April 30, 2017

Trump calls constitutional checks and balances "a really bad thing"

Guardian - In an interview with Fox News to mark the 100-day mark, [Trump] declared himself “disappointed” with congressional Republicans, despite his many “great relationships” with them.

He blamed the constitutional checks and balances built in to US governance. “It’s a very rough system,” he said. “It’s an archaic system … It’s really a bad thing for the country.”

4 comments:

Boffin said...

Fake news.

Trump was speaking about Senate rules, and the filibuster. That's what he was calling a 'very rough system' and 'an archaic system.' Perhaps that's newsworthy, or worthy of discussion, but it's certainly not what is implied by our editor's snippet.

What's concerning is that our editor, bless his heart, chose to run with this without going to the original source to check. I have no doubt that Trump said or did something today worthy of criticism; there's no need to make stuff up.

Anonymous said...

The US constitutional system IS archaic. It's arcane, inefficient and nearly impervious to reform. It's entirely possible to run a free and modern society without each branch and sub-branch of government pitted in perpetual war with each other- as Canada and most of Europe easily demonstrate.

Greg Gerritt said...

means we need a parliamentary system with proportional representation and get the money out of politics.

Anonymous said...

Our former Constitutional system was too radical to last, as predicted by Franklin and Jefferson. It was overthrown from within just as Washington had warned. Our civil war started as a war between the branches Taney versus Lincoln. LaFollette Progressives understood that the Court was the supreme branch and something had to be done. FDR's threat in 1937 lasted until Buckley v Valeo ended the republic. Currently the national security state drives the Executive ever since the U-2 incident. The judiciary runs the country by turning Congress over to big oil and other big money, replacing the voter as the sovereign. The Progressive project since Lincoln,LaFollette and FDR has been to restore the balance of powers, but there are no Progressives anymore, not even Sanders who usurps the issue without understanding it. Our leading Constitutional scholar Ackerman says the best we can do is argue for Constitutional values even if we don't have a Constition. Latest clause to be removed, the emoluments clause. The Constitution has no defenders even though all officials are so sworn. As Sanders seems vaguely aware, if Buckley were overthrown, the republic could be restored but that would involve a wider conflict than between the branches and states now that the US is merely the homeland for a global empire.