The House Is On Fire - Un-Common-Sense

Theoretically, institutions are the threads that weave and bind a nation together. Institutions come in many forms. They can be foundational documents, such as constitutions, governing structures, executive and legislative bodies, and systems of justice and courts. Institutions can be based on principles, such as the Bill of Rights, and democratic practices, such as voting; all these institutions are failing us. American Society and democracy are currently on life support.Our Constitution has been shredded into confetti and shat upon. Republicans have treated it like a suggestion. Trump, the Supreme Court, and the Republican House and Senate have replaced the “Great American Experiment” with the ‘Great Race.”

Voting

The institution of voting has failed us. This situation is not a recent development, and it has failed us from its inception. From its inception, the right to vote was intentionally limited to white males who owned property and or paid taxes, which amounted to a whopping 6% of the population. White males without property and white women were prohibited from voting, and Black people were designated as 3/5 of a human being to benefit white enslavers in the South, but had no right to vote.

Since the birth of our nation, disenfranchised groups have fought for the right to vote and fulfill their roles as citizens and participate in its governance. Opposition to inclusion and access has been and remains an existential battle. The right for white men to vote was not universal until property requirements were eliminated in 1856. It wasn’t until 1920 that white women were granted the right to vote. Chinese immigrants in 1943 and Native Americans in 1955.

Throughout the history of the United States, most of the animus and energy against voting rights has targeted Black Americans. The mission for these anti-suffragists has always been to deny and later to dilute the votes of Black Americans. For a century, the leaders of this racist movement were southern Democrats. In the early 1960s, a “Freaky Friday” transformation took place in the Republican Party, which became the flag bearers for anti-Black suffrage.

As I am writing, there is not one Republican politician who is a supporter of voting rights. If there is, please step forward. Trump and the Republicans are currently attempting to use racial gerrymandering to acquire five additional congressional seats in Texas. Isn’t it wild that the only time they want Black and brown people to live in their neighborhoods is virtually through racial gerrymandering?

For years, one of the things promoted as an example of our freedom has been the option to choose whether to participate in voting. I never bought into that one. Most Black people have never bought into that; we’ve never had the luxury to feel that way. We have shed too much blood for the right to vote in our country, and the battle rages on. The Republican Party continues to lie, cheat, and steal to deny Black Americans and others the right to determine who will be our representatives who make the most consequential decisions about the state of the country and our lives. Some will tell you that voting does not matter, but my response to them is that if voting were so inconsequential, then why have they spent so many decades, money, and energy trying to deny people the right to vote?

That is why I am a strong advocate for mandatory voting for citizens. First, I believe that if you expect to benefit from living in a democracy, then you should be required to participate actively in shaping the fate of that democracy. It is the bare minimum that you can do, and the returns for this act are highly consequential. We can’t just moan about the influence that corporations, billionaires, and corrupt politicians have over our fates. We need to utilize the most effective power we have to wage battle against those forces. Your vote is an offensive and defensive weapon.

In 2020 and 2024, which were considered two of the highest turnout elections, 66 and 64 percent of voters turned out for the presidential election. For the midterm elections, that dropped to 50 and 46 percent. Those are failing grades, well, okay, at best a D minus.

Every American citizen should be required to participate in voting in federal elections. That would change voting from a privilege to an obligation and eliminate most of the cynical efforts by Republican politicians to pick their electorate instead of the voters selecting them. That would include felons. If a felon can be elected President, why not? Of course, that alone will not solve all the problems in our byzantine and devious electoral process, but its impact would be significant. Most importantly, the Republicans would have to find a new way to cheat to suppress votes.

Congress

We give accolades to the Founding Fathers for developing a governing structure that separated critical functions and powers among the three branches of government. It’s a design that theoretically divides authority between the Executive, Legislative, and Judiciary branches. In the 239 years since the Constitution’s effective date, it has been able to convince most Americans of its brilliance and effectiveness as the foundation of an enduring democracy. That view has been crushed or dispelled for many Americans with the election of Donald Trump as the President of the United States, not once, but twice. Donald Trump has been like a hacker that you hire to attack your IT systems to determine where the vulnerabilities are, and boy, there are many.

The Presidential Oath states the following: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States”. Trump has turned that oath on its head. It’s as if the oath said, “I will notfaithfully execute the Office of the United States.” When a President violates the principles spelled out in their oath, the system the Founding Fathers developed has checks and balances in place that prevent a President from abusing their powers. So, we thought.

