Practical Politics
As the grifts continue--Mr. Trump now hawking $59.99 Bibles with his new personal engraving on the cover--we are now becoming even more attuned to the attempt at converting the U.S. to a Republican Party autocracy.
Nevermind that Mr. Trump cannot recite ANY Bible verse that is his favorite, or identify any biblical chapters to support his position that most of the U.S. should cast their presidential votes for him. What is becoming evident within the fog of hucksterism that is his past and current presidential campaign is that nothing about America is sacred and above being pimped. He just wants to win, by any means he deems necessary, fair or foul. He does not possess or even offer any special talents or credentials to bring to a second shot at being the POTUS.
Two points to be made here in this political science lesson--one short, the other long. The U.S. was officially established as a government which would not allow the Church to subsume the U.S. Constitution. In Amendment One of the U.S. Constitution, the clear statement is "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, ecetera, ecetera." Most of the original authors of the U.S. Constitution were in fact Christians or other believers in God, but they were anxious not to impose any version of Christianity or other religion into the making and evolution of the United States as an entity.
What Mr. Trump is trying to bring to the party fits better as an assault on what the U.S. Constitution means. In fact, Mr. Trump's latest gambit seems to fit the biblical story in The Book of Proverbs of the arrival of the AntiChrist, who is expected to bedazzle the public as the real second coming of Christ, before leading us all into eternal damnation.
The context of that damnation has recently been prepared by an American organization already infamous for clouding the reputation of federal judges---the Federalist Society. Not willing to wait until the Republican Party holds its national convention out of which a National Position Paper (National Platform) is to be developed, the Federalist Society has already developed such a national plan for the Grand Old Party, and they intend to present it and muscle through its adoption at the Republican National Convention in August, this year.
Called in some circles, Project 2025, it is a grand strategy to place the entire Executive Branch of the U.S. government under direct presidential control, eliminating the independence of entities such as the Department Of Justice (DOJ), the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and other similar agencies that now represent the guardrails of the U.S. government.
The first pillar of Project 2025 is the upcoming production and distribution to Republicans of "Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise," a pamphlet that represents a summary of the work of more than 350 leading conservative voices that outlines a new vision of conservative success at each federal agency during the next Republican administration. It is a plan to swiftly restructure the executive branch under an extreme version of the unitary executive theory — in this case a strategy which institutes the idea that the POTUS has absolute power over every part of the executive branch. All regulatory authority not handled directly by the POTUS would end.
Professor David L. Horne is founder and executive director of PAPPEI, the Pan African Public Policy and Ethical Institute, which is a new 501(c)(3) pending community-based organization or non-governmental organization (NGO). It is the stepparent organization for the California Black Think Tank which still operates and which meets every fourth Friday.
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