Eric London
8 May 2019
On Sunday, Donald Trump
re-tweeted a post by the arch-reactionary evangelical preacher and prominent
Trump confidant Jerry Falwell, Jr. calling for the president to extend his term
from the constitutionally mandated four years to six.
Referring to the Democratic
Party-led effort to label Trump a Russian collaborator, the tweet read: “Trump
should have 2 yrs added to his 1st term as pay back for time stolen by this
corrupt failed coup.”
By re-tweeting this proposal,
Trump is, in effect, threatening to cancel the 2020 elections and declare
himself above the law. Article II of the US Constitution states that the
president “shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years.”
Trump’s action is a direct
threat to abrogate the Constitution. Bourgeois politics has degenerated to such
a degree that political and legal norms considered fundamental since the
American Revolution are now challenged by presidential tweet.
Trump’s Republican backers
claim that Trump was only joking. But canceling elections is not something
about which presidents joke. The president is the most powerful person in the
world and his every word is closely followed in the US and internationally.
Politicians, businessmen and decision makers around the world parse even
seemingly mundane statements or off-the-cuff remarks for their deeper
significance.
Trump’s re-tweet of a
prominent, politically active evangelical preacher is not a joke. It is a
serious signal sent deliberately to both supporters and opponents, who will
understand that Trump is serious and that he is prepared to pursue
anticonstitutional methods to stay in power. It is part of an increasingly
dictatorial pattern that Trump and his fascist advisers have long planned.
While accepting an award at a
ceremony in April along with military leaders, Trump said, “This is really
beautiful. This will find a permanent place, at least for six years, in the
Oval Office.”
In 2018, Trump told Chinese
President Xi Jinping that it was “great” that Xi was now “president for life,”
adding, “Maybe we’ll have to give it a shot someday.” In the lead-up to the
2016 election, Trump repeatedly threatened to disregard the election results if
Democrat Hillary Clinton proved victorious.
In response to a debate
question asking whether he would accept a losing result, he said, “I will tell
you at the time. I’ll keep you in suspense.”
It was Trump’s current
attorney, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, who proposed canceling the November
2001 mayoral election in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, arguing that
semi-dictatorial methods were needed despite the fact that he was legally
termed out.
Trump’s presidency has
included many similar authoritarian trial balloons. He positioned soldiers
behind him during his inaugural address, planned to hold a military
demonstration in Washington DC, and implemented a ban on travel from several
Muslim countries.
He has established a network
of internment camps, proposed the death penalty for drug dealers, praised
neo-Nazis as “good people,” called for ending due process for immigrants, said
that his supporters were justified in using violence against his detractors,
deployed the army on domestic soil, separated immigrant children from their
parents, and declared a national emergency to appropriate funds for the
construction of a border wall.
In this context, the response
of the Democratic Party is equally chilling.
In an article titled “Pelosi
Warns Democrats: Stay in the Center or Trump May Contest Election Results,”
the New York Times published an interview with Democratic Speaker of
the House Nancy Pelosi, citing her “concern that Mr. Trump would not give up
power voluntarily if he lost re-election by a slim margin next year.”
In the interview, which was
conducted before Trump’s tweet, Pelosi said in reference to the 2018 midterm
elections: “If we win by four seats, by a thousand votes each, he’s not going
to respect the election. He would poison the public mind. He would challenge
each of the races; he would say you can’t seat these people. We had to win.
Imagine if we hadn’t won—oh, don’t even imagine. So, as we go forward, we have
to have the same approach.”
In response to brazen threats
to violate the constitution, the Democrats’ strategy is to “own the
center-left, own the mainstream,” Pelosi told the Times. Instead of
condemning Trump’s proposal to extend his term or warning him of the serious
criminal implications of canceling a presidential election, Pelosi instructs
Democrats to “not engage in some of the other exuberances in our party,” making
clear that the party will not allow any social reform.
This comes from a party that
has won a plurality of the popular vote in all but one of the last eight
presidential elections, yet failed to contest the stolen election of 2000, in
which the Supreme Court wrote that Americans do not have the right to vote for
president. Pelosi’s statement is an acknowledgment that the Democrats believe
there are circumstances where they would have to accept the cancellation of an
election. Were Trump to follow through on his threat, the most Pelosi and
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer would do is promise to file a lawsuit!
The Democrats’ fecklessness in
the face of Trump’s threat to cancel a presidential election contrasts with the
ferocity of their claims that Trump has facilitated Russia’s use of $100,000 to
“interfere” in the last one.
Pelosi’s interview exposes the
anti-Russia campaign as disingenuous and absurd. If Trump were colluding with
Russia, wouldn’t his threat to refuse to accept election results be proof that
Vladimir Putin is “undermining our democracy?” And doesn’t Trump’s threat alone
constitute a violation of his oath to “protect and defend” Article II of the
Constitution—an impeachable act?
The Democrats are combining
absolute indifference to critical issues of democratic rights with support for
major aspects of Trump’s policy agenda. On Monday, the New York Times published
an editorial board statement titled, “Give Trump his Border Money.” The
Democrats are collaborating with Trump on a new infrastructure program and
lending support to his efforts to overthrow the government of Venezuela and
impose tariffs on China.
They are motivated above all
by fear of social opposition from the working class, manifested most starkly in
growing support for socialism. The Democrats dare not challenge Trump by
raising the social, economic and democratic grievances of the broad masses of
people because they believe this might trigger widespread strikes and protests
challenging the profits of Wall Street and US imperialism’s plans for military
aggression and world domination.
A serious warning must be
made. Trump’s tweet and Pelosi’s interview only scratch the surface of the
antidemocratic and dictatorial measures being discussed behind closed doors at
the White House, the Pentagon, Langley and Fort Meade.
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