Trump’s Day One and the Constitution

When you say the quiet part out loud.

No, Curmie didn’t watch a moment of the inauguration live, but he does have access to the interwebs, knows how to read, and (with his glasses on) has quite good vision. 

Curmie thinks that virtually everything in Trump’s agenda is stupid, but not necessarily objectively stupid.  Some parts are at least defensible, i.e., their wisdom or lack of it is a matter of opinion.  Withdrawing from the World Health Organization is one such instance.  Others are just showboating, e.g., “officially” re-naming Denali and the Gulf of Mexico.  This is the kind of bullshit that plays well with the faux patriot MAGAs, at least with those that haven’t yet figured out that the incoming plutocracy cares literally nothing about them.

But on to constitutionality…  There is not, and should not be, any requirement that anyone in this country should have to place a hand on a Bible (or any other book… anyone else having a “Fried Green Tomatoes” moment?) to declare an oath.  The fact that Trump didn’t do so is perfectly legal and does not in any way render the oath less binding (as if the Grifter-in-Chief has the slightest interest in upholding any vow).  It does highlight the phoniness of his pseudo-Christianity, but anyone paying the slightest bit of attention knew long ago that he’s less of a Christian than Curmie, who just listed himself as agnostic on a juror information form.

Mr. Trump is also legally free to pardon whomever he likes.  The Constitution grants far too much power to the President in this regard, but one suspects that the founders couldn’t have imagined that the office would ever be held by so reprehensible a figure.  And, to be fair, President Biden’s wholesale pardons and commutations, including pre-emptive pardons for family members, provides a lot of cover for whatever 47 wants to do.

The President can also create new government offices, like the Department of Government Efficiency.  (True, there are at least three lawsuits already filed against DOGE, but Curmie isn’t optimistic about their chances.)  Yes, the department was created for the primary purpose of siphoning money out of Medicare and Social Security and into tax cuts for billionaires.  No, it’s not a coincidence that despite the presumed need to lower expenditures we’re now talking about planting the American flag on Mars.  Guess what head of DOGE stands to make billions from government contracts to provide the capability to accomplish that largely frivolous goal?  Hey, you got it in one, Gentle Reader!  Well done!

Speaking of the only person in the country more dangerous than Donald Trump, how about that Nazi salute!?!  Let’s be real.  That’s what it was; no one does that accidentally, certainly not twice.  It was purely intentional, a gesture of arrogance by an asshole fully aware that there’s nothing we mere mortals can do about it.  His response was, of course, to blame people who said he was acting like a Nazi just because he was acting like a Nazi.  Trump won’t dump him for stuff like this, only possibly down the road for upstaging Dear Leader Himself.  Musk’s defenders can say all they want about a “Roman salute,” but they’re not fooling anyone with an IQ above room temperature. 

But here’s the thing, Gentle Reader.  This column is about the constitutionality of events, not their advisability.  This isn’t Germany, where that gesture would have had Mr. Musk led away in handcuffs.  We, all of us, including amoral mediocrities with literally no public-spiritedness, are protected by the 1^st Amendment.  He’s got a legal right to make that gesture… and we’ve got a legal right (and an ethical responsibility) to recognize it for what it was, and to say so out loud.

Finally, we come to the one absolutely, no doubt about it, unconstitutional moment.  That would be, of course, to deny birthright citizenship.  The 14^th Amendment couldn’t be more explicit: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States….”  Trump wants to quibble about “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”  He has literally no case, despite his claims to the contrary.  This is just another example of the Manchurian Cantaloupe throwing a little red meat to the MAGA crowd by playing on their prejudices… so they won’t notice how quickly and how thoroughly he’s screwing them in other ways.

And, Trump being Trump, he feels compelled to lie about it: “It’s ridiculous, we’re the only country in the world that does this with birthright, as you know, and it’s just absolutely ridiculous.”  The Hill’s Sarah Fortinsky notes that some 32 other countries, including Canada, Mexico, and 27 of the 32 nations in the Caribbean, Central and South America, have unrestricted birthright citizenship.  News flash: Trump is a lying buffoon.

Curmie is willing to listen to an argument that the Constitution ought not to say what it clearly says.  Illegal immigration is indeed a problem, and there’s some substance to the whole “anchor baby” argument.  Just as conservatives struggle to find a reason to oppose responsible gun control legislation other than the 2^nd Amendment, liberals have the same problem with birthright citizenship.  But the 14^th is even more explicit than the 2^nd (remember that pesky “well-regulated militia” phrase?), and it is sufficient to prevent any “executive order” from taking precedence.

No, Curmie doesn’t much care for the current makeup of SCOTUS, and he wouldn’t trust a couple of them to admit that night tends to be darker than day if the First Felon said otherwise.  But the majority, even the ones Curmie disagrees with most of the time, are at least smart enough to realize that acceding to this particular Trumpian tantrum would destroy the few feeble strands of respect SCOTUS still retains. 

And that, Gentle Reader, is about the best we can hope for over the next four years.