The “revelation” that former President Donald Trump is in favor of “terminating” the U.S. Constitution hardly deserves the name if that’s what it takes to make him president again.
Trump’s comments, posted on Truth Social on Saturday and vehemently denied on Monday, reject constitutional restrictions slightly more explicitly than he has challenged in the past. If in hand, or at least exercised in his interests, it is fully consistent with his long-standing opposition to inviolable limits on state power. That is the most obvious thing in the world.
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This indifference was evident long before Trump formally entered politics. One of his early signs was his disquieting love of eminent domain, the government’s authority to take private property for public use, provided that it makes “due compensation” to the owner. did. Since eminent domain is based on the Fifth Amendment, the basic concept is not unconstitutional per se, but in 2005 the Supreme Court greatly expanded the doctrine to allow what is included in “public use.” did. private Development, which happens to be thought by the government, is a good idea.
The potential for corruption is obvious, and the highly unpopular ruling Kero vs New London, is controversial to this day, but Trump absolutely loved it. He agreed “100 percent” with it, stated on Fox News at the time, and had a personal history to prove it.In the late 1990s, Trump took advantage of eminent domain to build his 30-year-old man in Atlantic City. I tried to evict an elderly widow from the house I lived in for years. He wanted to replace her house with a limousine parking lot for a casino.
Thanks to the efforts of the Institute for Justice, a libertarian public interest law firm, the widow stayed at home. But Mr. Trump was also defending something. He has a penchant for bending or ignoring the law when it suits him, and he clearly has no interest in state projects or the constraints of power he deems desirable.
Both during the campaign and as president, Trump has made his anti-constitutionalism even more explicit, even as he claims he stands “100% with the Constitution.” He recently discovered his personal interest in the Fourth Amendment, but in 2015 he said, “[s] Mistakes on the part of security over freedoms where the right to privacy and the war on terror are concerned. That same year he said:[ing] In the mosques’ and implementation of the National Muslim Register, two First Amendment violations.
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In early 2016, Trump once again set his sights on the First Amendment, this time wanting to “open up the libel laws” and violate press freedom. That summer, he vowed to protect non-existent constitutional provisions. system and “really bad for the country”. That fall, he said it was incriminating evidence to claim his Fifth Amendment rights. announced that it would end
In 2019, Trump repeatedly claimed that Article 2 of the Constitution gave him “the right to do whatever I want.” That same year, he argued that he should be able to abuse the national emergency declaration to extend his power beyond constitutional boundaries, as Democrats would do the same if given the chance. Reportedly, 2020 In 1948, he expressed interest in declaring martial law, the constitutional preconditions for which were: ex parte milligan (1866) had not met. And just last month, after a two-hour trial modeled after communist China’s justice system, he called for the execution of drug dealers. Even Trump’s track record falls short.
surprise! Republicans have bigger problems with their activist base than Democrats.
A simple explanation for this vicious disregard for the Constitution is Trump’s greed and willingness to ignore reality itself if it serves his own ends. But if I venture the longer theory, Trump’s idea of government is a strange and dangerous anachronism, pre-Enlightenment in which power arose by virtue of its inherent status rather than justly distributed by law. Trump does nothing for the Constitution because he is a medieval perspective and his ideal society is a world of natural hierarchy.
With all these records, we should conclude with a list of concrete steps Trump’s Democratic opponents have taken in the last two years while controlling the House, Senate, and White House. Trump (or anyone with similar views on the Constitution) will be in office again.Me should I can’t end this article that way, but I can’t. Because Democrats don’t do that. They found time to back Trump imitators in the midterm elections, but powerful structural restrictions remain too much for executives.
Kind of a selfish disdain for the Constitution not being limited to Donald Trump.
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