We have been in a continuous state of Constitutional Crisis since at least March 16, 2016, when Republican Senator Mitch McConnell announced Republicans would not even hold a Supreme Court nomination hearing for Merrick Garland. McConnell had similarly been blocking hundreds of lower court appointments prior to this (in order to "save" them for a future Republican administration), so arguably the Constitutional Crisis was already ongoing by this point. But something as blatantly Unconstitutional as blocking a nomination hearing for a Supreme Court seat for 8 entire months was a turning point. Deepening this Crisis, during the lead-up to the 2016 election, multiple prominent Republican Senators said they would block any nominee a potential President Clinton would appoint throughout her entire 4+ years as president. (This is also early evidence of a Republican self-coup having illegally taken over the Senate).
Another Constitutional Crisis occurred when Trump was sworn in as President on January 20, 2017. From his very first moment in office, he was in violation of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution. In addition, he was guilty of treason for his campaign's collusion with Russia, as evidenced by his infamous Presidential debate on July 27, 2016, where he asked that same enemy nation to hack his opponent. The media and the Democratic Party lulled Americans into complacency by telling us to spend years waiting for the results of the Mueller Report, so Trump could face justice. Instead, when the report was released, not only were we disappointed by the extremely-limited scope of the investigation, but Democrats and the liberal-leaning media helped to cover it up and kill any hopes of impeachment, despite the Report showing clear evidence of the Trump administration's crimes...!
Another Constitutional Crisis began during Trump's 1st impeachment. In December 2019, multiple Republican Senators openly declared they would refuse to be impartial jurors during the Senate impeachment trial. This included Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham. This was in direct violation of the Constitution, which states Senators must swear an oath during an impeachment trial. Since the 1700s, the language of the oath makes each Senator swear they will "do impartial justice". (By the way, in more civilized eras, oath breakers were executed). Further, many commentators pointed out that a number of Republican Senators were implicated in Trump's crimes. Would we let a burglar sit as an "impartial juror" in the trial of a co-conspirator...?
Most absurdly of all, Mitch McConnell openly declared the Republicans in the Senate were working directly with Trump to formulate his defense strategy for the impeachment. How can we allow impeachment to be the only Constitutional mechanism for removal of a criminal President when the criminals in the President's party control the Senate and work directly with him? "Checks and balances" can't even handle simple party-line-based corruption...
Another Constitutional Crisis began in June 2020, when Louis DeJoy was appointed as Postmaster General and began sabotaging the Postal Service in order to rig the 2020 election. Trump, in his public statements, was very clear about the motive behind the changes in the Postal Service--his goal was to make enough mail-in votes be delayed and literally "get lost" to tip the election in his favor. The sabotage of the Postal Service is the first event that we are publicly aware of in the months-long Republican coup attempt which culminated in the January 6th Insurrection.
The audacity of Republicans to attempt to rig and nullify an election (and the lack of consequences they faced for it!) marked a point-of-no-return in ths Crisis. At that particular moment, our government entered into a life or death situation which will either end with a Republican coup attempt successfully overthrowing the government, or a reestablishment of law and order where all responsible for the coup are placed in prison. There are no other possible outcomes. There is no turning back. This isn't just a game where you can shake hands and move on and forget about things when the dust settles. America will never spontaneously "go back to normal" unless justice is dealt. Every day since their election rigging attempts began, Republicans have repeatedly embraced the Big Lie and embraced every illegal tactic possible to "win" at all costs. They are digging in and gaining ground while the Democratic Party does nothing to hold them accountable under the law.
Another Constitutional Crisis was evident by January 10th, 2021. To summarize the issue, on January 3, 2021, the 117th Congress was officially sworn in to office. On January 6th, the Coup Vote and Insurrection occurred. Under the very clear language of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, all members of the US government and state governments who had engaged in an insurrection are forbidden from ever holding office. On January 10th Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi asked for official input on whether to pursue the immediate removal of President Trump using the 14th Amendment. This therefore signalled that she was keenly aware of this Amendment and its purpose. On January 11th, 48 Democratic politicians, led by Representative Cori Bush, introduced a resolution calling for the expulsion of all Republican politicians who supported the Coup Vote or Insurrection. Representative Bill Pascrell and others had already been advocating for enforcement of the 14th Amendment since December 11, 2020.
Although 55 politicians eventually ended up endorsing Bush's resolution, no results ever came from it, and the 147+ Republican politicians who organized and participated in a coup attempt to overthrow the US government are still serving in office and are currently making our laws... Trump's 2nd impeachment, the language used to establish the January 6th Select Committee, and statements by President Biden have legally established that the events of January 6th were indeed an insurrection and terrorist attack, and hence subject to the 14th Amendment. Yet the Democratic Party has decided to ignore one of the most important parts of the Constitution, by allowing politicians who violated their oaths by giving aid and comfort to domestic terrorists (i.e. treason as defined by the Constitution) and who violated the clear language of the 14th Amendment to continue serving in the government.
Yet another Constitutional Crisis began on January 13th, 2021, when Mitch McConnell announced he was going to delay Trump's 2nd impeachment trial until Trump was out of office, in order to miscarry justice. Ironically, minutes after voting to acquit Trump in the Senate impeachment trial on February 13, 2021, McConnell said Trump was indeed responsible for inciting the insurrection (i.e. the charge he was impeached for!). Yet, by February 25, 2021, McConnell was already supporting Trump's ambitions for a 2024 presidential campaign, demonstrating he was only disappointed that the coup attempt failed to result in a regime change, not that he was disappointed a Republican-organized coup attempt happened. Despite currently being the minority party in the Senate, Democrats have even allowed Republicans under Mitch McConnell to de facto retain control over the Senate...
