Constitution and Citizenship Day 2023

Some calendars don’t mention it, some refer to it only as Citizenship Day, but September 17, 1787, was the day the United States Constitution was adopted. We will recognize this day at least one more time. Beyond that, what the future holds will depend on the results of November’s Election of 2024. One of our two major political parties, the Trumpistas (AKA: MAGA Republicans), since the Election of 2016, has rapidly descended into an autocratic personality cult that rejects our democratic ideals of equal rights, the rule of law, majority rule, and much of our constitutional system.

As my readers know, I’ve been trying to explain that the GOP’s devolution from being a loyal opposition to the Democratic Party has been incremental since the McCarthy Era following World War II. I’m hoping that the more aware voters are of what’s been happening, the more likely they’ll be to vote in favor of democracy rather than autocracy. John Steinbeck, in his remarkable tribute to “America and Americans,” observed, “At intervals, men or groups, through fear of people or the desire to use them, have tried to change our direction, to arrest our growth, or to stampede the Americans.”

Steinbeck optimistically concluded his homage with this: “We have failed sometimes, taken wrong paths, paused for renewal, …but we have never slipped back.” He wrote those words in 1966. He lived long enough to witness the election of Richard Nixon in 1968 and died a month later. I’ve always wondered if the prospect of having Nixon in the White House is what did him in. He did not live long enough to see Watergate; Ronald Reagan’s Iran-Contra Affair; the Republican Congress’s 4-year relentless hunt to find a reason to impeach Bill Clinton; Bush-Cheney’s turn to “our dark side” after 9/11; and four years of Donald Trump’s chaos, abuse of office, contempt for the Constitution and the rule of law, and advocacy of violence, concluding with his staging a coup d’etat to overturn an election. Each time, we have pulled back from the brink of autocracy, but how many times can we keep doing it?

For three consecutive years, I concluded my 11th grade honors American history classes with having the students read John Steinbeck’s America and Americans. (Photo: ALM Law.com)

Our constitutional system is very fragile and requires constant vigilance to prevent our becoming an official plutocracy and theocracy ruled by a single autocrat. Some of Trump’s advisers recommended he declare martial law to stay in office, so we can’t rule out the possibility of our becoming essentially a military dictatorship.

Section 3 of the 14th Amendment clearly prohibits anyone of Trump’s caliber from holding any civil or military office in the United States government or in any state’s. It states that anyone who has taken an oath to defend the Constitution and has then engaged in insurrection and rebellion against the Constitution is disqualified from holding any office in federal or state governments. The problem is that it can only be enforced if both political parties take their oaths seriously, and the Trumpistas have made it abundantly clear that they do not. The GOP respects the Constitution when it can be used to restrict democracy. It was not originally written to be a democratic document. Time, customs, judicial decisions, and amendments have made it more so.

The attempted coup d’etat to steal the Election of 2020 and prevent the traditional, constitutional peaceful transfer of power, January 6, 2021. (Photo: Brent Stirton/Getty Images)

How do you nominate a Donald J. Trump as your party’s presidential candidate twice and threaten to do so a third time if you have any respect for your nation, your oath of office, or the Constitution itself. In a debate with Biden, Trump was asked to condemn white supremacists. He responded: “Proud Boys – stand back and stand by.” They listened to him, too, taking a leadership role in the assault on January 6, 2021. He refused to say whether he would accept the election’s result if he lost. His former fix-it man, attorney Michael Cohen, warned the U. S. Congress that if Trump lost in 2020, he would not go peaceably. He incited the insurrection on the U. S. Capitol and on the Congress to attempt to steal the 2020 election. He was twice impeached, but, in spite of clear-cut, overwhelming evidence each time, only one Republican voted guilty in both trials. He stole classified documents and, when caught, attempted not to return them. He is now under indictment for 91 felonies. Would a legitimate, responsible, and patriotic American political party support such a man?

Trump has already laid out his post-election plans to drastically expand the powers of the executive branch, limiting the scope of the other branches of government, and using his newly begotten powers to go after those who have tried to hold him accountable for his actions. If his worshippers also gain control of one or both houses of Congress, he will likely be able to succeed, thus ending the long-running American experiment in constitutional government.

Since this is also Citizenship Day, it should be noted that congressional Trumpistas are also opposing Section 1 of the 14^th Amendment. It states that “All persons born or naturalized in the United States… are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” I’ve always been proud of this. Immigrants have historically considered the USA as a beacon of hope and many have come here so that their children will be born American citizens. We are a nation of immigrants, but Trumpistas are strongly xenophobic and anti-immigrant. Apparently, anything that makes us look good to the rest of world is something they want to get rid of. Fortunately, as of now on this Citizenship Day, they don’t have the votes to amend the Constitution to remove that provision. If they win in 2024, it may not matter anyway.

Note: A version of this essay was published in south Arkansas’s El Dorado News-Times, September 17, 2023.