Criticizing My Post on Trump, Jefferson, and U.S. Constitutional Crises
It did lack a certain nuance.
The critic is me.
The readership is whoever among my paying subscribers—the few, the proud—might be interested in considering a degree of nuance that I left out of the most recent public post, which was on Trump, Jefferson, and wars between the executive and judicial branches.
My critique, below, involving further reflections on the relevant history and current politics, takes the form of notes on the previous piece. They probably won’t make much sense unless you’ve read that piece, or unless you go read it now, which I regret. But I do think this exercise has a chance of interesting some of you, and deepening exploration of the issues, or I wouldn’t post it.
Notes:
The original post might seem to position the traditional role and composition of the Supreme Court—final arbiter of constitutionality, unelected justices serving for life, etc.—as unalloyed goods, and thus imply that Trump’s and Jefferson’s subversions of the federal judiciary are emblematic of any and all criticism of the judicial branch. But that’s not how I see the federal judiciary and the Supreme Court. If the Court is going to have a legitimate role in upholding the rule of law, then in my opinion, not as any kind of scholar but as a citizen, it’s overdue for serious reform. The Trump administration’s idea, by contrast, is to violate the existing system and overthrow the rule of law in order to pursue and establish arbitrary government in the United States.