President Trump needs to bite his tongue. Please. We know, after what he has gone through, it is hard to do that. He is not doing himself, his supporters, or the country any favors. Because his opponents have made so many reckless statements, and are themselves guilty of lying, when he is worthy of criticism, his friends must do it. And he had better listen. History is full of great leaders who went sideways.
We understand that the rule of law has been punctured by the enemies of liberty. They did this through the use of “lawfare”, the January 6 Committee and their control of the mainstream media. We know that they lied to us about Covid. About the Russia Hoax. We know that Biden was a puppet, possibly with Obama somehow fulfilling his fantasy about a Third Term.
A planted earpiece in Biden’s head may actually have been used, and at least some of his confused answers might have occurred because of dictated narratives going on inside his head. If this did not actually occur, no one doubts that the technology exists.
But the will of the Left to do something existed. By the middle of Biden’s term, even the most ardent supporters of the Democratic Party knew that Biden was not in charge.
We might be headed for civil war with all the violence the Left is allowed to get away with, starting with “The Summer of Love” and the “mostly peaceful” riots in 2020. We see this now with the Tesla Torchings. But Trump is not helping the cause of freedom by shooting off his mouth in so many ways, just like many congressional Democrats have been doing.
Yes, the Constitution has been violated since its beginning in 1789. Both the Left and the Right tolerate it when their side is doing so, and the Left and the Right has existed, only under different names, ever since the start of our independence. Trump’s supporters are largely ignorant of what is, and is not, “constitutional”. Things that were violated long ago have become accepted as legal when they actually are not. These create a springboard for subsequent violations, and he has already crossed several lines.
The latest one is quite serious: the talk about a Third Term. He will lose his best supporters by suggesting that he might try for a 3rd term. I have read through the micro-parsing of words in the 22nd amendment by those who believe that a technical loophole exists. Only lawyers would salivate over this, which is why there are so many scornful lawyer jokes.
The Left for decades has used constitutional technicalities to claim that the vicious and discredited Equal Rights Amendment is still up for grabs. For conservatives to suggest such magical nonsense about a 3rd term would forever forfeit the moral high ground about constitutionality.
Imagine if Obama had tried to do this in 2016! The entire Republican Party and its conservative allies would have been screeching to the high heavens, as would have many Democrats. Many Democrats dumped FDR and voted for Republican Wendell Willkie in 1940 on those grounds alone, when no 22nd Amendment existed, but rather a hallowed, unwritten law of tradition about third terms. Grant and Teddy Roosevelt had tried, and been whacked down. The people made it clear enough to ensconce it into the Constitution in 1951, so any verbal loophole will sour Trump with his own friends.
Trump is floating a “trial balloon”. If we do not voice our displeasure, and right away, in every state, in every conservative blog large or small, he will see it as a green light.
We all know that Trump is reckless with talk, but it is through his actions that we have supported him. Personally, I don’t like his talk about either Greenland or Canada, but during his time as president-elect, it produced some initially favorable results. But we still at least like to pretend that we obey the Constitution. He might have said something more constitutional, as in “When I am sworn in, I will ask Congress to invite Greenland and part of Canada to join the United States.”
As I write this, Congress is making a bi-partisan effort to reclaim their power to control tariffs. It is a power that was yielded to the executive in a decidedly and unconstitutional manner. And it is truly bi-partisan. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski are RINOs, but Rand Paul and Chuck Grassley are solid, proven and principled conservatives, and they can see the consequences for playing fast and loose with the rules.
Mr. President, closing up NATO, flipping off the EU and the UN, the alphabet agencies in our own government, ending the trade disadvantages that NAFTA and GATT created in 1994 by a lame duck Congress, stopping the weaponization of justice, attacking the madness of transgenderism and abortion, are all great strides you have made. But not everything you do is good, nor constitutional. No winning streak lasts forever. Even the 1927 Yankees could not win every game.
You will squander your momentum unless you make the corrections, not the ones your enemies want to see — but your supporters.
Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr
