Are we still a Constitutional Democracy? Are we to allow Trump to destroy it?

[Luckyone]

Democracy depends on norms, some written into the Constitution, others implicit in it. Donald Trump regularly disparages or repudiates at least ten of these norms: (1) an independent judiciary; (2) the freedom of the press; (3) the presence and function of independent actors within government; (4) the peaceful resolution of political disputes rather than the encouragement of violence; (5) the acknowledgment of the legitimacy of election results and recognition of the sanctity of the right to vote; (6) a refusal to threaten legal prosecution against political opponents; (7) the condemnation of brutal foreign dictators; (8) a respect for transparency within government; (9) a sharp separation between the private and public interests of governmental officials; and (10) at least a minimal commitment to the truth. These norms are essential to American democracy, yet Trump routinely violates them.

In the last 2 weeks, Trump has additionally attacked our Constitution and our laws by:

1)

Trump Has Triggered a 'Constitutional Crisis' by Refusing Congressional Subpoenas

2)

the law could not be clearer: Congress’ tax committees have the authority to obtain Trump’s tax returns on request—and the U.S. Treasury Department has no basis for refusing. Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin would be violating the law if he directs the IRS to stonewall Congress.

If Trump is not forced to follow the Constitution and the laws of our nation he will set a precedent for the future that will allow anyone to do the same and get away with it.

Are we still a Constitutional Democracy? Will we allow Trump to break the Constitution and our laws and turn us into an autocratic ruled nation or a dictatorship? Will the Republicans defend the Constitution that they so often quote, or kowtow to Trump's desires? Is Trump above the law?

 

[Bucky]

In the last 2 weeks, Trump has additionally attacked our Constitution and our laws by:

1)

2)

If Trump is not forced to follow the Constitution and the laws of our nation he will set a precedent for the future that will allow anyone to do the same and get away with it.

Are we still a Constitutional Democracy? Will we allow Trump to break the Constitution and our laws and turn us into an autocratic ruled nation or a dictatorship? Will the Republicans defend the Constitution that they so often quote, or kowtow to Trump's desires? Is Trump above the law?

Trump was elected via the people through an electoral college. The answer is yes. If you don't like it write to your local congressmen and ask for a constitutional amendment.

 

[Luckyone]

Trump was elected via the people through an electoral college. The answer is yes. If you don't like it write to your local congressmen and ask for a constitutional amendment.

This OP was not about the election but what the President has done since the election. Does his being elected mean he is "above the law"?

 

[VanceMack]

Did the Constitution collapse when Obama claimed executive privilege to prevent people in his administration from testifying or to prevent the release of emails. Hell...we even managed to survive his Justice Departments granting of immunity to key witnesses while they destroyed subpoenaed evidence. And I bet you didnt say a ****ing word. EHll...Id bet you were one of the people cheering on their actions.

 

[j brown's body]

Did the Constitution collapse when Obama claimed executive privilege to prevent people in his administration from testifying or to prevent the release of emails. Hell...we even managed to survive his Justice Departments granting of immunity to key witnesses while they destroyed subpoenaed evidence. And I bet you didnt say a ****ing word. EHll...Id bet you were one of the people cheering on their actions.

Probably nothing is a greater threat to democracy, when faced with a president who refuses all cooperation with Congress and expresses confidence that he will defeat them through "my judges", than the rationalization that "everybody does it."

 

[Luckyone]

Did the Constitution collapse when Obama claimed executive privilege to prevent people in his administration from testifying or to prevent the release of emails. Hell...we even managed to survive his Justice Departments granting of immunity to key witnesses while they destroyed subpoenaed evidence. And I bet you didnt say a ****ing word. EHll...Id bet you were one of the people cheering on their actions.

Does what Obama did or did not do make what Trump is doing to break our laws and our Constitution the right thing to do?

Are you the kind of hypocrite that criticizes the action of others but then supports the same kind of action by your idol?

