A Constitutional Case for Boycotting the Inauguration

If Donald Trump thought Barack Obama was an illegitimate president, he needs to look in the mirror this Friday afternoon.

Trump's infamous fixation on Obama's birth certificate was fueled by an alleged allegiance to the Constitution, which simply requires that all presidents be U.S. citizens and at least 35-years-old. Trump appealed to the authority of the Constitution to justify his asinine claim of presidential illegitimacy and stoke the worst instincts of his loyal base.  

Obama eventually added credibility to Trump's conspiracy theory and released his birth certificate, needlessly proving he was indeed preserving and protecting his end of the Constitution.

Meanwhile, as Trump takes the Oath of Office, he will be dragging the country into a Constitutional crisis a lot more serious than the origins of Obama.

As of Friday, Donald Trump will be an illegitimate president, but not because he was born in Kenya or has the attention span of a five-year-old. No, it's a lot worse. Since Trump still refuses to sell his businesses, he will be in clear violation of Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution, otherwise known as the Emoluments Clause, which states:

"No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State."

Look past the capital letters and mumbo jumbo punctuation for the essence of the Founders' statement: America is not for sale, and no asshole should be allowed to enrich himself at the expense of its sanctity and safety. Trump's business entanglements circle the globe, and it's not only what he owns buy who he owes. His debts to foreign governments are unknown and shall remain unknown until he releases his tax returns, documents which Trump claims no one cares about. If no one cares about the tax returns, then why not just release them? Why not stop the blackmail suspicion from growing?      

It would have been nice if the piles of stuffed file folders at Trump's recent press conference contained his tax returns and not pamphlets from Trump University. The grim irony here is that unlike Obama, who went above and beyond to release his document and placate the birthers, as long as Trump owns and owes places and people, he will need to release his tax returns should he ever want to be considered a legitimate president by millions of Americans.                                                                     

And so the inauguration of Unpresident Trump is no inauguration at all. Illegitimacy breeds illegitimacy, and if Trump is illegitimate, so is his inauguration.

While Congressman John Lewis and others are boycotting the inauguration because of a foreign power's influence on the election, proving the power of Russian propaganda is a far more difficult task than proving that yet another politician is profiting from his position. On the other hand, if Trump was a compromised candidate - which his tax returns might also show - the election does lose legitimacy, as voters were sold a bill of goods by a compromised, foreign agent.    

If our country has any dignity left, the demands to see Trump's tax returns must far surpass the demands to see Obama's birth certificate. For while both are linked to the Constitution, one has legs and legitimacy while the other festers in a puddle of bigotry and illegitimacy. It should surprise no one that accusations about Obama's legitimacy originated from an illegitimate president who as of Friday will preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution to the very least of his ability...  

Donald Trump's Conflicts with the Constitution

The looming inauguration of Donald J. Trump Dump has American stupidity scraping the abyss. Look no further for evidence of this than our future leader's command of the English language and his own attention span. Indeed, these deficits alone may be all people need to fear the next four years. 

But another reason to dread Dump has as much to do with ignorance as it does good old-fashioned greed and hubris. 

The U.S. Constitution, a document which binds the Republic together, is about to be violated in more ways than a pedophile in prison. Dump's presidency, in particular, is poised to wreak havoc on both the First Amendment and the Emoluments Clause. For those still trying to pronounce it, the Emoluments Clause shields federal officials from the financial influence of foreign powers, while the First Amendment shields citizens from the dictates of demagogues like Dump.

More on the First Amendment later. 

As of this blog post, Dump has shown zero signs of shedding his business entanglements at home and abroad. As a result, government officials from Saudi Arabia to Stormville will soon be inclined to fellate the most powerful man in the world, waving fees and expediting permits. Likewise, it will be in Dump's best interest to forge federal policies that boost his brand around the globe. Because of these conflicts, Dump's most precious commodity will be his businesses instead of the American people. It seems we've elected yet another politician who puts money before morals, power before principles.   

And what if World War III breaks out in Turkey, for instance? Will Dump send in ground troops to fight Russians, or to protect his skyscrapers? Unless this actually happens, we may never know for sure, since Dump dumped most members of the media after he was elected president.

         Trump has dumped around the world,
      and he's not even president yet.      

The closest Dump has come to a press conference in recent days was a brief and bizarre appearance at his Mar-a-Lago resort with boxing promoter and former murderer Don King. If and when Dump does give his next real press conference - one in which more than three questions are allowed - expect it to be filled with sentence fragments, superlatives, and abrupt non-sequiturs. Dump knows no other way, after all, and each press conference and speech he gives sounds a lot like the previous one played backwards.    
                               

Trump with Don "Only in the Idiocracy" King

Though we should not expect a 70-year-old man to suddenly discover lucidity, a free press is among the ways we ensure that the president is neither incompetent nor corrupt, something Dump has unfortunately yet to demonstrate to the majority of the country. His inane Tweets, if anything, have proven the opposite - stained by ignorance, greed, and hubris. Nevertheless, Dump's Tweets are preserved for posterity, and will make for a fine display in his presidential library, right next to an oil painting called Nuclear Winter is Coming. 

Hubris, as the Greeks remind us, is often the most destructive flaw of all. And if the Greeks know anything, Dump's unpresidential pride may soon wrap itself around the First Amendment, cracking its spine before consuming it.

For example, Dump prefers to tell us what to think rather than how to think, and filters his demands through his ego, otherwise known as his Twitter account:

"I will take my message directly to the American people and bypass the unethical press that wants to see their candidate elected."                                                           -Donald J. Trump    

Even if Dump's messages made sense, the leader of the free world cannot be held to a standard of 140 characters or less; never mind hurling barbs at Hollywood actors and Gold Star fathers, among the many others who pay his salary.    

Further, will Dump's rants on Twitter replace White House press briefings?

Or if he does keep his businesses, who will stop him from using all of that Commander-in-Chief ca$h to say, start his own disinformation news network?

Who will stop him from buying Twitter? Dump's critics should prepare to have their accounts suspended, at the very least, and bloggers should have their high-priced lawyers on standby.

A world which bullshit circles before the truth gets out of bed does not need someone like Dump as an arbiter of truth, or nuclear weapons, for that matter.

It will be up to the ignorant and informed to save this world before it swallows itself.