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VIEWPOINT - President Donald Trump’s destruction of the White House is, sadly, the perfect reflection of his second term in office. Just as he is destroying one of the most venerated structures in America, so too is he destroying everything America once stood for.
Even a severely limited survey of the President’s unbridled assault on the U.S. Constitution proves the point (the entire catalog would be all but endless).
The President has proudly announced that he “took away the First Amendment.” Annoyed at demonstrators who burned our flag in symbolic protest of his policies, the President has unilaterally declared that action a crime. That's two transgressions at once. It not only violates the clear meaning of the First Amendment, it also ignores settled law. The U.S. Supreme Court has specifically upheld the right to burn the flag in protest (Texas v. Johnson).
The President has threatened to withdraw research funding for universities which do not impose restrictions and impediments to open debate on campuses. Schools that fail to adopt his restrictive guidelines on demonstrations or “wokeness” run the risk of losing vital research grants. That, too, is a twin sin. It is an affront to the First Amendment, and it directly violates a long-standing Supreme Court ruling (Tinker v. Des Moines) which holds that “students do not surrender their rights at the schoolhouse door.”
The Trump administration has effectively banned all responsible media from covering the Department of Defense. New rules at the Pentagon require reporters to secure prior approval before they publish their stories. That edict forced dozens of seasoned Pentagon reporters (even including those working for Fox News) to turn in their credentials and walk out. That catastrophe was followed by an order holding that employees in the Defense Department are restricted from appearing before Congress. Thus, neither the free press nor appropriate Congressional committees have access to whatever our military does or plans to do.
When it comes to the President’s immigration policies, there are no constitutional restrictions at all. ICE agents routinely round up and incarcerate people without a shred of due process of law – no warrants, no hearings. All the available evidence suggests that ICE is also arresting people based almost exclusively on the color of their skin or their surnames. Civil rights simply do not exist. Neither does the constitutional protection of state’s rights – Trump has usurped local control over National Guard deployments.
At the President’s urging, some states are redrawing Congressional districts to give the GOP an expanded number of “safe” seats. These initiatives directly violate the traditional process of drawing districts every ten years (thus reflecting the most recent census counts). A few Democratic legislatures are responding in kind. As the result, we are now burdened with the same problem which the President has persistently decried: In state after state, elections are in fact being “rigged.”
At every turn, the President is abusing the revered cornerstone of our democracy, that ours is a government composed of three co-equal branches. When lower courts rule against the administration, their orders are often ignored, dodged, or simply defied. When Congress passes funding legislation, the President ignores the legislation by moving the funds hither and thither, so they reflect his own priorities. When members of the administration appear before Congress to report on or explain Trumpian actions, they routinely evade questions, provide highly questionable “facts,” insult committee members or simply refuse to answer legitimate questions. The majority party in both houses rarely if ever challenges this demeaning of their role.
In short, the Constitution is being demolished with the same vigor and insensitivity which made the East Wing of the White House disappear.
While all this unfolds, the Democratic National Committee is circulating a fundraising email which chides previous donors for not giving now. That email contains not one single reference to the DNC’s response to autocratic, lawless leadership; it does not even mention the current government shut down. The sole message the DNC delivers is no more nor less that “Send money now.”
We are watching our history, our dedication to democracy, and our unique reverence for the rule of law go up in flames. On one side is a tyrant enabled by several hundred spineless elected Congressmen and Senators; on the other, a cadre of tone-deaf fundraisers. It is no wonder that poll after poll charts our growing despair and frustration with all of them.
(David M. Hamlin contributes commentaries for CitywatchLA. He can be reached at www.dmhwrites.com.)