 

[eohrnberger]

Did the Constitution collapse when Obama claimed executive privilege to prevent people in his administration from testifying or to prevent the release of emails. Hell...we even managed to survive his Justice Departments granting of immunity to key witnesses while they destroyed subpoenaed evidence. And I bet you didnt say a ****ing word. EHll...Id bet you were one of the people cheering on their actions.

Lovely hypocrisy being pointed out.

 

[Luckyone]

Lovely hypocrisy being pointed out.

He used assumptions since he does not know what I supported and did not support of Obama. Nonetheless, talking about "lovely hypocrisy", is it not that when someone criticizes what another president did but then supports the same actions in Trump? Is not that the height of hypocrisy?

If he thought that Obama did wrong, why does he not also think that Trump is doing the same or worse (given that he only gave 1 example on Obama but I gave 12)?

 

[trixare4kids]

2) Rep. Connolly: Trump Has Triggered a 'Constitutional Crisis' by Refusing Congressional Subpoenas

You might want to read the comment section for your second source. It could very well even describe the hysteria behind this thread.
Enjoy!

 

[gdgyva]

Does what Obama did or did not do make what Trump is doing to break our laws and our Constitution the right thing to do?

Are you the kind of hypocrite that criticizes the action of others but then supports the same kind of action by your idol?

so you applaud it when your guy is in office, and squeal at the top of your lungs when your guy isnt in office

can you say hypocrite?

 

[Unitedwestand13]

Lovely hypocrisy being pointed out.

Trying to play bothsiderism is meaningless when both sides are already in a septic tank.

And it does nothing to prove that conservatives care about constitutional principles.

 

[CMPancake]

It's not that the Trump supporters truly care about the Constitution. It's that they don't care about accountability or personal responsibility. And they know they can get away with it because the DNC is too limpwristed to go through with holding the GOP accountable

 

[Luckyone]

You might want to read the comment section for your second source. It could very well even describe the hysteria behind this thread.
Enjoy!

Is it not a "Constitutional Crisis" no matter who said it? By law, Congress has the right of subpoena anyone they believe has something to say. Refusing to accept the legal subpoena is against the Constitution and the law, isn't it?

Additionally, it certainly would not be a Republican saying it is a Constitutional Crisis because all Republicans support Trump and if they said anything like that they would be ostracized by Trump and no Republicans wants that. As such, it is the Democrats or anyone that upholds the Constitution that has to bring it up. One question, do you uphold the Constitution or are you one of those that uphold it when it is to your advantage and not when it isn't?

 

[Unitedwestand13]

It's not that the Trump supporters truly care about the Constitution. It's that they don't care about accountability or personal responsibility. And they know they can get away with it because the DNC is too limpwristed to go through with holding the GOP accountable

If trump’s supporters don’t care about accountability or personal responsibility, then they won’t mind if Democrats refuse to carry out his demands.

 

[Luckyone]

so you applaud it when your guy is in office, and squeal at the top of your lungs when your guy isnt in office

can you say hypocrite?

Since your post is a personal attack, you need to prove that I supported Obama on anything that broke the law or went against the Constitution. If you can't, your post is a POS.

 

[Mycroft]

In the last 2 weeks, Trump has additionally attacked our Constitution and our laws by:

1)

2)

If Trump is not forced to follow the Constitution and the laws of our nation he will set a precedent for the future that will allow anyone to do the same and get away with it.

Are we still a Constitutional Democracy? Will we allow Trump to break the Constitution and our laws and turn us into an autocratic ruled nation or a dictatorship? Will the Republicans defend the Constitution that they so often quote, or kowtow to Trump's desires? Is Trump above the law?

So...someone is attacked and, when they try to defend themselves, it's now their fault?

You probably approve of neighbors suing neighbors over stupid ****...and you'd call the victim a criminal for defending himself in a court of law.

Dismissed.

 

[AlphaOmega]

In the last 2 weeks, Trump has additionally attacked our Constitution and our laws by:

1)

2)

If Trump is not forced to follow the Constitution and the laws of our nation he will set a precedent for the future that will allow anyone to do the same and get away with it.

