The Enemy Within
The Enemy Within
First published January 7, 2018
Our nation was founded on principles that our Founders determined to be sacrosanct and immutable:
“We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among
these are Life,Liberty,and the pursuit of Happiness — that to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed…” The Declaration of Independence July 4, 1776
We must never forget that the Founders of this nation were intimately familiar with a monarchical, or autocratic, form of government and the resulting tyranny that accompanies such a model of government — e.g., imprisonment without jury trial, punishment for “seditious” speech, judges who lacked independence and who served only at the pleasure of the king, denial of a representative voice in government, and other violations of basic human rights.
After overthrowing the yoke of a foreign king, they drafted a Constitution that was designed to ensure a representative form of government with formidable obstacles to the reincarnation of a tyrannical autocracy. Hence the checks and balances of co-equal branches of government, each with the ability to counter excessive exercises of power by the other branches.
The Constitution, with the first 10 Amendments (the Bill of Rights) was ratified in 1789. The Bill of Rights, authored by James Madison with input from Thomas Jefferson,expressly incorporated fundamental individual liberties, rights, and values deemed to be cornerstones of our framework of government.
That government — our government — has endured as a beacon of democracy for the world for over 228 years. Now, however, it is being assailed by the greatest enemy it has ever encountered. This is not an enemy from outside our borders, an invading army or axis of foreign powers. It is an enemy from within, an enemy that strikes at the heart of our nation by questioning and repudiating our foundational principles that gave birth to our very existence and have been our sustaining life breath to this very day.
I speak of an administration that has described the Constitution as an archaic document and an obstacle to effective government, encouraged law enforcement officials to use excessive force in arresting suspects, heaped praise on Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte for his utilization of vigilante death squads to murder suspected lawbreakers and drug users, and applauded and pardoned a renegade sheriff in Arizona for contemptuously and systematically violating a federal court order by continuing to illegally profile and detain Hispanics on the discriminatory basis of their race.
The president’s distaste for the Constitution extends to the 1st Amendment, particularly the part that states “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press…” As Madison emphasized at the time of its passage…”we cannot be subject to rules and laws that prohibit us from speaking our minds. Our press can print and circulate the news without fear of reprisal, even if that news is less than favorable regarding our country or government.”
The president’s hostility to the freedoms of speech and the press is well documented. His former Chief of Staff confirmed in an interview that the White House has considered amending or even abolishing the 1st Amendment because of critical press coverage of the president. Most recently, he has demanded that the publisher of a book which is critical of his administration cease and desist from distributing the book into the public domain. Yet such freedom to publish it is the very essence of the 1st Amendment. Moreover, the president has repeatedly maligned peaceful political protests, such as kneeling during the anthem, as a form of disrespect for the flag that should be punished by fines or other economic sanctions.
This latter issue begs the question — what, exactly, does the flag represent if not the Constitution of the United States, which is the soul of this nation? I suspect that this president equates the flag with — well — himself. Nothing could be further from reality. The flag stands for the country, whose existence is defined by the Constitution, defended by the the sacrifices and blood of the people for over two centuries. Without the Constitution, the nation is a lifeless corpse and it has no president. It is such an irony to witness the president exhorting law enforcement officers to violate the Constitution, railing against rights and liberties enshrined in the Bill of Rights, condoning and even pardoning violations of the freedoms and rights cherished by our Founders, all the while sporting a flag lapel pin as he flouts and rejects what the flag truly represents.
In this hypocrisy, he mirrors the mythical Humpty Dumpty, who famously said:
“When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean, nothing more nor less.”
No, Mr. President, the Constitution does not mean just what you choose it to mean, nothing more nor less. Its meaning has been clear for over two centuries. It means what the Founders articulated, and what the Congress, Courts, and former Presidents who have served this nation have always understood and accepted it to mean. You took an oath to uphold and protect this Constitution. You have no right, no power, no authority whatsoever to discard it or define it by your whim and caprice.
