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Are we in a constitutional crisis? (www.npr.org)

submitted 2 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

7 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Amanda Frost is a Law Professor at the University of Virginia Law. She says a constitutional crisis occurs when one branch of government, usually the executive, "blatantly, flagrantly and regularly exceeds its constitutional authority — and the other branches are either unable or unwilling to stop it."

Frost says the first half of her definition is already happening, and that it's clear President Trump has gone beyond the powers of the executive branch. She points to him trying to usurp Congress' "power of the purse" or trying to put an end to birthright citizenship as examples.

Considering their willingness to ignore or deliberately misinterpret court orders, I'd argue we've met the second part of the definition...

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Half is one of those statistical lies that get thrown around as true. Half(ish) that voted, voted for trump. It's more like 1/3 of the country voted for trump.

Then you have to get to why each voter voted this way. Most people would say grocery prices, or my money is not going as far. Or maybe some other single issue thing. Many of them thought the more outlandish promises wouldn't come to pass. That's why we have trump voters with their spouse picked up by ice. Or their farm about to be bought up by foreign interests.

Saying that half the nation wants this gives these guys too much power. I mean they are taking enough power already. Let's not cement the idea that these moves are popular.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago

Quantitatively you are definitely correct. Something like 80% of the nation is in the middle rather than at the two extreme ends and probably could care less and maybe even after the last few weeks still has not even so much as heard a little bit about what is going on.

Let's not cement the idea that these moves are popular.

But qualitatively I think you are wrong: they are though, maybe not "half the nation" popular but most of the wording used in the past by liberals to describe the situation has turned out to be untrue, like poor people don't "think of themselves as temporarily displaced millionaires" (in fairness that one likely used to be true in the past, as e.g. people worked during their lives and then "no longer needed to work" aka retired near the end), but rather that millionaires legit deserve their wealth even as they themselves deserve to be poor.

Talking with regular people, it's not virtually none of them that are actively cheering the actions on - these aren't entirely made-up poll stats. But yeah, neither is it half, I just don't have any clue what it really is, and yet in the past I thought it was closer to half. You have a good point but I think the reality is somewhere in-between these moves being popular vs... what, ignored, unpopular, etc.

Anyway, whatever percentage it is, some people are ecstatic about what they are hearing is happening from conservative media sources.