A Constitutional Crisis Is Inevitable

[boutons_deux]

At this point, why would we expect anything else?

For the last year, U.S. politics has felt very much like the plot of a madcap TV show inspired by hysterical realists like Zadie Smith and Don DeLillo. “I’m starting to think that this is the last season of America and the writers are just going nuts,” comedian Jake Flores joked on Twitter (https://twitter.com/feraljokes/status/698615384853913600?lang=en) in more innocent times,

Each unexpected twist and turn has revealed that the nation’s political protagonists are even more depraved than we had thought—and each time it felt as though we should have known this all along.

All the recent storylines, and every piece of character development, is pointing in the same direction:

We are headed toward a constitutional crisis.

Why else would Donald Trump violate one of the few constitutional norms he has not yet obliterated by asking naval officers to take a partisan position (https://twitter.com/Carter_PE/status/888899959508094978) at a ceremonial event?

Why else would he keep repeating (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/22/us/politics/donald-trump-jeff-sessions.html) that he has the power to pardon anyone he wants—including himself—for any reason at all?

And why else would he and his associates be launching one trial balloon after another about firing Special Counsel Robert Mueller?

Even if Trump had nothing to fear from Mueller’s investigation, he would probably be unwilling to accept the legitimacy of an independent probe that so clearly showcases the limits of his rightful authority.

Without shame or hesitation, he will use every tool at his disposal to serve his own interests. If that should seem like the best option, he will be all too happy to fire Mueller or to pardon himself.



Will it really get so far? At this point, what’s more surprising is that anyone still doubts it.

Trump may, on the contrary, have perfectly rational reason to think that he is toast if he lets Mueller do his job. If so, it would be completely in character for him to try a high-stakes gamble like firing Mueller rather than wiggle placidly as the net tightens around him.

Even after Trump has blatantly violated constitutional norms by firing James Comey, and even after some of his closest associates have been shown to have conspired with the Russian government to find dirt on Hilary Clinton,

close to 40 percent of the American electorate (http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/21/politics/trump-second-quarter-approval/index.html) believes that Trump is doing a good job—which is low but not historically low (https://www.vox.com/2017/7/4/15912762/trump-approval-ratings-historical).

If moderate Republicans finally move to indict Trump, it may, in retrospect, come to seem inevitable that they would eventually find the courage of their convictions.

But if they continue to give the president cover by expressing moderate hesitation while aiding and abetting his assault on the American Constitution, that too would, with the benefit of hindsight, come to seem inevitable.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/the_good_fight/2017/07/we_re_headed_for_a_constitutional_crisis.html

So how will the cheap Amerian sitcom end?

[boutons_deux]

This presidency can’t be saved. It’s all downhill from here.

it is worth considering how this may all play out.

1. Trump orders Attorney General Jeff Sessions to fire Mueller. Sessions quits, as does Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein and Associate Attorney General Rachel Brand. Eventually someone agrees to fire Mueller. Republicans either will not pursue impeachment or are obliged to begin impeachment hearings but refuse to vote out articles of impeachment.

2. Trump orders Attorney General Jeff Sessions to fire Mueller. Sessions quits, as does Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein and Associate Attorney General Rachel Brand. Eventually someone agrees to fire Mueller. Republicans, together with Democrats, pass by a veto-proof majority an independent prosecutor statute.

3. Republicans join Democrats in warning Trump not to fire Mueller. Mueller remains and keeps digging. Mueller subpoenas damaging documents; Trump refuses to comply. A court orders him to comply. He doesn’t. We have a full-blown constitutional crisis.

4. Republicans join Democrats in warning Trump not to fire Mueller. Mueller remains and keeps digging. Mueller subpoenas damaging documents; Trump refuses to comply. A court orders him to comply. He declares this a witch hunt, an attack on his family (or whatever). Then he resigns, claiming he has already made America great.

5. Republicans join Democrats in warning Trump not to fire Mueller. Mueller subpoenas damaging documents. Trump complies. The evidence of collusion and/or obstruction is overwhelming. Mueller recommends prosecution or impeachment. The GOP turns on Trump, who is impeached and removed

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2017/07/21/this-presidency-cant-be-saved-its-all-downhill-from-here/?utm_term=.51001f62788f

[boutons_deux]

The Present Crisis

There is one thing certain about the political crisis in the United States today: when it ends, the Constitution will be profoundly different. Either we will make major changes to it — through amendment or through rewriting — or it will become a mere decoration, a relic of a history which no longer applies. But the system that we have grown up with, the particular powers of each branch of government, has already come to an end.

The only power any branch has over the President which is not ultimately rooted in the enforcement power of Executive police agencies is the power of impeachment. Everything else, the President either has de jure or de factopower to override. (Special prosecutors were an exception to this (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Office_of_the_Independent_Counsel) until 1999.)

I don’t think Trump had anything in mind as complex as testing the limits of Constitutional authority;

he wanted to see what he could get away with, and how people would react, and he used that information later to see if he could get away with more.

It’s very simple, and it’s been his M.O. for his entire life. It was, in short, an experiment to see how much power he could seize, an attempt to go as far as he could to see if anyone could actually stop him.

This is why I referred to it as a “trial balloon for a coup (https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/trial-balloon-for-a-coup-e024990891d5).”

Today, the constitutional crisis has only deepened.

The problem is simple: the President continues to openly and brazenly flout the law

(with his open self-dealing through “golf vacations” and through his family’s businesses, and with his senior appointees’ near-weekly habits of perjury, being the least controversial examples), and

his essential argument is that no-one can stop him, so it must be legal.

he’s right.

The only power anyone has over the President which does not ultimately rely on the President himself to enforce is the power of impeachment.

This has rarely been an issue in the past, because custom, shame, and basic honesty have kept Presidential power in check; Jimmy Carter famously sold his beloved peanut farm rather than have any business holdings that could be portrayed as a conflict of interest, and even Richard Nixon never used his pardon power to protect the Watergate conspirators.

But the power of impeachment is limited by the willingness of Congress to act, and for structural reasons, that no longer exists.

In the years following,

Gingrich and others developed a strategy in which dealing across party lines was tantamount to treason.

This meant that Congress’ ability to get anything done fell apart, and a sequence of presidents (of both parties) had to turn to increasingly creative means to bypass them.

And as that further weakened Congress, legislators increasingly saw their power not as the ability to pass laws (which was hopeless), but as the ability to either back or oppose the party leader — the President.

In short, Congress has spent the past twenty years weakening itself, reducing itself from the primary source of power in the government to a backup squad for the Executive.

The idea of an investigation as being about the power of Congress over the President is actively alien to Washington today; investigations have, for decades now, been about the power of party over party.

we are now firmly in a place where the Constitution no longer offers any meaningful solutions. We have run into a basic bug in the system which the Founders didn’t anticipate: that Congress would become subservient to the President, effectively eradicating the only surefire check on that power.

so much of our national identity is tied up with the very concept of the Constitution. If we are not the country founded in 1776, then what are we?

the Constitution — in either its 1789 or 1877 form — has broken.

There is a President who claims to be above the law, and there is no mechanism in place which can contradict him.

If this persists, the Constitution is no longer meaningful except as history; if it does not persist, the Constitution must be changed.

What happens between where we are now and the end of this situation remains unclear.

The only thing clear is that there are no legal mechanisms which will end it;

what happens next depends entirely on informal processes,

on things like the public pressures which causes Congress and Trump to do one thing or another.

Impeachment, for example, will not happen by any laws of nature; it would only happen if public outcry were so severe that Congress felt it had no choice. The 2018 and 2020 elections may or may not have any effect, when they come; if they end up being rigged in any number of legal or extralegal ways, they certainly will not.

But those are still far away: even the voter suppression efforts are only just beginning.

We are only, after all, six months into the age of Trump.

https://extranewsfeed.com/the-present-crisis-6838de470e9b

[SpursforSix]

https://media.giphy.com/media/oxZmZ51Nae0BW/giphy.gif

[boutons_deux]

The 'unitary executive' question

Biden charged that Dick Cheney (http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics-government/government/dick-cheney-PEPLT007400-topic.html) had become "the most dangerous vice president we've had probably in American history" because of his attempts to create a super-powerful unitary executive.

the theory of the unitary executive, first proposed under President Reagan, has been expanded since then by every president, Democrat and Republican alike.

Reagan's notion was that only a strong president would be able to dramatically limit big government.

Perhaps drawing on a model for unitary corporate leadership in which the CEO also serves as chairman of the board,

the so-called unitary executive

promised undivided presidential control of the executive branch and its agencies,

expanded unilateral powers and

avowedly adversarial relations with Congress.

