Donald Trump’s magic wand once again comes up short

| 4:30 pm EDT October 30, 2018
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Donald Trump seems to think he has a magic wand, or at least he routinely wants us to believe he has one. And no, I’m not talking about the Trump wand that Stormy Daniels so famously made fun of. I’m talking about Trump’s frequent suggestions that he can simply make certain awful things happen, even though he has absolutely no ability to make them happen.

Today, Donald Trump floated the idea of using an executive order to strike down part of the Fourteenth Amendment. Sure, and I’ll just write my own executive order making all giraffes taller. Sorry, but nothing works that way. Yes, Trump can try this if he wants, but it would have a literally 0.0% chance of succeeding. It would quickly go to the Supreme Court, and unless Brett Kavanaugh has the power to vote “yes” five times, it would be struck down.

Even Neil Gorsuch would turn up his nose at this kind of tripe, because the constitutional question wouldn’t be whether the Supreme Court agrees with birthright citizenship, but whether the President of the United States can use an executive order to magically remove a portion of the Constitution. So yeah, this isn’t going anywhere. It’s intended as a horrifying distraction, at a time when Trump doesn’t want us focused on the fact that his violent rhetoric keeps getting innocent Americans killed.

Remember when Donald Trump waved a magic wand and magically pardoned his Trump-Russia co-conspirators in a manner which prevented them from cutting plea deals against him? Of course you don’t, because it never happened. Nothing works that way, no matter how many times Trump and his allies float it, and no matter how many times the media takes the bait by talking about it as if it were a real thing. This 14th Amendment executive order nonsense is no different, and no more based in reality.

That doesn’t mean we should ignore the story. When the illegitimate “President” of the United States starts talking about trying to eliminate parts of the Constitution, even through means that are a million percent guaranteed to fail, the appropriate amount of pushback and outrage is warranted. But let’s not allow it to be the focus. Trump is floating this fantasy because he wants the focus to be on immigration heading into the election next week, not the fact that he’s a dangerously deranged criminal and traitor. Don’t give him what he wants. Trash him all you like for it today, but let’s get back to real issues by tomorrow.