Essay on The Nation’s Descent into the Bottomless Abyss of Trumpism
First published June 24, 2018
We are now at a place where the President of this Nation literally hugs the flag of the United States while gleefully extolling the idea of snatching infants, toddlers, and thousands of vulnerable children from their undocumented immigrant parents and placing them in cages at secretive concentration camps in undisclosed locations. The ICE and other agencies implementing this cruelty have kept little or no records of which children are the sons and daughters of which parents as they are separated, increasing the risk that they may never be reunited. The Attorney General of the United States, the head of something called the Department of Justice (whatever that means anymore) quotes the Bible in a hollow attempt to invoke God’s blessing on malevolence that parallels the practice of separating the families of slaves in the pre=Civil War era. Propagandists follow up on the blasphemous distortion of Scripture by comparing the separation policy to summer camp for kids and telling us it doesn’t matter anyway because, hey, they’re not Americans.
The cruelty and inhumanity of this policy is overwhelming. No one could conceive of such depravity who has a moral compass, an ounce of compassion, or a soul that harbors any empathy whatsoever within itself.
This evil can only be described as sociopathic. It is monstrous in its contravention of the most basic moral principles and fundamental values of our country.
This administration, with its open and undisguised admiration for tyrannical rulers and murderous regimes, simply does not believe in, respect, or feel bound by our Constitution and its framework of democratic government. Rather, it insists on a governmental structure wherein subordinates pledge total loyalty and obedience to a titular head of State — i.e., a dictatorial structure where the ruler is above and beyond the rule of law because he is the law.
This objective is the end game of Trumpism. It explains the relentless assaults on a free press, the FBI, the existence of independent counsel and his investigation, the other branches of government, and the entire Constitutional system of checks and balances by theoretically co-equal branches.
I endeavored to explain this danger in an earlier essay “The Enemy Within” (http://www.milwaukeerenaissance.com/TomCoffin/). The threat has since evolved and become more imminent. For example, spokespeople for the administration float the ideas that the President could shoot the Director of the FBI and not be prosecuted, or pardon himself for any and all violations of the law.
The transformation of governmental framework, from liberal democracy to totalitarianism, does not occur suddenly when it emanates from within the framework itself. It happens incrementally, in small erosions which crumble segments of democratic principles that the people accept in silence or only tokenly resist. Thus we have the “fake news” mantra discrediting a free press, the “witch hunt” refrain to discredit any independent investigation into alleged misconduct of associates of the President by someone who has
not pledged fealty to the President, the encouragement of violations of civil rights by law enforcement, and the pardoning of those engaged in civil rights violations ( See “The Enemy Within”).
The family separation policy represents a bold advancement of the administration’s incremental movement strategy. The policy carries the fingerprints of White House adviser Stephen Miller, an outspoken proponent of nationalist extremism, as well as the Attorney General himself. Fortunately, it has evoked strong and passionate resistance that the administration underestimated. The outpouring of outrage has forced at least a temporary reprieve in the form of an Executive Order ceasing the forced separation of children from their parents. But the nightmare is hardly over as the government contemplates incarcerating entire families at compounds such as Army bases and other internment camps without any coherent plan regarding the duration of confinement while individual application for asylum are processed.
It is heartening to see, in addition to the public furor over the separation policy, that 75 United States Attorneys from across the country, the highest federal law enforcement officials in their respective Districts, have expressed their objections to the policy in a joint letter to the Attorney General. Having personally served for 21 years in the Department of Justice, I have been extremely concerned about the overt attempts by the White House to undermine the independent role of the DOJ to uphold the Rule of Law which is the foundation of our Constitutional framework , and to instead transform the Department into some subservient extension of the office of the President. The letter represents a commitment to uphold the Rule of Law and the integrity of the Department of Justice, and we can hope that they will remain loyal to the Constitution in their resolve.
The rest of the Nation must do so as well. At stake is nothing less than all the freedoms and rights enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and our sacred heritage that true patriots have defended with their lives for over 228 years. That Flag that we will honor this coming Fourth of July does not stand for whoever occupies the White House at any given moment — it stands for this Country, for the Constitution, for the People, and for our fundamental values and Democracy. It does not stand for oppression or cruelty, and it certainly does not stand for any form of autocracy.