DeluxAuto
AntiSocial Extrovert
- Joined
- Dec 16, 2010
- Posts
- 20,657
Again and again, the president has rejected America's founding principles.
I've said this several times and it holds true. I bet the Trumplicans who love the founding fathers and the constitution will love this
I've said this several times and it holds true. I bet the Trumplicans who love the founding fathers and the constitution will love this
For all his “America First” sloganeering, the term that applies best to Donald J. Trump is “Un-American.” He has repudiated the oath of office and the documents at the core of our national identity: the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
Consider how he describes presidential authority. At a recent press briefing, he suggested that he could order states to reopen businesses. “The federal government has absolute power … I have the absolute right to do if I want to.” He has often made similar claims, including his assertion that he has an “absolute right” to seek foreign investigations of American political figures–an offense that triggered the first article of his impeachment.
Absolute power was precisely what the Founders sought to avoid. The word “absolute” appears three times in the Declaration, always to proclaim what the patriots were fighting against: “absolute Despotism,” “absolute Tyranny,” and “absolute rule.”
Trump’s threat to adjourn Congress calls to mind the Declaration’s charge that George III had “dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.”
To prevent anyone from gaining absolute power, the Constitution included elaborate checks on the government and provided that all officials would be accountable for their actions. Alexander Hamilton wrote that a British monarch “is the absolute master of his own conduct in the exercise of his office,” whereas in a republic, “every magistrate ought to be personally responsible for his behavior in office.”