Posted on 06/12/2018 5:01:37 PM PDT by SJackson
The president is actually strengthening the constitutional checks and balances undermined by the previous administration. If your contention is that President Donald Trump has the propensity to sound like a bully and an authoritarian, I’m with you. If you’re arguing that Trump’s rhetoric is sometimes coarse and unpresidential, I can’t disagree. I’m often turned off by the aesthetic and tonal quality of his presidency. And, yes, Trump has an unhealthy tendency to push theories that exaggerate and embellish small truths to galvanize his fans for political gain. Those are all legitimate political concerns.
Yet the ubiquitous claim that Trump acts in a way that uniquely undermines the rule of law is, to this point, simply untrue.
At National Review, Victor Davis Hanson has it right when he argues that “elites” often seem more concerned about the “mellifluous” tone of leaders rather than their abuse of power. “Obama defies the Constitution but sounds ‘presidential,'” he writes. “Trump follows it but sounds like a loudmouth from Queens.”
But while former president Obama’s agreeable tone had plenty to do with his lack of scrutiny by the media, many reporters and pundits largely justified, and even cheered, his abuses because they furthered progressive causes. Not only did liberals often ignore the rule of law when it was ideologically convenient for them; they now want the new president to play by a set of rules that doesn’t even exist.
Partisans tend to conflate their own policy preferences with the rule of law, or with democracy or patriotism. But the pervasive claim that the Trump administration has uniquely undermined the law, a claim that dominates coverage, typically amounts to concerns about how he comports himself. For example, entering into international treaties without the Senate or creating fiscal subsidies without Congress are the types of things that corrode the rule of law. Firing (or threatening to fire) your subordinates at the Justice Department, on the other hand, is well within the purview of presidential powers.
Trump, as far as we know, hasn’t shut down a single investigation into himself or anyone in his administration or campaign, despite evidence that a special counsel’s creation was based on politically motivated information (opposition research meant to undermine Trump).
Though he may be wrong, it’s not an attack on the rule of law for the president to claim privilege. Nor is the president undermining the rule of law by pushing back against an investigation into Russian collusion. Now, Trump might not have a wingman running the Justice Department, but nothing in the Constitution stipulates that he has to prostrate himself in front of prosecutors, much less prosecutors who have veered far from their initial charge. The intelligence community is not sacred. Americans have no patriotic duty to respect former director of National Intelligence James Clapper or former CIA director John Brennan. The president is free to accuse them of partisanship. Doing so is not an attack on the rule of law any more than the reverse.
Considering the amount of politically motivated leaking and false accusations that have been made over the past year, it seems absurd to expect anything different. The Clintons pushed back against Ken Starr, and Trump pushes back against Robert Mueller. Democrats shouldn’t have boxed themselves in by convincing their constituents that some incontrovertible proof of illicit or seditious behavior was just waiting to be uncovered.
Nor does Trump undermine the rule of law when offering presidential commutations and pardons (and he probably wouldn’t be undermining it even if he were to pardon himself). If Americans are displeased, they have recourse. Unlike presidents who pardon, say, personal campaign financers or terrorists near the end of their term to avoid fallout, nothing stops today’s voters from electing representatives to impeach and remove Trump if they desire. That is the mechanism in place to stop the president.
American patriotism isn’t predicated on pretending that Russia can flip our election with a few Facebook ads, but it is certainly grounded in the idea that we all hold consistent constitutional principles.
Nor does Trump undermine the rule of law when he rolls back the previous administration’s unilateral abuses on immigration and faux treaties. In many ways, Trump has strengthened the checks and balances that were broken by the rhetorically soothing President Obama. Mock the phrase “but Gorsuch” if you like, but the newest Supreme Court pick will probably do more to curb the state’s overreach than any justice the Left would ever put on any bench.
Now, any defense of the Trump administration will, of course, meet charges of sycophancy and “anti-anti-Trumpism.” But none of this is to argue that the Trump administration is a paragon of lawfulness. It’s far from it. So stop exaggerating. The astoundingly terrible and hypocritical arguments of the president’s detractors often make it imperative to defend neutral principles and process.
...“Obama defies the Constitution but sounds ‘presidential,’” he writes. “Trump follows it but sounds like a loudmouth from Queens...
The best description I’ve ever seen written.
Hmmmm, maybe it’s like stretch armstrong. Flexible as needed?
The Left loves to talk about settled law when they were the ones who first had to unsettle the actual Law to get their way.
What’s a small truth. Is that like a little pregnant?
I agree. Trump has been nothing but constitutional, which is why he is going through this idiotic “investigation,” even though it is probably unconstitutional itself, once you start analyzing it.
Obama acted outside of the constitutional prescriptions and proscriptions at all times. None of his so-called “treaties” or “agreements” ever passed through Congress and his “laws” were executive orders that never went through the legislature.
Trump has been doing everything by the book (that is, the Constitution).
Obama was an inarticulate boob - if you listen to him, you have no idea what he’s saying, and obviously, neither does he.
Trump is very forthright, and while I sometimes wish he’d tone it down, it’s just his way of doing business. And it’s working.
Victor Davis Hanson has it right when he argues that “elites” often seem more concerned about the “mellifluous” tone of leaders rather than their abuse of power.Don't forget the crease of their pants.
The "elites" love a sharp pants crease.
We deplorables voted for President Trump and he won, and guess what else, ‘HE'S YOUR PRESIDENT ALSO’...
He is more respected around the world than any President that we have had, and just because you evil, vile, inhumanly babies didn't win who you wanted, my advise to you is to:
‘LEAVE OUR COUNTRY OR SHUT THE HELL UP’!!!
LOVE IT!!!
And everyone knows that the Left will cower in fear based on some criticism by a National Review writer!
p
Provide one example of where the Trump administration broke the law David.
Just one.
Or be branded a lying globalist sycophant forever.
What’s classic is when the DemonRats change laws to make life hard for their opposition that’s in leadership, then it hamstrings them when they’re in. Even better, they whine about it when it was their doing.
It’s classic. The party that said nothing while Buttcrack Hussein wiped his @$$ with contract law for 8 years is all upset now.
There is no evidence that Onambla was born in Hawaii. There is a forged Birth Certificate, and that is all.
And even that forged BC is of no help to him. After all, did it not claim a Kenyan was his original ‘DAD’. According to our Constitution BOTH parents must be American citizens before they could produce a Natural Born Citizen. A man subject to the laws of the British Crown is NOT an American Citizen(Barack Hussein Obama Sr.)
Why has Congress not come forth with this information. They stood silent, even as BO’B was sworn in (BOTH times, twice for each of those ceremonies, public and private).
What did Congress stand to gain in keeping silent? Money, Security, Freedom from persecution or prosecution?
The president is actually strengthening the constitutional checks and balances undermined by the previous administration.
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The Kenyanesian Usurper did more than undermine the Constitution, he tried to shred it.
Illegitimate usurpers do that kind of thing.
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