May 12, 2025

---

I keep hearing people accuse our current President of threatening the Constitution. But I've actually read the Constitution, and a couple of things have really stuck out over the past decade.

1. The Bill of Rights specifically forbids a bill of attainder. What the heck is that?

It's a government declaration that a certain person is illegal, and needs to be punished for no other reason than being himself. Oh, there would always be trumped-up charges, but the fact is that a particular crime is not the cause of the arrest and punishment, but rather the person in question is going to be punished no matter what.

Now, the fear was that Congress might do this thing, or maybe some kind of Star Chamber court proceeding. The premise is that under the Constitution, laws should be general, and people should only be punished if they are convicted for breaking a law that already exists and applies to everyone.

So when we saw Donald Trump hauled into court again and again for crimes that didn't exist, by prosecutors who had campaigned for office on the promise that they would "get Trump," we were watching exactly what the Constitution was supposed to prohibit.

Never mind the statute of limitations; never mind that an anti-Trump judge specifically told the jury that they didn't actually have to decide what law Trump broke, they only needed to agree that he was guilty.

These were all state judicial proceedings, so technically they were not violating the federal Constitution. (Except that the decision was made long ago that the Bill of Rights applies to the states.)

These prosecutors were definitely doing the very thing that the Bill of Rights was trying to prevent. You want to see how you move the United States into dictatorship? The Biden government was backing and supporting these attainderish attacks on their chief rival for the presidency in 2024. They were defying the Constitution while accusing their opponent of being dangerous.

They piled on the charges and the pre-determined convictions. The anti-Trump media constantly touted some high number of felonies that Trump was "guilty" of. Never mind that these felonies were non-existent. They got to call him a felon and declare him ineligible for the Presidency.

Fortunately, the majority of voters were not deceived. They knew that something deeply unfair was going on, and they protested at the ballot box.

2. We watched as various state legislatures tried to ban Trump from appearing on the ballot for the Presidency -- states trying to restrict who could run for President. Where was the outcry against this subversion of democracy -- by people who called Trump a threat to democracy?

3. Then there was the ongoing attempt to stuff the ballot box by inviting millions of noncitizens to enter the country and then eliminate any requirement for voters to show proof of citizenship. Again, this ploy was visible to everybody, though the news media never mentioned it if they could help it.

But this was a move that backfired: The Left was counting on hispanics' continuing to vote as a bloc. Instead, hispanic citizens, immigrant or native-born, broke the "rules" and did not vote as a solid bloc. That was not supposed to happen in a DEI world.

4. I always thought the "dictatorship of the proletariat" was a pipe-dream of Karl Marx's. But no, in the past decade we have watched as savage nongovernment attacks on private citizens who dared to hold and express "incorrect" opinions were allowed to flourish.

Speakers at colleges were disinvited or shouted down, with no attempt to protect them.

Anybody who did not fall in line with ridiculous proposals was vilified as racists, bigots, haters -- though it was their silencers who were filled with hate and rage.

Members of the first Trump administration were harassed when daring to dine in a public restaurant. Supreme Court justices who upheld the law and Constitution had death threats and demonstrations at their homes.

Did the right wing in our country do any of these things? Unelected private citizens, spreading slander on the internet, effectively silenced their opponents, not by argument or debate (because they had no arguments or evidence), but by eliminating all possibility of civil discussion.

So much for freedom of speech, when intimidation and coercion are allowed to run rampant. That isn't democracy; that is the mafia.

5. When Hillary Clinton's campaign paid for the creation of an utterly false dossier alleging that Trump was colluding with Russia, not only the media fell in line, but also a significant number of officials in our intelligence agencies affirmed that it was legitimate, and that the real laptop of President Biden's son was not real.

When government agents put politics ahead of their oaths of office, democracy is gasping for breath.

6. When parents attended public school board meetings to try to put a stop to ridiculous and offensive policies and practices in the schools, Biden's FBI treated these parents as domestic terrorists and investigated them -- even though as citizens they had the constitutional right to assemble and to petition the government. The FBI was thus marshaled against the Constitution.

7. Today, local judges think they have the authority to act as commander-in-chief of the national military and other federal agencies; they contradict President Trump's every action to protect our borders, and try to block the lawful actions of federal agencies.

They apparently think that if they keep the government from taking any action at all for four years, they can keep Trump from actually functioning as President, thus nullifying the election of 2024.

8. Back before the Civil War, South Carolina claimed the right to nullify acts of Congress. If they didn't want to enforce customs regulations, they would nullify them. It almost came to war. But they backed down, and we thought that state nullification of federal law was over.

Nope. It's back. "Sanctuary" cities and states have passed laws in defiance of federal law. They not only refuse to do their duty to help sustain federal law, they actively interfere with it. They are at war with the federal government, about issues that only the federal government has authority over.

The federal agencies are trying to enforce the federal law in these jurisdictions, but they find they have to fight the local government and its agents.

"Sanctuarians" warn criminals that the feds are coming, putting those federal agents at risk of life and limb. Sanctuarians demonstrate against and block actions by federal law-enforcement agencies. In effect, they are firing on Fort Sumter, and it is done with the support of the national media, the universities, and the local sanctuarian governments.

We're still pretending that this is not sedition and treason in these sanctuarian cities. We're still not officially recognizing that these anti-government actions are anti-democratic and anti-constitutional.

But it is a war, with local and state governments claiming the right to nullify federal law; all the sanctuarians are anti-American rebels.

Saying otherwise is simply inaccurate, though federal government leaders are trying to avoid saying this, in the hope that treating it as mere law-breaking will tamp it down.

9. So yes, the Constitution is, at this moment, hanging by a thread. There are a lot of people trying to strengthen that thread. There are a lot of people trying to break it. Personally, I'd like to see the Constitution survive, by allowing the duly elected president and his administration and the Congress to govern the United States.

I already don't agree with some of the actions of the Trump administration, and I have no doubt that other things will come up that I deplore.

Trump was never my preferred candidate. I still think of myself as a Moynihan Democrat (a group that is, I think, down to one member: me).

But this is the President we have right now. He is vigorous and mentally alert, and he is throwing everything open to public examination. It is our duty, all of us, as Americans who support the Constitution, to support and sustain the government in all its lawful actions.

Why? Because this is the President elected by a majority of the voters. These are the officials sustained by the Senate, and the laws passed by Congress.

If being American means anything, it means that we sustain the elected government and, if we don't like what the government does, we prepare to win the next election, if we can. That's what our forebears set up for us, and what generations have fought to uphold.

We should not surrender it lightly. We should not let it slip away piece by piece.

And since the enemies of the Constitution are, demonstrably, dishonest and coercive, we have to have the courage to speak the truth and stand up against coercion.

Or at least to honor those brave souls who do.