Not if you have a controlling Republican Congress that has taken a fealty oath to Donald Trump, who is running the country like the family business he owned, based on corruption, deceit, and grievance. He resembles King John of England (John Lackland), who is widely regarded as one of the worst Kings of England. Like Donald Trump, he was notorious for horrific policy decisions, ruthlessness, self-dealing, and corruption. We’ve been led to believe that we don’t live in a monarchy; the checks and balances will guard us from becoming subjects.

What the Republicans in Congress have done is worse than bending the knee to Donald Trump. They have relinquished all the power and authority granted to them by the Constitution and laws to an addle-brained sociopath. They are lying prostrate in the wake of a wholesale attack on American democracy. Not only have they acquiesced by approving wholly unqualified and dangerous appointees to critical positions, but they have also transferred powers explicitly given to them by the Constitution to Donald Trump.

Donald Trump has snatched the “power of the purse” from them and assumed the authority to legislate by issuing Executive Orders that are consistently in contravention of the Constitution and existing law. Trump has attacked birthright citizenship, due process, and the authority of the Federal Courts. One of the more costly and obvious cases has been Congress gifting Trump the authority to impose tariffs on imports. Isn’t it painfully ironic that the party that self-describes as the definition of masculinity cowers to a man who ran away from military service (5 times) faster than Josh Hawley ran from the insurrectionists.

Supreme Court

Seeing that we can’t count on Congress to keep the Democracy ball rolling, we can certainly rely on the Federal Judiciary. The Federal Courts, in general, are the arbiters of what is constitutional and settle disputes between the Executive Branch, Congress, and the States, with the final arbiter being the Supreme Court. The Federal Circuit Courts have fought valiantly to suppress the dictatorial madness of the Trump administration. Various appeals courts and the Supreme Court have undermined them.

The Roberts Court has earned recognition as the most ideologically polarized Supreme Court in our lifetime. For decades, Republican Justices have argued that they are constitutionalists, which means that they interpret the Constitution literally, according to originalism. This is an absurd notion that the interpretation of a constitution written more than 200 years ago should ignore all the technological, demographic, social, and cultural changes that have occurred since then.

These Justices have only allied themselves with this interpretation when it supports Republican political goals. If they were true disciples of this untenable approach to judicial interpretation, they would have laughed at Trump’s attempt to eliminate “birthright citizenship.”

I practiced law a bit before I became a U.S. diplomat, and it is painful to watch the U.S. Supreme Court dismantle and destroy our democracy decision by decision. The Republican appointed Justices are a rogue’s gallery of corrupt, ideology-driven, frauds and cowards. Justice Thomas and Justice Alito have indisputably used their judicial robes to enrich themselves, violating federal laws and the legal codes of ethical conduct. A testament to the mendacity of each of the Republican Justices is that they all swore in their confirmation hearings to have the highest regard for precedents. Once they were seated, they obliterated precedent after precedent.

The Republican Supreme Court has made a dangerous travesty of an institution that has been appointed as the final arbiter of constitutional issues. They are ideological, agenda-driven hypocrites masquerading as guardians of justice. I have read their most harmful decisions, and there is no academic rigor or legitimate legal reasoning in their reverse-engineered decisions. An L1 (first-year law student) would be criticized for submitting work of such limited intellectual substance and would likely be dismissed if they continued to submit this work.

Then we have Mr. Umpire, Chief Justice Roberts, who deceitfully claimed that he would be “an umpire that just calls balls and strikes.” Instead, his decisions have been so horrific and damaging to American society that they have been the first Supreme Court to eliminate a constitutional right since the Dred Scott case, which denied citizenship to people of African descent.

None of these decisions is the product of brilliant legal analysis or encyclopedic knowledge of case law. Every one of these Republican Justices is an ideological automaton that was groomed for years by institutions like the Heritage Foundation. Their mission has been to destroy and dismantle anything that has expanded Americans’ rights or disadvantaged the wealthy and powerful.

Shelby County

Many historians acknowledge that 1965 is the year that Black Americans were recognized as American citizens with the full rights and privileges of citizenship. In the previous year, President Johnson signed into law The Civil Rights Act of 1964. It was a sweeping law that outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. It enforced the constitutional right to vote and prohibited racial segregation in schools and public accommodations. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) was enacted to prohibit racial discrimination in voting and registration.

