The single, greatest MAGA Trump threat: Constitutional nullification

Instead of learning that the January 6 shocker simply capped a war against electoral majority rule, America sloughed off a brash, insurrectionist menace – big surprise now as a rash of evil chickens come home to roost

What dramatically tests our national mettle today surpasses “mere” MAGA disgraces, staggering failures, or scorn for democratic diversity and legal authority. Blatant incompetence, misjudgments and jolts of cruelty already solidify Trump as the worst, most chaotic, most willfully foolish president in history. Jaw-grinding yes, but not automatically the worst calamity. What the last year magnifies, for dullards in denial, is more sinister, with more systemicdamage: the brash nullification of Constitutional government. The nation is now pummeled with destructive threats because its learning curve froze up after January 2020, oblivious to what violent insurrection meant for national stability and future. The US took a fierce uppercut and tragically shook off what can’t be dismissed as “just politics.” The potential teaching moment dissolved – and so now we all pay the price (and will for two+ more years short of a miracle). J.D. Vance? Better and worse.

We’re talking about a score of torpedos not equalled since the union-busting defiance of the Civil War – a threat also underappreciated over time, inciting Jim Crow, mass lynching, harsh segregation and less overt, “lost cause” insurrections. From Day One, MAGA Trump has warred against Constitutional federalism, gotten away with murder because American citizens failed to understand what election (thus Constitutional) nullification represents. The J6 coup attempt was the warning shot across the bow, reinforced by countless failed court tests to steal an election (while the hypocrite blamed everyone else for what he was trying).

The malicious MAGA ploy is now more obvious: bring federalism to its knees so libertarian forces of might-makes-right can dominate politics, elections, governance, economics and foreign interventions. Knowing such efforts would be doomed, the MAGA minority scoffs at formal amendments or Congressional actions, favoring top down, vote-free takeover ploys, vast numbers still intact. The most dramatic, and most ignored tipoff, was Trump’s outright refusal to accept his 2020 loss — for that interrupted the MAGA/libertarian crusade for less democracy, less diversity, more racism and more predation (especially of immigrants).

All rational voters ignore these glaring icebergs at our peril: either we have enforceable (election, voting rights) laws, buttressed by the spirit and amended letter of the Constitution – or we embrace chaos, corruption, and decline befitting centrists with their head in the sand. Elections matter and character matters and defenders of reality matter.

First empirical, red flashing spotlights

We no longer boast three counter-balancing branches of government – the critical obsession of our skeptical, brilliant Founders dreading tyranny, either from the domination of one branch, or rule by demagogues in league with insatiable oligarchs or impulsive mobs. The threat here to improved living conditions is the banishment of systemic checks on elitist concentration and scope. What MAGA Trump barrages expose is the startling relevance of Lord Action’s caution: “Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Denial post J6 demonstrates what happens when the severely violated system doesn’t protect itself with potent reforms, encouraging a convicted felon awash in corruption to continue unConstitutional scams, unopposed by a spineless Congress or bought Supreme Court. No president before acted as if Congress did not exist and never poses a challenge to whatever whimsical vagary is pushed – and repeated.

That Congressional dereliction parallels an extremist Supreme Court gang who lost their legal acumen on logic or precedent, as in reading literal words, thus spurring on a crackpot, wholly arbitrary chief executive. By in effect blackballing the other two branches, this executive gang boastfully diddles with law and thus commits heinous crimes (killing innocent Iranians, seaborne Venezuelans and ICE captives). Unrestrained MAGA Trump first acts rashly and then channels full federal legal might, all the while pushing unjust gerrymandering – for everything depends on rigging elections so no MAGA partisans ever lose. Spoiling elections is the worst cut both to justice and anything close to representative government.

The totality of outcomes should produce an outraged mass reform movement to strengthen democratic guardrails, now exposed as paper thin. After all, alleged guardrails were readily swamped by the first truly fascist storm in history against democratic barricades. The horror of MAGA Trumpism is both the speed and ease by which corruption reigns PLUS the dearth of popular resistance. Yes, federal courts have, in their slow, sweet time, rebuked a few of the worst of Trump infractions (tariffs, election ploys, birthright citizenship). But stunningly AWOL is both wrath and action by all other politicians, state leaders, officials, institutions (religious groups, churches, universities, labor organizations, and business leaders). Add in insufficient protests, strikes, boycotts, and disobedience, civil and otherwise. The house of state is on fire and only crickets in response; we can’t now even impeach the top incendiary.

Equally significant is that American election integrity has been assaulted by the most blatantly baseless, most simple-minded lying/deception/propaganda. The heart of the supposed “beacon on the hill” is under attack by no more than a phony, rhetorical toothpick. Nervy rogue presidents (Adams, Jackson, Polk, Johnson, Wilson) undermined their oaths of office; others (LBJ, Nixon, Reagan, and Dubya) skirted or violated overt legal and systemic restraints without public support. But none before Trump, and with such an indefensible stunt, abused the one election he lost as rigged and illegitimate, then dared incite a fatal, devastating protest. No president ever defied a fraud-free result after the majority declared, “you’re fired,” and not only lived to tell the tale but gainfully leveraged this fiction as a re-election pitch. As bad as that arrogance was, even worse was that such crimes were not quickly punished, with new statutory disqualifications for all election deniers who had agreed to its decisiveness: Trump never even faced a trial!! When an outlaw breaks a law, then sneers at toothless law, what criminal doesn’t feast on this golden opportunity?

Corrupting both an election and the integrity of elections to regain power are the worst moral and political sins in my democratic book. That the indefensible was done, then violations got pasted over or “pardoned,” is the worst sin an electorate can commit. I see no if, ands or buts to this national (ongoing) infamy.

Call to arms

Though strident defiance of Trump’s second fiasco grows weekly, we still lack a full public backlash – beyond the midterm energy – to acknowledge the seriousness of the political menace on full display. No civilized country can tolerate a headstrong convicted felon doing whatever he wants, only this weekend further demolishing our relationship with our greatest historic ally, Canada. What would it take for 80 or 90% of Americans to at least complain about the cancer at the center of this presidency and the entire MAGA Trump movement?

Alas, Founders did not anticipate a deranged, utterly vanity-driven president, if nervy enough, declaring himself not just a tyrant but a destroyer of hardwon American strengths. That this Supreme Court Friday allows the obviously illegal West Wing construction to continue is but the latest of a hundred betrayals, each one incentivizing a power abuser to keep going until stopped. One can imagine an unprecedented anti-president but I remain puzzled that the resistance is so muted, as if just electing Democrats to Congress will magically resolve a far more serious, systemic threat. How about symbolic recalls, with fanfare, against the worst villains? After all, tariffs eventually rejected still cause massive grief for months, an expensive, counterproductive “learning curve.” A reckless Iranian war could well last a year, with dire outcomes.

Mere rhetoric against a profoundly creepy leader turned horror film zombie, whom Robert Reich calls “stark raving mad,” is hardly a solution. If an aggrieved minority (with or without billionaires) wants different rules and statutes, they must honor the intact game procedures – or be exiled for multiple fouls. Either we have laws enforced or we don’t. Either we have a Constitution or we don’t. Either we have a president answerable to huge majority pressures now on every major issue or we don’t. Either we have an adult, rational government, with checks and balances, or we have something much worse, which won’t get better without a mass movement of sufficient critical mass to counter a well-heeled, billionaire-driven nullification insurrection. Waiting for 2028 gives too much leeway to what can get destroyed in the meantime.