A Constitutional Crisis

Ever since the election of Trump in 2016, our country has been on a path to a Constitutional crisis. It started the minute he was inaugurated. Democratic leaders was calling for his impeachment. Then came the Mueller investigation into Russian collusion. Next came the nomination of Judge Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Finally, with the Ukraine call and the whistleblower leading into two articles of impeachment voted in a partisan way in the House of Representatives.

What is the Constitutional crisis? Our Constitution was never intended to be used in a partisan way. A duly elected president should not be removed because of politics. High crimes and misdemeanors is what is required to impeach.

A second related crisis is the role of the media. Our free press was suppose to be the watchdog for people in our government and our elected officials. It was not suppose to be a cheering squad for one party over another.

Finally, the crisis is in our justice system. Our long established criteria for innocent until proven guilty by a group of your peers has been totally turned upside down during the Kavanaugh confirmation process.

- Dec. 2019

The News Media and some of our social media giants such as Facebook, Google, and Amazon has taken upon itself to play arbiters rather than be an unbiased source. This is a new phenomenon. We always have two parties with different philosophies of governing. One that believes in limited government and individual initiative and another that favors a large government social programs to take care of the people,

The media has in the past reported on both parties with equal zeal. They went after government corruption and abuses of power by both Democrats and Republicans whoever they may be. Whether the Vietnam war under Johnson administration, or the Watergate scandal under Nixon, it was conducted fairly and with little bias.

However, this has shifted especially during the GW Bush administration. What used to be off topic with foreign policy has become front and center. The Iraq war has proven to be the one item that Democrats and the media could use to damage a sitting president to the point of disgrace. Even though they had supported the war fully in the beginning, after 9/11, by the 2nd term of GW Bush, it had become a rallying point for the anti-war crowd, the Democrats, and the news media.

It was clear to everyone that the main stream media has a built in bias against Republicans. The same issues would be treated differently depending which party or which politicians were involved. It used to dominate all news outlets and they just take it for granted. Since the days of cable news, and talk radio and the internet, that is no longer true. The main stream media's dominance has been greatly diluted. The public found alternative media to get their news. This has created further divide among the public. They no longer trust what is being reported in the nightly news or the printed pages of the NYT.

This class of people are collectively against Trump from the outset. They never accepted the outcome of the 2016 election. They were in shock when Trump won. They just could not believe the American people voting for such a low life. Some in a position of power, took it upon themselves to make it right. They feel it was their patriotic duty to remove him from office by any means possible. I include Comey and McCabe and Brennan in this group of elites.

The people in Congress on the Democratic side includes the Squad, and Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler and Nancy Pelosi. After winning the majority after the mid term election of 2018, they felt energized and reinvigorated. They decided to pursue Trump with impeachment to remove him from office. Even though the Mueller investigation has concluded without any criminal referrals.

In our republic, the people decides. We have elections every four years to determine who will be our leader, not a king. His power is limited by our Constitution with checks and balances from the other two branches. This can only work if our people and our elected officials swears to abide by the Constitution. In recent years, we have seen a breakdown of our education system and we have a public who are uninformed about our own system of government. In fact, we have elected officials to Congress who does not have a basic understanding of our laws or our government.

Under such an environment, no wonder we are facing a crisis.

The question is why Trump? Why did the media and the Democrats decided to go after Trump in this unprecedented fashion. The answer is three parts.

First, Trump was the ultimate outsider who beat the odds and won the top ticket of all elections without any experience. The elites cannot let this stand. They cannot be up staged by an outsider. This has disrupted their favored status.

Second, Trump is not acceptable as a world leader. He is a commoner who was voted in by a minority of "deplorables."

Finally, he made fools out of the media. Every thing they tried to throw at him has failed. They don't know what to do. He fought back against the biased media and won.

We must face this challenge head on. If our republic is to survive into the next century, we need to address the current deficiencies. We need better public education system. We need an informed electorate. We need good people with an intellect to run for office and serve as intended - the people that elected them.

We need a President and a Congress that listen to the people and not the donors. The role of government needs to be redefined and follow our Constitution as written. If not, they need to be amended, as required and not just reinterpreted by unelected judges.

We need our borders defended. A country by definition is consisting of Language, Borders and Culture. A common language of English, a well defined borders with laws governing entry and exit, and a common culture based of common believes.

Otherwise, what is the point of even having a country? why not just declare we are all citizens of planet earth?

In this article, I outlined why we are facing a Constitutional crisis in the years of Trump. My fear is this will get worse before it gets better. The next election will be a crucial moment in our Republic. Will we re-elect a populist that is a favor of the people and a pariah for the elite establishment or will we turn 180 degrees towards a social democratic government like they have in Europe?