What Is To Be Done?

“What Is to Be Done? Burning Questions of Our Movement is a political pamphlet written by the Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin in 1901 and published in 1902. Lenin said that the article represented "a skeleton plan to be developed in greater detail in a pamphlet now in preparation for print". Its title is inspired by the novel of the same name by the 19th century Russian revolutionary Nikolai Chernyshevsky.” {Wikipedia}

As you know, comrades, we have our own set of burning questions these days. Some background:

In the [1977] landmark decision Nixon v. General Services Administration, Justice William Rehnquist, afterwards the chief justice, declared in his dissent the need to "fully describe the preeminent position that the president of the United States occupies with respect to our Republic. Suffice it to say that the president is made the sole repository of the executive powers of the United States, and the powers entrusted to him as well as the duties imposed upon him are indeed a powerful and incredible responsibility but as well a great honor." {Wikipedia}

That was then, this is now; and it has, at long last, come to this:

“Then, I have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president. But I don’t even talk about that.” {President Donald Trump}

We can’t say we weren’t warned, or that we didn’t know he was a snake when we put him in office:

"Be afraid of any candidate who says he will order DOJ/FBI to act on his command This is dangerous/so is@realDonaldTrump-he's not qualified. In the USA we do not threaten to jail political opponents. @realDonaldTrump said he would. He is promising to abuse the power of the office." {Former Attorney General Eric Holder, October 2016}

Promises made, promises kept.

It could be argued that Trump’s statements about Article II are, in and of themselves, grounds for impeachment, as they reveal a president who does not understand the limits of his power or the nature of our form of government, and who very likely cares about neither. Trump basically views himself as CEO of a large multi-national corporation who also happens to have the world’s strongest military at his beck and call; he sees Congress as an essentially powerless and compliant Board of Directors whose only job is to take orders from him and to sing his praises at every opportunity.

Consistent with that view is Trump’s repeated use of the phrase “absolute right,” as in “I have the absolute right” to interfere with Justice Department investigations, to fire FBI directors, to withhold Congressionally approved aid to a foreign country, etc. Republicans who responded indignantly to President Obama’s innocuous (and factual) statement that “I’ve got a pen and I’ve got a phone” utter not a word or even a syllable of reproach when President Trump claims an “absolute right” to do “whatever” he wants. ¹

Trump’s “absolute right” evidently includes blatant efforts to influence the course of justice and even to intimidate judges:

“This is a horrible and very unfair situation. The real crimes were on the other side, as nothing happens to them. Cannot allow this miscarriage of justice!” {@realDonaldTrump 2/10/20}

“Who are the four prosecutors (Mueller people?) who cut and ran after being exposed for recommending a ridiculous 9 year prison sentence to a man that got caught up in an investigation that was illegal, the Mueller Scam, and shouldn’t ever even have started?” {@realDonaldTrump 2/12/20}

“Is this the Judge that put Paul Manafort in SOLITARY CONFINEMENT, something that not even mobster Al Capone had to endure? How did she treat Crooked Hillary Clinton? Just asking!” {@realDonaldTrump 2/12/20, re Judge Amy Berman Jackson}

As Richard Nixon taught us, being President means never having to say you’re sorry, and “obstructing justice” does not apply to the Obstructer-in-Chief:

“President Trump has the right, just like any American citizen, to publicly offer his opinions.” {Stephanie Grisham, White House Press Secretary, 2/13/20}

Here’s a section of Article II that we might want to revisit while we still can:

[The president] shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed. {US Constitution, Article II}

And here’s a bit of wisdom that never grows old:

“A lady asked Dr. [Benjamin] Franklin, ‘Well, Doctor, what have we got: a republic or a monarchy?’ ‘A republic,’ replied the Doctor, ‘if you can keep it.’” {Dr. James McHenry, one of Maryland’s delegates to the Constitutional Convention}

Mind you, if I had any idea what to do about the current crisis (and it most assuredly is a crisis), I wouldn’t have titled this post “What Is to be Done?” The question is not rhetorical; I’m hoping someone has an answer, and soon.

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¹ “In a menacing statement at a cabinet meeting last month, as well as during his recent State of the Union address and in a pre-Super Bowl interview with my Fox News colleague Bill O’Reilly, the president has referred to his pen and his phone as a way of suggesting that he will use his power to issue executive orders, promulgate regulations and use his influence with his appointees in the government’s administrative agencies to continue the march to transform fundamentally the relationship of the federal government and individuals to his egalitarian vision when he is unable to accomplish that with legislation from Congress.” {Judge Andrew Napolitano, Fox News, 2/6/14}

Comments

[Ann Markle]

Living in fear, here, and feeling pretty helpless to do anything.