“Obedience to specific court orders is what keeps us from being a banana republic or fascist dictatorship. That’s a really big deal.” – Abner Greene, Law Professor, Fordham University in interview with Huffington Post.
When Trump was riding his father’s coattails and bank accounts to his bespoke fortune back in the early 70’s, he didn’t think the Anti-Discrimination laws applied to him. It took a lawsuit from the U.S. Justice Department to show him otherwise.
In 2005, when he started his now-infamous “Trump University” with the sole aim of bilking as many people as possible out of as much money as possible, he didn’t think that the laws against fraud and illegal advertising applied to him. His reluctant acceptance of a court approved $25 Million settlement in a lawsuit bought against him by 6,000 of those defrauded students proved otherwise.
Even before his inauguration Trump blatantly refused to abide by the strictures of the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause. Give his track record of disdain for similarly inconvenient laws in the past, this should come as no surprise to anyone.
Several Constitutional scholars have filed a lawsuit seeking to force Trump to comply with the law using the only methods that have been shown to work against the worst of his sociopathic instincts. Many Democratic leaders and members of the (still) free press have publicly castigated him for his untenable defiance.
What is surprising, though, is the stone cold silence from members of Trump’s party (who claim to be the defenders of our Nation’s heritage of adherence to the Law), regarding this egregious transgression against our core beliefs and values.
Just this past weekend we, as citizens, together with the rest of the world were given a first hand lesson in the importance of Laws and the absolute necessity that no exceptions be granted in their application and enforcement.
When he did not encounter any serious opposition to his refusal to divest himself of his business interests in direct violation of the U.S. Constitution, his next move was an even more brazen attack on an even more fundamental principle enshrined in the Constitution: Religious Freedom.
Despite the public protestations of his PR puppets to the contrary, it is clear that Trump has targeted a group of people for “special treatment” based solely on their religion. And, still the pillars of the Republican establishment remain eerily silent while Trump’s assault on our Constitution gathers in brutal strength and ugly resolve.
To those politicians who are too afraid (or too focused on the winds of their own political fortunes) to stand up for the rights of the individuals targeted by Trumps tirade of hate and bigotry, you may want to start asking yourself:
At what point does your continuing moral cowardice disqualify you and your party as worthy participants in the Democracy that your standard bearer appears bent on destroying? Where is the line beyond which you will no longer stand in complicit silence to the atrocities this small-minded man is committing in your name?
Rest assured that it is a question that I and many other concerned citizens will be asking with ever increasing urgency in the troubled times that lay ahead.
Bridges-Not-Walls 