If the Constitution Doesn't Matter, What Does? And Who Should Say So?

45 is endlessly trying to tell the opposition that the Constitution doesn't matter.

Call someone to testify about his actions in front of Congress? Nope. Executive privilege. Does it apply? Who cares? Take us to court. That'll take too long. We'll be re-elected by then. Hopefully.

So the Constitution doesn't matter there. And any inside information that would jeopardize the very presidency that 45 is making a mockery of can't be accessed, because the president is, well, the president. Nobody's made the claims that this president has made about whether or not the law applies to him. That doesn't matter, either. He does, he's stopping people, and the evidence goes wanting.

So now his lawyers say that he can't even be investigated. Or, maybe, that his office doesn't have to turn over any information concerning anything he's done that might be construed as illegal. He is, then, untouchable for the duration of his term.

Nobody else has ever claimed that, but only one other president, Nixon, has ever been in a position to do so. He passed on it in 1974, perhaps because, in a moment of remorse, he decided not to tie up the machinery of government. 45 has no such problem. He was never involved in governing anyhow. And, really, he doesn't want to be. All he wants to do is rant. He has quite the rostrum he needs.

Impeachment is problematic. Take 45 to trial in the Senate, and the Senate majority leader will refuse to hold it. Turns out he doesn't care, either. Run out the clock, have another election, tell all kinds of new lies designed to scare the hell out of enough of us, and hold your breath: Maybe there will be at least another two years of a complete lack of accountability, too. Maybe four. Maybe more.

Hey, worked before. Why mess with success?

We have a king on our hands, exactly the kind of situation the framers feared, and against which good men and women fought and bled. He has managed to shield himself against legal attacks. He is presently building, with only Ruth Bader Ginsburg's fragile existence in the way, a bulwark against any interpretation of the Constitution that would leave him in an exposed and litigious condition.

The clock ticks for all of us. The closer we get to the start of the next presidential term, the more likely we are nearing an autocracy of oligarchs, led by a complete fraud. He utilizes the very media he says he can't stand--the ultimate disingenuousness--to spew forth his messages, tweets notwithstanding. Republicans continue to stand with him, to accomplish the major goals they have striven for: mainly, the end of abortion rights, or at least their significant reduction. The more the Supreme Court backs him, the less its legitimacy in the minds of many.

The country is divided, and he thrives on it. Even if someone on the other side begins apologizing for the scores of insults unleashed, that apology will have two problems: first, believability; and second, acceptance. Appealing to people's magnaminity is never bad, but it must be backed with actions that are at least tangential with the Constitution as we have understood its development. There will have to be plenty of magnanimous action on that side, first, for it to be swallowed.

They will have to admit that electing 45 was a mistake that jeopardized democracy, and that they won't be likely to nominate anyone like him again. But who will say that? And what influence will he or she have to by-pass the right-winged blowhards who, for far longer than 45 has been on the scene, have seized their adherents by the throat with wickedly slung half-truths, weaponizing the First Amendment?

There is no one on that other side, my side, who has that kind of effect. By definition, progressives tend to approach issues with cordiality and thoughtfulness for others, not the latest methodology of bluffing or twisting logic or history. Among the myriad presidential candidates, there are few able to be firmly assertive enough to bring enough points home to reverse the conversation from someone who has no regard for the truth, both in actual words and actual meaning.

That will have to be the test that we will have to hold our breaths for--to see if that certain someone can clarify all that is at stake this time around. Congress, tied in knots without veto override power, can't do it. The Supreme Court seems to be denying it. It's left to whomever that is. Those moments will arrive. However it falls, we can't walk away from it.

The fall from decency is presently slow, but will accelerate if it isn't halted and a floor put to it. 45's adherents certainly won't go away, but it is vital that their collective influence is diminished. Half the House of Representatives helps, but isn't enough. 45 is starting to pull the levers on those who will not submit to him. Now that's he used to knowing where they are, that effort will just get more precipitous. He must be stopped.

Be well. Be careful. I'll see you down the road.


Mister Mark