Are we still a Constitutional Democracy? Will we allow Trump to break the Constitution and our laws and turn us into an autocratic ruled nation or a dictatorship? Will the Republicans defend the Constitution that they so often quote, or kowtow to Trump's desires? Is Trump above the law?

When obama whipped out his phone and pen did you write any posts about it?

 

[Unitedwestand13]

Is it not a "Constitutional Crisis" no matter who said it? By law, Congress has the right of subpoena anyone they believe has something to say. Refusing to accept the legal subpoena is against the Constitution and the law, isn't it?

Additionally, it certainly would not be a Republican saying it is a Constitutional Crisis because all Republicans support Trump and if they said anything like that they would be ostracized by Trump and no Republicans wants that. As such, it is the Democrats or anyone that upholds the Constitution that has to bring it up. One question, do you uphold the Constitution or are you one of those that uphold it when it is to your advantage and not when it isn't?

It’s kind of funny how trump’s defenders lecture us about how they care about constitutional principles when out of power yet they remain silent whenever constitutional principles are violated when they are in power.

If these conservatives truly believed in constitutional principles, they would have to be willing to sacrifice being in power. But it seems being in power is all that really matters

 

[Luckyone]

When obama whipped out his phone and pen did you write any posts about it?

I was not on this board at the time so I could not have done it either way.

Nonetheless, I have no idols like most Trump supporters do. I respect people that try to do the right thing all the time and in my opinion Obama tried to do the right thing most of the time. I have no respect for Trump for the exact opposite reason, he never tries to do the right thing for others, only the right thing for himself.

Then again, no human is perfect and that means that mistakes will be made and wrong judgment on actions as well. The key is "intent" and moral compass. If a person intends to respect the Constitution and the laws of the United States but on some occasion, either by mistake or by intent, happens to break one that can be forgivable as the guideline should be his previous track record (much like what happens in a court of law). On the other side if there is a pattern of intent to break the law and/or the Constitution occurs (as is the case with Trump and the OP proves it), then you are dealing with a criminal and not some form of incompetency and the criminal should be prosecuted to the height of the law and the punishment that goes along with it.

You failed to make your invalid point but it does show your inability to be fair or to understand what intent and criminality is.

 

[eohrnberger]

He used assumptions since he does not know what I supported and did not support of Obama. Nonetheless, talking about "lovely hypocrisy", is it not that when someone criticizes what another president did but then supports the same actions in Trump? Is not that the height of hypocrisy?

If he thought that Obama did wrong, why does he not also think that Trump is doing the same or worse (given that he only gave 1 example on Obama but I gave 12)?

Lovely hypocrisy is blatantly clear.

One of the things Creepy Uncle Joe said recently was that there wasn't even a sniff of scandal in Obama's administration. This is already an often parroted meme across the population of the leftists and the media (although I repeat myself). It's not factual in the least, yet the leftist media push that narrative onto all but willing leftist audience willing to swallow it without any thought.

Here’s a partial list:

• State Department email. In an effort to evade federal open-records laws, Mr. Obama’s first secretary of state set up a private server, which she used exclusively to conduct official business, including communications with the president and the transmission of classified material. A federal criminal investigation produced no charges, but FBI Director James Comey reported that the secretary and her colleagues “were extremely careless” in handling national secrets.
• Operation Fast and Furious. The Obama Justice Department lost track of thousands of guns it had allowed to pass into the hands of suspected smugglers, in the hope of tracing them to Mexican drug cartels. One of the guns was used in the fatal 2010 shooting of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. Congress held then-Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt when he refused to turn over documents about the operation.
• IRS abuses. Mr. Obama’s Internal Revenue Service did something Richard Nixon only dreamed of doing: It successfully targeted political opponents. The Justice Department then refused to enforce Congress’s contempt citation against the IRS’s Lois Lerner, who refused to answer questions about her agency’s misconduct.
• Benghazi. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others were killed in the attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Libya. With less than two months to go before the 2012 election, the State Department falsely claimed the attack was not a terrorist attack but a reaction to an anti-Muslim film. Emails from the secretary later showed that she knew the attack was terrorism. Justice Department prosecutors even convinced a magistrate judge to jail the filmmaker.
• Hacking. Mr. Obama presided over the biggest data breach in the federal government’s history, at the Office of Personnel Management. The hack exposed the personnel files of millions of federal employees and may end up being used for everything from identity theft to blackmail and espionage. OPM Director Katherine Archuleta, the president’s former political director, had been warned repeatedly about security deficiencies but took no steps to fix them.
• Veterans Affairs. At least 40 U.S. veterans died waiting for appointments at a Phoenix VA facility, many of whom had been on a secret waiting list—part of an effort to conceal that between 1,400 and 1,600 veterans were forced to wait months for appointments. A 2014 internal VA audit found “57,436 newly enrolled veterans facing a minimum 90-day wait for medical care; 63,869 veterans who enrolled over the past decade requesting an appointment that never happened.” Even Mr. Obama admitted, in a November 2016 press conference, that “it was scandalous what happened”—though minutes earlier he boasted that “we will—knock on wood—leave this administration without significant scandal.”

All of these scandals were accompanied by a lack of transparency so severe that 47 of Mr. Obama’s 73 inspectors general signed an open letter in 2014 decrying the administration’s stonewalling of their investigations.

One reason for Mr. Obama’s penchant for secrecy is his habit of breaking rules—from not informing Congress of the dubious prisoner swap involving Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl and the Taliban, to violating restrictions on cash transfers to Iran as part of a hostage-release deal.Obama’s ‘Scandal-Free Administration’ Is a Myth | The Heritage Foundation

Yet look at the media's and the left's response to Trump, i.e. a non-leftist, and you'd think the entire universe was coming to an cataclysmic end.

It would appear that you are among those who are purporting such nonsense. :shrug:

Well, so much for consistency where consistency is greatly needed.

It'd be fair to observe that Obama's administration was the consistently the least transparent administration, where as the Trump administration has been consistently the most transparent administration.

Of course, I suspect that you'll find fault with this assessment as well. :shrug: :roll:

 

[eohrnberger]

Trying to play bothsiderism is meaningless when both sides are already in a septic tank.

Fair.

And it does nothing to prove that conservatives care about constitutional principles.

Pretty clear that conservative principals do include constitutional principals, but that's not the case with the left.
Why are the left constantly wanting to amend the constitution (i.e. revising the principals on which the nation s founded)?

Principals are principals, and need not be amended.

 

[Luckyone]

Lovely hypocrisy is blatantly clear.

One of the things Creepy Uncle Joe said recently was that there wasn't even a sniff of scandal in Obama's administration. This is already an often parroted meme across the population of the leftists and the media (although I repeat myself). It's not factual in the least, yet the leftist media push that narrative onto all but willing leftist audience willing to swallow it without any thought.



Yet look at the media's and the left's response to Trump, i.e. a non-leftist, and you'd think the entire universe was coming to an cataclysmic end.

It would appear that you are among those who are purporting such nonsense. :shrug:

Well, so much for consistency where consistency is greatly needed.

It'd be fair to observe that Obama's administration was the consistently the least transparent administration, where as the Trump administration has been consistently the most transparent administration.

Of course, I suspect that you'll find fault with this assessment as well. :shrug: :roll:

I would be willing to discuss the Obama issues at another time. Nonetheless, at this time Obama is no longer a factor as he is not able to make any decisions for or against the country and none of his believers are in the administration either.

At this time, this nation is going through a Constitutional crisis that is being caused by Trump and that is what needs to be addressed at this time.

It does seem to me that since you cannot (or don't want) to address the problem, you deflect to another topic where you feel you have a valid gripe and have proof of. Nonetheless, that is called "running away from the problem that is facing our nation" and that makes you simply a critic but certainly not a patriot (other than to your idol - Trump). If you truly cared about your nation, you would address the issue and attempt to find a solution. Deflection is a defensive maneuver and points to the person being more of a coward than a patriot and solution-seeker. It really talks badly about you.

