Flaws run deep in Trump doctrine
Donald Trump and his gullible gang of MAGA goofballs are operating on a faulty assumption that the nation's Constitution protects them against protests against the extreme overreach in which the are engaged.
They purport to be true-blue conservatives who are led by a president who is claiming that the office he occupies grants him authority essentially to break the law ... as long as he is performing an official act.
Let's see about that.
The reality, as I interpret it, is that the nation's founders created a relatively weak executive branch of government. They invested equal amounts of power in Congress and the courts and charged them with the responsibility of exercising appropriate "checks and balances" against executive overreach. One of those branches, the legislative branch comprising Congress, essentially has rolled over for Trump. The Republicans who control both congressional chambers act as if it's OK for the president to usurp their constitutional authority. Their acquiesence has emboldened Trump to keep reaching beyond his governmental grasp. So far so good, or so it seems.
That leaves the courts as the last man standing in Trump's way. And we are beginning to see some signs of backbone among federal judges. Trump's legal challenges are being swatted away by judges ... some of whom appointed by Trump himself. That kind of independence is precisely what the founders intended when they created a system that grants judges lifetime appointments to the federal bench.
Yeah, that kind of judicial independence just pisses Trump and his MAGA minions off. Too damn bad!
The founders did not intend to build a government that invested limitless power in one individual. If Trump had any understanding at all of our democratic process, he would know that.
But, he doesn't. Nor do the 30% to 35% of the nation's voters who adhere to the idiocy that flows from their leader's mouth.