When the Constitution is inconvenient
The American Civil Liberties Union is occasionally unpopular with conservatives and liberals alike. There’s a reason for this. The ACLU defends everyone’s Constitutional rights, including the unlovely, the vulgar, the hateful. The First Amendment to the Constitution is hard. Free speech is hard. But in the end, either everyone is free or no one is. The road to tyranny is paved by ignoring Thomas Jefferson’s updated dictum that all persons are created equal.
But the Constitution is inconvenient to Trump. Trump says he is “entitled” to deport people without trials. Entitlement is Trump’s problem, and MAGA is ever ready to go along with him.
Following an emergency order from the Supreme Court of the United States on Saturday, blocking Trump’s “administration” from deporting suspected Venezuelan gang members without affording them due process, Trump told reporters that it is not possible to have trials for all of the people he wants to deport. What he really means is it’s not convenient.
In the end, the document Trump swore to “preserve, protect and defend” in his oath of office means nothing to him. His oath means nothing to him. In his headlong pursuit of cruelty for the sake of itself and inspiring fear, the Constitution means nothing to him. Trump is going to ignore SCOTUS and continue to kidnap and rendition anyone he wants whenever he wants.
Trump doesn’t just want to deport suspected gang members, Trump wants to summarily kidnap and rendition people without trial for speaking out against him. In this he’s in violation of the First (free speech), the Fourth (unreasonable search and seizure) and the Fifth (due process) Amendments of the Constitution.
As ever, Trump and MAGA are just fine with the Second Amendment and are unworried about the Third, so those can stay. But to Trump the First, Fourth and Fifth have got to go. Except where they work to his advantage, of course. But that goes without saying.
Asked by a reporter for the Daily Caller if he is happy with the rate of deportations, Trump repeated the baseless claim he has made in the past that foreign nations, including Venezuela and “the Congo,” have “emptied their prisons into the United States” and created an emergency that can only be dealt with by invoking the emergency powers of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act.
“We’re getting them out, and I hope we get cooperation from the courts because you know, we have thousands of people that are ready to go out, and you can’t have a trial for all of these people,” Trump said. Sure you can. Everyone gets a hearing. Everyone gets due process. That’s the law.
It appears that it doesn’t matter if Trump gets cooperation from the courts or not. Trump is going to go right on deporting people at will, whenever he wants, for whatever reason he wants, because it makes him feel powerful and atones for his feelings of inadequacy, because his father never loved him, because he was mocked in school, because he has a small penis, and so on.
This is what sometimes happens when the Constitution in the hands of a madman becomes inconvenient. It sets up a slippery slope that endangers everyone. Congress needs to impeach Trump and the Senate needs to convict Trump right away. I’m being naive, you say? It will never happen, you say? Maybe so. But if it doesn’t happen soon, there could come a day when it won’t be possible for it to happen at all. You see, impeachment is in the Constitution too.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.