The Constitutional Crisis That Wasn’t

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Over the four years of the chaotic Trump presidency we have seen the words “constitutional crises” bandied about quite often. But never here.

Though personal injury law is the primary focus of this blog — hence the blog name — you have seen me delve into politics every so often, though I try hard to make it relevant to my overall theme.

Nevertheless, I do deviate, and certainly a constitutional crises, if I thought it existed, would make me put up the rare “me to” posting. I resisted.

I’ve always had faith in our electoral system. Regardless of whether Trump was trying to get the Russians, or Chinese, or Ukrainians, or anyone else to do his dirty work for him by involving them in our affairs, I always thought that those that stood by his side would pay a price.

I even thought this during Impeachment 1.0. The almost unanimous support of the GOP to block the investigation into abuse of power, and turn a blind eye to obstruction, and to block witnesses, and to block legislative oversite of the executive branch would one day come at a cost.

I continued to hold that thought when Trump launched dozens of frivolous lawsuits trying to contest the election. Contrary to others, I thought it was good to see. Let the lawsuits get smacked down. Again and again. Hard. That the lawsuits were so awful, and would be rejected universally by judges regardless of who appointed them, was a good thing.

I held that thought even through this year’s January 6th insurrection. A few thousand seditionists trying to block democracy wasn’t going to happen. Even if they blew up the Capitol. This was not, after all, millions of people marching in the streets as we saw during the early days of the Trump administration.

And now, finally, those chickens have come home to roost. In four years the GOP lost the White House, the House of Representatives and the Senate. That is an impressive feat. There may have been a number of different crises, but they weren’t constitutional in nature.

What’s more, the carnage to the GOP due to Trumpism is not complete. We will see investigations, records of Trumpets misconduct will finally be disgorged from the executive branch, people will speak now without fear of the mean tweet, or fear of being fired, books will be written, and supporters of Trumpism will again have their feet held to the fire in two years.

Perhaps it is an undeserving faith in the constitution that I have, but I have it. I still do. The rule of law must hold, for the alternative is anarchy.