Give Trump credit for exposing biggest lie
Unlike what we were taught as children, there is someone who is above the law.
Donald Trump has proven it. Not only for himself but for every president who follows him.
We rightfully assign Trump blame for each of the thousands of lies he has told during his tenure as president. But give the man credit. He now deserves to be recognized or exposing what may be America’s biggest lie.
One the Founding Fathers told themselves.
In school we learned that our Constitution established the United States as a nation of laws, one with checks and balances in the federal government and by way of the courts.
To that end, as Theodore Roosevelt said, “No man is above the law and no man is below it: nor do we ask any man’s permission when we ask him to obey it.”
Ahhhh ... no.
We’ve gone along with this mistaken notion of no one being above the law for nearly 250 years.
During the impeachment investigation of President Richard Nixon this fictional conceit was reinforced by Leon Jaworski, the special prosecutor, who said, “From Watergate we learned what generations before us have known; our Constitution works. And during Watergate years it was interpreted again so as to reaffirm that no one — absolutely no one is above the law.”
Now, we know differently. Whether you support President Trump or want him removed from office the notion that “no one is above the law” must now seem ... quaint. Outdated.
Irrelevant.
The Constitution, about which we speak with such reverence, is only words on paper. In order for it to mean anything it must be enforced by elected officials who feel honor bound to follow the oaths they swore before taking office.
Trump has proven that belief to be a fallacy.
A joke.
He has made the elected officials in the Republican Party beholding to HIM, not to any American ideal of a democratic republic guided by the Constitution. The founders had the flawed belief that their 18th century sense of honor and commitment to the American ideal and the Constitution would manifest in each subsequent generation.
Trump knew better.
He must now think of Washington, Jefferson, Adams and all those other guys as saps.
And why wouldn’t he? People laughed at Trump during the presidential campaign when he said, “You know what else they say about my people? The polls, they say I have the most loyal people. Did you ever see that? Where I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters, okay? It’s like incredible.”
It is.
And no one is laughing now.