When Was The Last Time The GOP Cared About Democracy And The Constitution?

For many years conservative Republicans have brayed about their love of the American Constitution and the wonderful freedoms of democracy that it guarantees. Of course it turns out only to be a thinly veiled charade. Gaining and holding power by any means possible, gerrymandering, voter suppression, stealing ballots, you name it, was all they ever really cared about.

The truth is that besides following some general rules of the Constitution, much of how the federal government functions depends on institutional practice, not laws written in stone. Indeed, successful democracy depends on a gentlemen’s agreement; I will not violate your rights if you do not violate mine to make law and run the country.

But Republicans have been more and more straining those gentlemen’s agreements to serve their fat cat benefactor’s short-term greed. Since GOP interests knew that they would in the future be having an ever harder time controlling the interests of the people through the electoral process, Republicans have concentrated on stuffing the courts, by hook or crook, with those who would protect those vested interest elites who own the GOP, especially within the Supreme Court where Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell managed to twist Senate convention into a pretzel to prevent President Obama from making an appointment to that august body of justice.

The powers to be within the GOP tried mightily to stop one Donald John Trump from becoming their party’s nominee for president not because he was a lazy, racist scumbag, incompetent crook, but rather because they accurately anticipated that his crude ways would force exposure of there game of shilling for the super rich. Granted it wasn’t much of a secret, but at least it wasn’t highlighted, as it would be should the clumsy, big mouth Trump be elected president.

But as Trump did reach the White House and by his actions let it be known that as long as Congressional Republicans allowed him to strut his stuff on the world stage he would give them those things that they most wanted for their rich clients. Sure, there are still a few Republicans with ethics and backbone to stand up to the Donald’s monstrously dangerous escapades, but not many. Trump has managed to create an unholy situation of tribal intimidation that causes even good men to feel compelled do bad things, let alone the despicable ilk of Congressman Jim Jordan to wallow in evil.

Now, by Trump attempting to violate the will of Congress to gain funds for his unnecessary fantasy wall, the sort of crazy stunt that Republicans most feared about Trump, he has thrown a spotlight on the fact that their long professed love of the US Constitution is nothing more than a flimsy pretense. For it is in article 1 section 9 clause 7 that the supremacy of the purse rest exclusively with the US House of Representatives, as being one of the main pillars of the federal government’s designed balance of power.

Thus President Trump’s latest folly has left his fellow Republicans sucking their thumbs, unable to justify their lack of pushback against his clear usurpation of authority. Moreover, they know when the inevitable Democratic tsunami in 2020 sweeps them out to sea; they will be of little consequence for many decades. For those whom the Donald touches or do his bidding die — that’s a fact, Jack.