In the years that followed, Heritage Foundation and Federalist Society conservatives worked to provide a constitutional cover for this theory,

producing thousands of pages in the 1990s

claiming -- often erroneously and misleadingly -- that the framers themselves had intended this model for the office of the presidency.

Unitarians (for lack of a better word) want to

expand the many existing uncheckable executive powers -- such as executive orders, decrees, memorandums, proclamations, national security directives and legislative signing statements -- that already allow presidents to enact a good deal of foreign and domestic policy without aid, interference or consent from Congress.

Ardent proponents even insist that there are times when the president -- like a king -- should operate above the law.
Presidents and their supporters justify the unitary executive with an expansive reading of Article II of the Constitution (which sets out the role of the executive branch), invariably citing congressional log-jamming (what we used to call "checking and balancing") or national security.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/la-oe-nelson11-2008oct11-story.html

So again Trash being an kingly authoritarian has lots of support among conservatives, going back decades.

[TSA]

The only thing inevitable is your spamming of articles no one reads

[RandomGuy]

The only thing inevitable is your spamming of articles no one reads

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/republicans-no-longer-conservative-party_us_59767dd6e4b0e201d5776f8c

[Mikeanaro]

The only thing inevitable is your spamming of articles no one reads

[TSA]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/republicans-no-longer-conservative-party_us_59767dd6e4b0e201d5776f8c

http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/07/department-of-energy-risks-michael-lewis

[rmt]

Calm down, boutons. You're gonna get high blood pressure. It's all much ado about nothing.

[Pavlov]

Calm down, boutons. You're gonna get high blood pressure. It's all much ado about nothing.Why doesn't Trump shut up about it then?

[boutons_deux]

The only thing inevitable is your spamming of articles no one reads

... is why you remain one of the stupidest, most paranoid fuckoffs around here.

[TSA]

... is why you remain one of the stupidest, most paranoid fuckoffs around here.

shareblue will not be paying you for this post. Stay on topic.

[rmt]

I do not agree with Trump's handling of Sessions. He is loyal, believes in Trump's agenda and is doing a fine job with the gangs, border crossings, sanctuary cities. Trump should be discussing whatever his gripes are in private - not tweeting at all hours of the night/morning. He should consider who could possibly replace Sessions and who would WANT to considering the treatment Sessions is getting. Trump must realize that Sessions is an honorable man (for a politician) and not expect him to be covering for him the way Lynch did with the Clintons - it might not seem fair to Trump but this is what you get when you choose a Christian - he's gonna follow his conscience and the law first. Sessions' job is to clean up the crime in the country and imo, he's doing just that. I hope they patch it up.

[boutons_deux]

"Sessions is an honorable man"

is a LIFE-LONG ALAMBAMA racist. There's no other way to succeed in AL politics over decades.

His upcoming crackdown on mj is just more of the failed War on Drugs (but it's a successful business and make-work job creator) which is continuation of Nixon's War on knitters and hippies. His record on civil rights, voting rights is atrocious.

[baseline bum]

:lmao not fair to Trump :lmao

[rmt]

:lmao not fair to Trump :lmao

I did not say that it was not fair to Trump, but that it might not SEEM fair TO Trump.

[SnakeBoy]

So how will the cheap Amerian sitcom end?

With reelection most likely.

[Pavlov]

I did not say that it was not fair to Trump, but that it might not SEEM fair TO Trump.Christian racism is honorable racism.

[rmt]

Christian racism is honorable racism.

What is with some of you? It's like everything is about race. This thing between Trump and Sessions is not about race.

[Pavlov]

What is with some of you? It's like everything is about race. This thing between Trump and Sessions is not about race.Jeff Sessions has always been about race. Take it up with him.

Honorably.

[Adam Lambert]

firing sessions would be trumps first good act as potus

[Chucho]

A bunch of whiners spreading Nazi propaganda does not necessitate the over sensationalism that "god damned stupid" idiots like OP post from his Demagogues' propaganda ministries.

Sour grapes and appointing yourselvez moral compasses wont change the fact that the only people that are greatly exaggerating the demise of this country are the ones pissdd about not getting their perverse ideals into office.Why? Because the majority of non "god damned stupid" idiots reject the thinly veiled hpocrisies of thier shit ideology.