The VRA contained two types of provisions. There were general provisions that applied nationwide and special provisions that applied to various jurisdictions that had historically and consciously instituted practices to deny Black Americans the right to vote. Section 2, as amended, prohibited any voting law that has a discriminatory effect, irrespective of whether it was intentional or not. Section 2 explicitly prohibits two types of discrimination: vote denial (denial of the opportunity to vote) and vote dilution (where the strength or effectiveness of a vote is diminished). We’re talking to you, Texas.

Section 4(b) of the VRA contained a “coverage formula” that identified those states and local governments that would have to comply with the Act’s special provisions. In theory, these special provisions would apply to jurisdictions that have historically practiced pervasive discrimination. Section 5 served as the enforcement mechanism for those jurisdictions that did not meet the criteria outlined in Section 4(b). Those jurisdictions would be subject to a preclearance review and approval before implementing changes to their election laws. Many think that the only jurisdictions subject to preclearance were in the South, but blue states have also been subject to preclearance.

Over its 60-year existence, it has established itself as one of the most successful pieces of legislation enacted and signed into law by a President. A year after its signing, Black registration increased from 11 to 51 percent in Alabama, and from 27 to 72 percent in Tennessee. Black voter participation and representation have increased steadily since its adoption. Challenges to the VRA have resulted in adjustments to the legislation, strengthening and clarifying questions about its constitutionality until 2013.

The Roberts Court has castrated the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The decision in Shelby County v Holder (2013) struck down the coverage formula of Section 4(b), which eliminated preclearance requirements for all jurisdictions. Questions of constitutionality were not even the reason that the Supreme Court struck down the coverage formula. Roberts himself decided that the preclearance requirement was obsolete and no longer required. That is absolute nonsense on several counts.

In 2006, Congress extended the provisions of the Voting Rights Act for 25 years. The House voted in favor 390 to 33, and the Senate voted 98 to 0. Roberts and his Republican Supreme Court colleagues completely ignored the overwhelming congressional support for the legislation. Rather than strike down Section 5, he nullified it by eliminating the mechanism that it relied upon to take meaningful action.

His decision was not based on whether the Voting Rights Act was constitutional, nor on whether it was the intent of Congress. Robert’s primary reasoning for his decision was that more Black people are voting, and we had a Black President, so we don’t need those protections anymore. This decision, like many of the Roberts Court’s decisions, has been a purposeful travesty with no judicial or critical thinking applied. As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said, “Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.”

Dobbs

Reading the Dobbs decision was not only infuriating because it told women that they had no bodily autonomy, but it was also a frontal assault on the intelligence of most Americans. Alito went into his originalist bag and claimed that since the Constitution hadn’t explicitly mentioned abortion, no right existed. They use this lame excuse whenever they want to deny anything that runs counter to their authoritarian, ideological agenda. This strict constructionist application would then mean that much of the First Amendment would need to be discarded. Justices don’t have the authority to declare laws unconstitutional. There’d be no executive privilege or any of the implied privileges and rights. Corporations damn sure aren’t people, and money is not speech.

Alito also tried to use a historical justification for his ruling by reaching back to the 17^th century, when men were burning women at the stake for being witches. His historical argument relies heavily on a 17th-century jurist, Sir Matthew Hale, a man who wrote that a husband could not be charged with marital rape. He also executed at least two women for witchcraft. This misogynist pig was responsible for setting two of the legal standards that have haunted women for centuries. First, a husband can’t be charged for raping his wife, and the heaviest of burdens of proof lies on the head of a rape victim.

Alito either failed history or, in my opinion, is willfully ignorant. He based his historical argument on lies and the omission of facts. Under English Common Law and in the United States, abortion was not regulated by statute until 1821, when Connecticut was the first state to do so due to a sex scandal.

Alito completely ignores the concept called “quickening.” Quickening was the period of a pregnancy when a woman could feel the baby move in their uterus. People universally accepted that abortion before quickening was legal, with minimal controversy. Since we now have the benefit of today’s science, we know that it would mirror Rowe’s abortion protection for the first trimester. For this Republican Supreme Court, ignorance of facts and precedent is the norm, not the exception.

Practically every Court decision that involves civil liberty, civil rights, and the powers granted to Donald Trump has been the product of reverse engineering. They want a particular result, and it has been their obligation to fabricate a justification for either taking away rights from Americans or granting them to Donald Trump. The Roberts Court does get credit for Obergefell, but if that case were decided now, I guarantee you the result would be different.

