-anniversary of some kind. The Governors-General in these countries go through the motions of giving assent to legislation which, in fact, is fully devised, debated and finalised by parliaments and only by parliaments. The royal “assent” is a mere formality.
Of course, the US had to go and make it even worse with slavery and its successors. I’m not convinced about how things might have gone if the forms of government had been a bit more parliamentary &or a bit less republican rulebound. The vile intransigence and brutality of the slave owning states would be pretty unmanageable under any system.
Mostlymarvelous:
Yes, that’s all true. They were absolutely desperate to remove themselves from the British way of doing things, but they hadn’t thought any of it through, and while they wanted to distance themselves from the class system, they didn’t want to give up privilege, either. All of which resulted in the morass we find ourselves in now.