 

[CharisRose]

In the last 2 weeks, Trump has additionally attacked our Constitution and our laws by:

1)

2)

If Trump is not forced to follow the Constitution and the laws of our nation he will set a precedent for the future that will allow anyone to do the same and get away with it.

Are we still a Constitutional Democracy? Will we allow Trump to break the Constitution and our laws and turn us into an autocratic ruled nation or a dictatorship? Will the Republicans defend the Constitution that they so often quote, or kowtow to Trump's desires? Is Trump above the law?

The United States of America is a Democracy - Fact or Myth?

snippets from a very long and very informative article.

Is the United States of America a Democracy or a Republic?

The United States is a Constitutional Federal Republic (a federation of states with a Representative Democracy). Despite a strong democratic tradition, the U.S. is not a “Direct Democracy“ (where people vote on laws directly*)

FACT: When Plato and Aristotle first gave names to the forms, they specifically used Democracy and Aristocracy to denote who rules. Since all future political philosophers have used their naming, the distinction is important. When we don’t stress the idea that the U.S. is a Republic (here meaning a sovereign law-abiding mixed-constitution “rooted in an aristocracy”), it makes aspects of the Constitution like the Electoral College very confusing. Yet, when we stress the term Republic too much, it makes it seem like the Republican party is inherently more American or that they hold only Republican principles, but all of those ideas are pretty far from the truth. If you want to know more about that, see the U.S. party names explained.

Conclusion

The United States of America is a Constitutional Federal Republic, not a Direct Democracy (which is the traditional meaning of the term Democracy).

The simplest way to describe America, is a “mixed constitution” or “mixed government rooted in a Republic”. For more detail you can say, “America is a mixed-market Federal Republic with strong Democratic principles, and Freedom of religion, where all people are guaranteed the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, free speech, a free press, and the right to defend those ideals against invaders foreign and domestic”. In other words, America is not meant to be overtaken by mob rule or oligarchs.

The 1st amendment gives us the technology to protect the Republic from mob rule and oligarchs, the 2nd amendment is only a last resort reserved for foreign threats, when the scales become unbalanced we will find our solution in the wisdom of our forefathers (not in corporate funded soundbites). If you think you’ve found the answer in the extreme of a political party, think again. There is a war of information going on, always has been, always will be, but look close at the history of western democracy and you’ll find the right role models in great men like Plato, Aristotle, George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, and more.

Roseann

 

[Unitedwestand13]

Fair.

Pretty clear that conservative principals do include constitutional principals, but that's not the case with the left.
Why are the left constantly wanting to amend the constitution (i.e. revising the principals on which the nation s founded)?

Principals are principals, and need not be amended.

If conservatives really cared about principles, they would have remembered one very important one: upholding the rule of law.


If conservatives really cared about upholding the rule of law, none of trump’s actions would be tolerated and he would have been subjected to impeachment. If conservatives truely care about constitutional principles, then why did they elect a man who openly acts in contempt of constitutional principles?

 

[AliHajiSheik]

I would be willing to discuss the Obama issues at another time. Nonetheless, at this time Obama is no longer a factor as he is not able to make any decisions for or against the country and none of his believers are in the administration either.

At this time, this nation is going through a Constitutional crisis that is being caused by Trump and that is what needs to be addressed at this time.

It does seem to me that since you cannot (or don't want) to address the problem, you deflect to another topic where you feel you have a valid gripe and have proof of. Nonetheless, that is called "running away from the problem that is facing our nation" and that makes you simply a critic but certainly not a patriot (other than to your idol - Trump). If you truly cared about your nation, you would address the issue and attempt to find a solution. Deflection is a defensive maneuver and points to the person being more of a coward than a patriot and solution-seeker. It really talks badly about you.

You should call it a “serious” Constitutional Crisis. A few more adjectives always help to create a bit more drama.


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