Affirmative Action in college admissions, for all intents and purposes, has been eliminated by this Court. They have opened the floodgates to wealthy individuals and corporations having undue influence over our elections and granted immunity to the most corrupt and criminal individual ever to occupy the Oval Office, and, case by case, they continue to twist the knife deeper into our democracy.

Journalism and News Media

The esteemed Fourth Estate has been abandoned, and very much like Congress and the Supreme Court have abdicated their power to Donald Trump and abandoned their great responsibility to the American people. The Founding Fathers took great pains to emphasize the importance of the press by writing, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” The First Amendment is literally a guarantee of the press’s right to be truth-tellers. Historically, a critical mass of news media, newspapers, and journalists has dedicated itself to fulfilling this obligation; however, this is no longer the case.

Newspaper giants like the New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times have all unnecessarily surrendered to Trump and his administration, and have become propaganda tools for Trump, his MAGA conspirators, and supporters. These news outlets are engaged in more subtle propaganda practices, such as normalizing the most dangerous and abnormal behavior, engaging in false equivalencies, and lies of omission.

These institutions’ ownership lies supinely at the feet of Donald Trump while they betray the very faith that the Founding Fathers placed in them to speak out against tyranny. Instead, they have emasculated their editors and staff, damaging any credibility established, for example, by the New York Times over the course of centuries. Primarily, the driving force behind their actions is greed, fear, and stupidity. Principles take a back seat to their Dracula-like need for more wealth. Fear, exemplified by their bending over backward to not offend the most offensive man on the planet, and stupidity by believing that any deal with Donald Trump is reliable.

Media giants like ABC and Paramount/CBS have put the final nails in the coffin of any kind of credibility in their news divisions when they succumbed to Trump’s baseless lawsuits against them. Broadcast media’s downward spiral did not start recently. In my opinion, two significant factors have contributed significantly to the degradation of broadcast news.

The first is the elimination of the Fairness Doctrine by Ronald Reagan in 1987. As stated by Wikipedia, “The fairness doctrine of the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC), introduced in 1949, was a policy that required the holders of broadcast licenses both to present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that fairly reflected differing viewpoints.” If they did not meet those requirements, they were in jeopardy of losing their broadcast licenses. Those critical of the Fairness Doctrine said it restricted free speech, but in my opinion it minimized disinformation

The termination of the Fairness Doctrine has significantly contributed to the current state of the news media landscape. It created an environment where news media funnels were established that disseminated propagandistic information without any opposition or opposing views. The evolution of misinformation, disinformation, and lies began on the nation’s radio stations. Figures like Rush Limbaugh became the High Priests of Right-Wing Gospel.

Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes then expanded that business model to broadcast media by creating Fox, which has taken full advantage of the absence of the Fairness Doctrine to serve as the propaganda arm of the right-wing and the Republican Party. They have been so successful in poisoning the political environment and debate that they have spawned various right-wing gremlins that attempt to flood the zone.

The second thing that has eroded the news media’s legitimacy is the corporate decision to turn their news divisions into profit centers. Historically, news divisions were not treated as profit centers and received varying degrees of insulation from pressure to generate revenue. It was during Reagan’s presidency that news divisions began to be taken over by large corporations and transformed into entertainment divisions; in other words, news became a form of entertainment, losing its focus on reporting verifiable truths and informing the public. Instead, their focus was on ratings, political influence, and creating content (making the news rather than reporting it).

Print and broadcast news media have been failing us miserably. Corporations, whose primary interest is in becoming wealthier, and reporters, who are primarily interested in access and book contracts, have bastardized and destroyed their justification for being considered the fourth estate. The news media have always struggled to meet the principles and standards demanded of them, but the difference now is that they no longer even attempt to do so. There are no examples of courage being exhibited like the New York Times and the Pentagon Papers, or Watergate and the Washington Post. Don’t hold your breath, because they’re too interested in profits and clicks.

Corporations, Law Firms, Universities

Corporations

Corporations are the rich person’s version of a child’s invisible friend. They’re not real, but they usually possess extraordinary powers. I don’t know what other people mean when they say the system is rigged, but corporations are the riggers. Our system of laws and policies treats these “imaginary friends” better than it treats real humans. Corporations pay lower tax rates than individual citizens; the people behind these corporations are protected from the consequences of their actions and can influence and control the results of elections. It doesn’t stop there, though. This administration has placed deregulation and corruption on steroids amongst corporations. There is, in fact, a pay-to-play model in place for the Trump administration.

