Trump Calls For "Termination" of Constitution. Is This The Final Straw?

Will Republicans finally divorce themselves from him?

Let me start this article by stating that I’m not now, nor have I ever been a Never Trumper. I am proud to say that I voted for him, and I think he did an amazing job as President, for the most part. But if you have been watching closely over the past several years, there have been definite red flags, which most Republicans have so far been happy to ignore. I don’t think they can, nor should they, ignore the red flags any longer.

This weekend, Former President Donald Trump called for the “termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.” He claimed that Big Tech colluded with the Democrat Party to perpetrate “massive and widespread fraud and deception” in the 2020 Presidential Election. Trump “tweeted” these comments on his Truth Social account (@realDonaldTrump). Or did he “Truth” them? I’m still not sure of the terminology. He appears to be referring to Elon Musk’s release of evidence of collusion between Big Tech and Democrats known as “The Twitter Files”. The information released by Musk showed how Twitter and the “Biden Team” worked jointly to suppress conservatives on Twitter and to bury stories harmful to Democrats, like the Hunter Biden Laptop story. Below is the text of his “Truth”.

There is no doubt that collusion did occur. There’s also no doubt that the 2020 election was tainted at best or stolen, as Trump has continually claimed, at worst. I’m not here to rehash this dead argument.

To quote my favorite conservative talk radio personality (after Rush, of course) Andrew Wilkow of the Wilkow Majority on SiriusXM, I consider myself a patriot first, conservative second, and a Republican third. I cannot sit idly by while a candidate for President of the United States announces that, if elected, he will suspend the Consitution. I’m not a constitutional lawyer like Senator Ted Cruz is. I’m just a man with an opinion. I won’t go into the legal aspects of Trump’s comment, because there are situations where clauses of the Consitution are suspended, such as the Posse Comitatus Act. I will, however, comment on the history of Trump’s decision-making regarding how he interprets the Constitution. Three specific incidents come to mind when considering Trump’s understanding of the Constitution.

Trump, Pence, and the Electoral College

Think back to January 6th, 2021. No, not the storming of the Capitol Building. Before that happened, a joint session of Congress was convened to confirm the Electoral College votes, with Vice President Mike Pence acting as President of the Joint Session. As expected, Congress confirmed the Electoral College election of Joe Biden as the 46th President. It was only later that we found out that President Trump had pressured Pence to unilaterally “declare” Trump the victor, a power that Pence did not possess. The process for the Electoral College is outlined in the Constitution, but the details and procedures are vague when it comes to contested states. I feel that Pence handled it professionally and in accordance with the Constitution, as best he understood it. Whatever your opinion of the 2020 election, I haven’t seen anyone (including Trump) point to anything in the Constitution granting unilateral power to the Vice President. It just isn’t something he can do. The President of the Joint Session of Congress is there to make sure the confirmation of the Electoral College vote happens, not to determine its outcome.

Trump’s Gun Confiscation Comments

Trump has been a conservative champion in many ways, but he is not personally a conservative. This was never more clear than in 2018 when he made some very concerning comments about gun confiscation during a White House meeting on gun control legislation.

"I like taking guns away early. Take the guns first, go through due process second."

-President Donald Trump, February 28th 2018

It doesn’t take a Constitutional scholar to know that his comments are not in keeping with the Second and Fourth Amendments. Pair that with his “Truth” this weekend about suspending or “terminating” the Constitution, whether in part or whole, and you have a recipe for authoritarian disaster.

Here is a USA Today article detailing his 2018 comments on gun confiscation.

Terminating The Constitution

Trump’s wording of his “Truth” on the Constitution is very precise. He didn’t outright call for the termination of the Consitution. Instead, he said that the massive corruption in the 2020 election “allows” for the termination of the Constitution. I interpret that to mean that if he’s elected in 2024, he will (attempt to) suspend or terminate all or part of the Constitution to rectify the injustice that he (rightly or wrongly) perceived was done to him in losing the 2020 election.

Trump came along exactly when we needed him. He saved us from President Hillary Clinton, and for that, I will forever be grateful. He supercharged our national economy and made us energy independent, if only for a few years. He was exactly the CEO that our country needed. But his time in politics has not been without controversy. In fact, he seems to thrive on controversy.

I had no problem with his brashness, or with his political incorrectness (“Because it came from CHY-NA”). Hell, part of the reason I loved him so much was that he made liberal’s heads explode so often. If it were just the prospect of more uncouthness and mean tweets from our Commander-In-Chief, I would be 100% on board. But I cannot give him a pass on the myriad red flags that he’s shown and continues to show. His total disregard for the Constitution is where I draw the line. If it comes down to voting for him in the General Election over a Democrat, I will hold my nose and vote for Trump. But I hope, and I will begin actively working toward, ousting him as the Republican Primary frontrunner. Although he has yet to officially announce his candidacy, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis seems to be the top candidate not named Trump. There are others, too, which might be the focus of another article. But I will no longer be putting my energy into electing Donald Trump again. Not after this weekend.