Posted on 06/08/2018 12:01:58 AM PDT by Kaslin
If your contention is that President Donald Trump has the propensity to sound like a bully and an authoritarian, I'm with you. If you're arguing that Trump's rhetoric is sometimes coarse and unpresidential, I can't disagree. I'm often turned off by the aesthetic and tonal quality of his presidency. And, yes, Trump has an unhealthy tendency to push theories that exaggerate and embellish small truths to galvanize his fans for political gain. Those are all legitimate political concerns.
Yet the ubiquitous claim that Trump acts in a way that uniquely undermines the rule of law is, to this point, simply untrue.
At National Review, Victor Davis Hanson has it right when he argues that "elites" often seem more concerned about the "mellifluous" tone of leaders rather than their abuse of power. "Obama defies the Constitution but sounds 'presidential,'" he writes. "Trump follows it but sounds like a loudmouth from Queens."
But while former President Obama's agreeable tone had plenty to do with his lack of media scrutiny, many largely justified, and even cheered, his abuses because they furthered progressive causes. Not only did liberals often ignore the rule of law when it was ideologically convenient for them; they now want the new president to play by a set of rules that doesn't even exist.
Partisans tend to conflate their own policy preferences with the rule of law, or democracy or patriotism. But the pervasive claim that the Trump administration has uniquely undermined the law, a claim that dominates coverage, typically amounts to concerns regarding how he comports himself. For example, entering into international treaties without the Senate or creating fiscal subsidizes without Congress are the types of things that corrode the rule of law. Firing (or threatening to fire) your subordinates at the Justice Department, on the other hand, is well within the purview of presidential powers.
Trump, as far as I know, hasn't shut down a single investigation into himself or anyone in his administration or campaign, despite evidence that a special counsel's creation was based on politically motivated information.
Though he may be wrong, it's not an attack on the rule of law for the president to claim privilege. Nor is a president undermining the rule of law if he pushes back against an investigation into Russian collusion. Now, Trump might not have a wingman running the Justice Department, but nothing in the Constitution stipulates that he has to prostrate himself in front of prosecutors, much less prosecutors who have veered far from their initial charge. The intelligence community is not sacred. Americans have no patriotic duty to respect former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper or former CIA Director John Brennan. The president is free to accuse them of partisanship. Doing so is not an attack on the rule of law any more than the reverse.
Considering the amount of politically motivated leaking and false accusations that have been made over the past year, it seems absurd to expect anything different. The Clintons pushed back against Ken Starr, and Trump pushes back against Robert Mueller. Democrats shouldn't have boxed themselves in by convincing their constituents that some incontrovertible proof of illicit or seditious behavior was just waiting to be uncovered.
Nor does Trump undermine the rule of law when offering presidential commutations and pardons (nor would he even, perhaps, if he were to pardon himself). If Americans are displeased, they have recourse. Unlike presidents who pardon, say, personal campaign financers or terrorists near the end of their terms to avoid fallout, nothing stops today's voters from electing representatives to impeach and remove Trump if they desire. That is the mechanism in place to stop the president.
Nor does Trump undermine the rule of law when he rolls back the previous administration's unilateral abuses on immigration and bogus treaties. In many ways, Trump has strengthened the checks and balances that were broken by the rhetorically soothing President Obama. Mock it if you like, "but Gorsuch" will likely do more to curb the state's overreach than any justice the left would ever put on any bench.
Now, any defense of the Trump administration will, of course, meet charges of sycophancy and "anti-anti-Trumpism." But none of this is to argue that the Trump administration is a paragon of lawfulness. It's far from it. So stop exaggerating. The astoundingly terrible and hypocritical arguments of the president's detractors often make it imperative to defend neutral principles and process.
You don't get to fabricate a new Constitution every time there's a president you dislike. American patriotism isn't predicated on pretending that Russia can flip our election with some Facebook ads, but it is certainly grounded in the idea that we all hold consistent constitutional principles.
Donald is a hound for hyperbole all right.