Despite all those advantages, the behavior of many giant corporations has undermined the conventional wisdom that money equals power. These “titans of industry” have prostrated themselves at the feet of Donald Trump. They have literally embarrassed themselves by bearing gifts for Trump as if they were the three kings celebrating the birth of Jesus. The richest man in the world was treated like he was a pet or a circus act.

Apple, which at the time was the world’s wealthiest corporation, had to beg to be exempted from Trump’s maniacal tariff policy. Apple CEO Tim Cook also had to bring a gift. All these wealthy corporations, which have shown in the past that they were the spoon that stirred the drink, have refused to wield that power despite Trump placing them in precarious financial situations. The so-called smartest people in the room bowed down to the dumbest person in that room.

Law Firms

As of this date, five prestigious law firms have capitulated to Trump’s threats of kneecapping them by limiting their ability to represent clients in federal cases or receive government contracts. Rather than fight a legal battle that they were practically guaranteed to win (some law firms have resisted and won), they instead joined in a race competing with corporations, the media, and prestigious universities in what I call The Feckless 500.

There have been several explanations for this fecklessness, but all have been unsatisfactory. There were several reasons why their decisions made no sense. The first was that thinking the best way to mitigate harm from Donald Trump was to succumb to his threats is a fool’s errand. Secondly, and maybe more importantly, is the damage that is done when an institution, which is evaluated by its integrity and ability to represent its clients vigorously, can’t even stand up for itself. I would also question their strategic skills. They foolishly thought it was going to be a one-and-done. Instead, they are beholden to Trump and at his beck and call. Greed and fear are a toxic mixture.

Colleges and Universities

There are colleges and universities, especially some that are considered elite, that have folded to Trump’s extortionate threats of withholding billions of dollars of federal research funding. A significant portion of this funding is allocated to medical research. Several Ivy League colleges have been disgustingly cowardly; Columbia, Brown, and Penn are the culprits. Trump has demanded that his administration have nearly complete control over the policies and curricula of nearly 70 institutions, including these.

One may ask why it is considered cowardice rather than an effective strategy. I can’t imagine that these ‘institutions of higher learning’ are not aware that similar institutions that have fought back against these threats have been successful in their confrontation with the Trump administration. Instead of Columbia, Brown, Penn, and Duke fighting these absurd demands, they gave away their autonomy and, in my opinion, credibility.

The willful ignorance doesn’t stop there. Despite that, bringing a suit against the administration may be a case of first impression; withholding appropriated funds without the approval of Congress is a violation of the Impoundment Control Act.

The other fact that would be in the universities’ favor is that federal grantees have enforceable rights. Previous courts have determined that grants are enforceable contracts. Lastly, the basis for the mob job by the Trump administration was his claim that the schools were guilty of allowing extreme antisemitism. Wait a minute, wasn’t Trump the person who hit the Racist Daily Double by stating, “I’ve got black accountants at Trump Castle and Trump Plaza. Black guys counting my money! I hate it.” and “The only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes every day.” Spare me.

Conclusion

All our institutions are failing us, and the most dangerous aspect of that is that the politically powerful and rich elites believe they are impervious to the havoc that is being wreaked upon our nation. I have never deluded myself that the American Dream is nothing more than an aspiration, and for most Americans, it remains a distant reality. We have moments in our history where these institutions serve as dams holding back our worst societal demons, but not only are politicians and the wealthy signing off on Trump’s madness, they are allowing him to dismantle and persecute any voice that opposes him.

We have a Republican controlled Congress that has handed all its constitutional powers over to a deranged, decaying President who wields power like a 12-year-old bully. Then there is the Democratic Party, whose leaders display no sense of urgency and still do not understand what it means to be an opposition party.

The current crop of billionaires and corporations has disproved the conventional wisdom that more money equates to more power. Many of them have fecklessly kissed the ring of Trump. Even the “Ivy Halls” have failed us when they chose to ignore their values and principles for what they viewed as expediency. The last hope is often our Supreme Court, but expecting any relief from this Supreme Court is hopeless. They continue to hand over the keys to the Constitution to Trump.

The existential question is, what are we going to do to turn the tide on this assault on our citizens and democracy?

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