Caring About the Constitution Consistently
Justin Stapley discusses an old article of his in the Daily Herald.
A little under two years ago, I wrote an article for the Daily Herald where I discussed the unfortunate reality that, far too often, we only hear discussion of “Constitutional norms,” “Constitutional values,” and whether certain actions are “unconstitutional” from political actors who are out of power.
We saw this under President Obama, with many of his actions being decried as unconstitutional by Republicans and conservatives (and, for the most part, rightly so, IMO). Then, under President Trump, Democrats and progressives roundly denounced him for ongoing violation of constitutional norms and non-democratic rhetoric and actions (again, more often than, they were right). And now, we witness ongoing rhetoric claiming that President Biden is contemptuous of the Constitution as he seeks whatever means possible to move his agenda forward (once more, these accusations are not without cause).
The obvious problem with this trend is that it demonstrates a lack of seriousness in that neither side holds itself to the bar by which they are so quick to judge their opponent. They treat the Constitution, as I point out in the Daily Herald piece, as an oppositional buzzword rather than as the guiding and consistent charter of government it’s supposed to be.
Read the full article here.
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