SPEAK UP — the only reliable response to Trump’s authoritarian rule

by John P. Flannery

Trump has not burned down the Congress, as an emerging dictator did in Germany, to overturn the constitutional constraints on a Chief Exec to prevent him from monarchical dominance in a republic.

Day by day Trump has been exerting himself as only Erdogan or Putin could favor, given who and what they are, enemies of the people.

Last night, one talented law professor said she was surprised that her students laughed when talking in class about how one curbs the excesses of an out of control chief exec.

It was a realization, so it seemed, for a young talent, how the order had shifted.

There is a certain hysteria that could catch anyone, make them laugh, when you take the measure of how things “work” these days with how they are supposed to work.

The students get it.

It is obvious to them what has occurred.

The precedent established by the Senate impeachment “trial” has informed their judgment, and many others, that our constitution is no longer a restraint or control on Trump; it has no teeth if our elected officials ignore the powers they have in the Congress to defend and protect the constitution, to preserve the separation and interdependence of the several departments, and thus the nation.

Our structure of laws and precedent has been revealed as laughable in effect to a young bright generation who are not wedded, because they do not have our experience with the law that we do, at least as we did, when it was mostly working, even imperfectly, in our recent past.

In other words, our presumption of regularity in law and constitution, a condition that our founding patriots established, daily recedes further behind us in the nation’s rear view miror.

Trump is now broadcasting how he, not Barr, is the nation’s chief law enforcement officer— https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/post-impeachment-trump-declares-himself-the-chief-law-enforcement-officer-of-america/2020/02/18/b8ff49c0-5290-11ea-b119-4faabac6674f_story.html

Like I said,the kids and many others understand the dramatic implication of where we are.

I remain of the view that increasingly, it is the very first amendment that protects us from these failures, and it’s why it was put in place, to remedy the shortcoming of a government, of a constitution, of the laws.

We can appreciate, however, that the 1st amendment is a prepositional freedom.

We have freedom OF speech, but we don’t always have freedom AFTER speech.

Our patriots, the witnesses in the impeachment proceedings who have been fired and/or slandered, and the four prosecutors who resisted Trump’s interference in our Justice system to save a corrupt crony, inform us all of the risks when exercising our freedom to speak.

If you open your mouth these days, you are participating in a grand experiment, to restore the nation’s original promise, so badly breached by the Thug in the West Wing, surrounded by so many lawless associates.

Jefferson wrote how he believed that the people eventually get it right.

But we have to inform that judgment and robust speech increasingly is a risky but absolutely necessary business.

JPF