Our President of the United States has the emotional capacity of a fourth-grade bully and a knowledge of the Constitution to match.
That has been evident for years for anyone paying attention, but it becomes ever more apparent when Donald Trump does not get his way. Take for example last week’s 6-3 U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down most of his tariffs.
Trump seethed and spouted personal insults at members of the court.
Trump, who knows no shame himself, said he was “absolutely ashamed of certain members of the Court, absolutely ashamed, for not having the courage to do what’s right for our country.”
As is his practice, Trump conflates what is best for the country with what is best for him personally.
He singled out Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch, who he appointed in his first term and who sided with the majority, as a “disgrace to our nation.” “They’re just being fools and lapdogs for the RINOs and the radical left Democrats—and…they are very unpatriotic and disloyal to our Constitution.”
Trump even accused the Justices of having been “swayed by foreign interests.”
Good grief.
The conservative Wall Street Journal opined that Trump “owes the Supreme Court an apology—to the individual Justices he smeared on Friday and the institution itself.” The Justices would be wise not to hold their collective breath waiting for that.
Trump followed up his foaming rant with the imposition of a new 15 percent global tariff on all imports entering the U.S. This new tariff is also legally dubious, but when has that ever stopped Trump?
Americans have borne the brunt of Trump’s ever-shifting trade duties, which amount to a tax on consumers. A paper published by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York earlier this month determined that “90 percent of the tariffs’ economic burden fell on U.S. firms and consumers.”
The Trump administration’s response was predictable. White House economic advisor Kevin Hassett called for authors of the paper to be investigated and disciplined. That’s in keeping with this administration’s practice of threatening to use the enormous power of the federal government to intimidate detractors.
Trump’s tirade against the Court included the invective that the Justices were “anti-American.” This is yet another example of how this President of the United States fails to comprehend the very core of our country’s founding doctrine: We are a country of laws, and we are all bound by those laws and not subject to the whims of would-be oligarchs.
There is no hope Trump will acknowledge that, but it is high time members of his party take their solemn oath seriously and hold him accountable.