But it’s a beautiful karma to a drama-queen secular left.
The Democrats are concerned Trump is subverting the Constitution.
Ironically enough, the Obama Deep State national security establishment sought to do that through illegal means without a peep of protest from them.
Concern for the legality of Trump’s actions isn’t being driven by principle but by partisan expediency.
He could be talking about 0bama here, or just about any politician. Trump is not a politician though. Like him or hate him he's not fake, he's the real deal man!
>> Trump has the propensity to sound like a bully and an authoritarian
Say the Leftwing bullies and authoritarians...
after America suffering through 8 long years of an illegal alien IslamoNazi Occupant of OUR White House,
doing as much damage as he possibly could to our country and our defenses and our society,
all this hype about DJT’s personality is PURE BUNK!
and
GOPe needs to be deposed, since those duplicous basturds enabled and protected the illegal Islamic occupation of our White House
You follow them if the situation you see yourself in applies .... or not.
Liberals believe in a “living” Constitution.
What are they outraged about? Its not like Trump has done anything unusual to it they wouldn’t have done themselves.
This hysteria of theirs is just a bridge to far.
I don’t care how outlandish and bombastic President Trump is alleged to be. So long as he pisses off the Liberals, it’s all good with me.
Trump is a blessing. Anything less would’ve been ineffective. The damage done in the 8 years prior calls for a leader who can be a tad intimidating and thank God that’s what we have.
“Unpresidential” is an opinion not a fact. In my opinion he’s as presidential as can be. If Obama, Bush and Clinton are the measure of presidential than the definition needs to be and has been rewritten.
This article indicates that the president and his administration have actually broken the law. I am actually not aware of him having done this. Can anyone clue me in please.
Yes, there is a strange silence over what law Trump has actually broken. Collusion is a fine theory, but what’s the basis in law? Are they investigating possible law breaking activity? Have anybody publicly stated what law Trump has supposedly broke?
The only thing they can remotely charge him would be campaign violations. Even that is iffy as it seems Trump ran a pretty clean ship.
Bush tried to “act presidential,” and the MSM-Democrats rolled over him like he was a piece of crap. What did it get him? Nothing. In the end he looked like a fool, saying nothing while the opposition told bald-faced lies and the MSM repeated them with relish.
Acting like his virtue and willingness to take abuse would gain him some respect or sympathy. It didn’t gain him a thing, and resulted in getting Obama, who spent a couple hours a day scheming to weaken the country he was privileged to have been allowed to lead, if you can call what he did “leading.” His goal in life seems to have been to lead us to the slaughter, to a kill zone.
Trump runs rings around the MSM-Democrats, and the foreign countries that treat America like a retarded rich uncle, like a cuckolded rich boob, and they think calling him “unpresidential” is going to get anyone upset? That’s a laugh.
That is kind of how I read the article. The writer says Trump is not a “paragon of lawfulness. Well, I’d like to see the list of laws that he’s broken.....which is kind of what you’re asking, I think. The rest of the article says that Trump is within the law when he did a, b, c, d, e, f, g. So what’s the problem, again?
whatever Trump is seen as by most, in regards to the law, he created a multi billion dollar business without breaking the law. His kids never broke the law. That alone should make him a paragon.
How do i know he hasn’t broken the law? If he had done so much as to allow an employee to take a bribe, or offer one, the dems would be all over it like they are this manufactured offense they are trying to pin on him
This author is not thinking and is throwing around words
Just thinking it is possible for trump to bend the law does not allow us to hint that he might have
But who in their right mind thinks the dems wouldnt know every action he ever took and let some indescretion pass?
Thats just silly
They lost me with the idiotic proskenysis to the left at the start.
Absolutely. Love the guy and hate his critics.
Erma Gawd how I gag at authors who damn with feint praise....pulling teeth.
Yeah I hate Trump but the President can ....
Geezers why can’t they just say what the President has the authority to do?
Subsidies.
This is not a legitimate typo. It is stupid or the writer changed his thought in the middle of the sentence then forgot.
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