Every day that the ongoing Crisis is not resolved, Republicans get bolder in their criminal behavior and double-down in their devotion to Trumpism. Every day they are raising the stakes and making their voting base even more riled up and prepping them for future "bloodshed". Every day that the Democratic Party delays justice, the danger that far-right terrorists pose to non-treasonous Americans increases.
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And, no, I am not overusing the term "Constitutional Crisis". All of these events listed above are a direct violation of the Constitution and existential threat to the functioning of the US government. All of these events raise fundamental problems that the Constitution is unable to provide answers to. We have seen that any constitution-based government relies on goodwill, unwritten norms, and simple willingness to uphold written rules in order to function. When the only politicians who are not actively trying to overthrow the government don't even have the will power to enforce what is explicitly written in the Constitution and laws, what then? The house of cards collapses on itself.
These Crises will not go away simply by ignoring them or telling ourselves they weren't "real" Crises. Downplaying the danger and telling ourselves "it can't happen here" is exactly how we ended up with Donald Trump as President and how we ended up with the majority of the Republican Party supporting a bloody coup attempt. Sticking our heads in the sand and telling ourselves "this isn't really happening" is how the Republican Party spent months publicly organizing a coup in plain sight, while explicitly telling us over and over again that their entire goal was to overthrow the election. Yet somehow the coup attempt caught many off guard.
All of the Crises listed above remain fundamentally unresolved. Even if they appear to no longer be ongoing (e.g. Scalia's court seat has been filled, Trump's Emoluments Clause violations seem less important now that he is out of office, etc.), the fallout from failing to act on them will have vast repercussions. By allowing the malicious effects from these Constitutional Crises to remain in place, the actions that caused the Crises have become the new normal. The traitors who repeatedly launched our nation into Constitutional Crisis have reaped tremendous victories from their actions and have not faced a single repercussion. There have been no legal repercussions and their popularity has soared among their voting base...
All of these Crises, including launching a bloody coup attempt to remain in power, are all part of the Republican playbook now. They have purged their party leadership of anyone who disagrees, have repeatedly defended the Insurrection, and have announced their intent for future "bloodshed" against us. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party, by their refusal to enforce the most basic of laws and principles outlined in the Constitution, have established inaction into their new normal.
In the span of a few short years, Republican tactics have elevated from corruptly blocking a judge, to outright collusion with an enemy nation, to launching a bloody coup attempt to overthrow the government itself. And why wouldn't they do so, when their opponents have essentially legalized every one of their crimes? Every step of the way, Republicans were emboldened because the Democratic Party refused to hold them accountable for their crimes...
And throughout all of this, the mainstream media has spent the past 6 years gaslighting us by downplaying the Constitutional Crises, telling us they weren't real or hadn't actually happened yet. Even now, there are op-eds being published speculating on whether a Constitutional Crisis has actually happened...
The political landscape in the US is thus: one party of literal terrorists who tried to overthrow the government and one party who are too apathetic and incompetent to uphold the most basic of laws and Constitutional remedies to punish terrorists for committing the highest crimes possible against the state.
This is a crisis. There is no room for debate or speculation on this fact.
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While I obviously hope that the January 6th Commission will lead to criminal convictions for all the Republicans who participated in the coup attempt, the Biden administration's Justice Department and the Democratic Party itself don't inspire much confidence. The next potential Constitutional Crisis will revolve around the findings of the January 6th Committee and whether the Biden administration punishes those politicians who organized and supported the coup attempt. If the Democratic Party decides to cover up the Insurrection by not pursuing criminal charges of the highest magnitude against all the politicians who organized, supported, aided, and abetted the coup attempt in any way, then the United States will collapse.
That is not hyperbole. How can a government exist when there are no repercussions for a political party not only blatantly disregarding every section of the Constitution, but when that political party faces no punishment for a bloody coup? Logically, the only outcome to such a scenario is that the coup-plotting political party tries again and again until they are eventually successful and attain the power they crave. Indeed, this is already obvious, since the Republican Party has openly declared they embrace the Insurrection and the Big Lie that Trump is the only rightful President of the US.
Arresting a rag-tag gang of insurrectionists on the basis that their phone GPS coordinates showed them trespassing in the Capitol means nothing when the politicians who spent months promoting the Big Lie to establish a pretext for the Insurrection, the politicians who themselves spent months attempting to overthrow and nullify the election, the politicians who coordinated the logistics and timing of the Insurrection the first place, and the Trump administration officials who directed the Insurrectionists to march to the Capitol and hold a "trial by combat" are not also arrested for their crimes. There are 74 million people who could one day be directed to repeat the Insurrection and worse. All it would take to prevent a future insurrection is to arrest the treasonous individuals who organized and led it in the first place.
Ultimately, as citizens we must prepare to defend ourselves in the very likely scenario that things get much, much more chaotic in the near future. Until these Constitutional Crises get resolved and the US government is no longer in danger of inevitable collapse, I have a duty to tell all non-treasonous Americans that we must arm ourselves, train, and organize within our communities to weather the storm.
Elected politicians in the US government are promising future bloodshed against us and future coup attempts to destroy our nation. We would be insane not to heed their warnings. When Trump came into office, I rolled my eyes at doomsday predictions that Trump would attempt to declare martial law and overthrow the government. Yet, here we are... Worse, the Democratic Party is refusing their duty to uphold the law and punish those terrorists in the Republican Party who tried to overthrow our government. As long as they refuse to uphold the laws, we are not safe and must prepare to defend ourselves and our communities.
If we fail to prepare now, it will be too late when the worst case scenario unfolds.
When the institutions failed during the American Revolution, all we had left to defend ourselves was each other and an appeal to heaven.
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