Trump’s Constitutional deviance

Over the weekend, Donald Trump reacted to the Hunter Biden non-story that went viral on Twitter on Friday night, on his own social media platform, Truth Social. Trump wrote, “Do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION? A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.” And there it is: the absolutely desperate effort of a twice-impeached, disgraced ex-president to find a rationale for subverting the U.S. Constitution to get himself back into power. Trump set a precedent for this in 2020. Sensing a potential loss in the presidential election, he made numerous ominous threats about the election perhaps being rigged. Those threats seeded the narrative he later used to justify his attempts to overturn the election results and incite a violent insurrection. Now, with multiple investigations bearing down on him, and as Republicans are souring on him post-midterms, Trump is seeding a new narrative. Expect this rhetoric to continue as a way for him to suggest that election rules and regulations don’t apply to him and should be thrown out. By casting not only the last election but the electoral system itself as illegitimate, he hopes to fast-track the Republican nomination for himself. Maybe this time, the GOP won’t go along for the ride. —Miles Taylor, Executive Director, Renew America Foundation

• Georgia voters set to render verdict in Senate runoff between Warnock, Walker —Bloomberg

• North Carolina county declares state of emergency after ‘deliberate’ attack causes widespread power outage —CBS News

• Bipartisan duo targets immigration reform during lame-duck —Axios

• Drone attacks hit Russia for second straight day —The New York Times

• Rep. Andy Biggs challenges McCarthy for speaker —Axios

About that oath…

So what if he swore an oath to defend it on a January day nearly six years ago? Donald Trump isn’t about to let that pesky Constitution get in the way of his dreams of returning to the White House. In fact, why wait until 2024? Let’s just have an election now! That was the gist of the ex-president’s rant on Truth Social on Saturday. And for once, he’s getting more than a little bit of pushback from fellow Republicans (though it’s still nowhere near enough). It seems the underwhelming election results last month did wonders for helping some in the GOP locate their sense of decency again. Trump has ample reason to worry, and not only about his 2024 prospects. —Politico

• Special counsel issues subpoenas. Jack Smith, the special counsel overseeing the Justice Department’s investigations into the classified documents seized from Mar-a-Lago and the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, has issued his first subpoenas. He has requested from local election officials in four states—Milwaukee and Dane counties in Wisconsin; Wayne County, Michigan; Maricopa County, Arizona; and Allegheny County, Pennsylvania—all communications with or about Trump, his 2020 campaign aides, and other allies involved in his efforts to try to overturn the results of the election. —Associated Press

• “We have made decisions on criminal referrals.” The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack is closing in on criminal referrals to the DOJ, according to Chair Bennie Thompson. A four-member subcommittee is focusing on completing the unfinished business of the larger panel, including issuing a final report, before it disbands at the end of the year. The members are expected to come to a final resolution on criminal referrals by the end of the week. —Axios

• Guilty on all counts. A New York City jury today convicted two subsidiaries of the Trump Organization on charges stemming from what prosecutors described as a sweeping, multi-decade scheme to avoid paying payroll taxes by compensating top executives with untaxed benefits such as housing and cars. Jurors rendered a guilty verdict on all 15 of the charges included in the indictment filed against the Trump Corporation, the Trump Payroll Corporation, and Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg. —The Independent

MORE: Thomas Shull: Trump’s disrespect for the Constitution underscores the need for an apolitical military —The UnPopulist

Waxman: Old tropes, same hate

“The most enduring and perhaps most distinctive feature of antisemitism is the central role it often plays in conspiracy theories. Take the so-called great replacement theory and the related idea of ‘White genocide,’ which falsely claim that Jews are covertly trying to replace White, Christian populations in White-majority countries with people of color and non-Christians. These conspiracy theories drive much of White Nationalism, and are why White Supremacists and neo-Nazis marching in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017 chanted, ‘Jews will not replace us!’ The perpetrators of some of the worst racist violence in the United States in recent years, such as the mass shootings in Buffalo, El Paso, and Pittsburgh, were all motivated by these antisemitic ideas.” —Dov Waxman in Milwaukee Independent

Dov Waxman is the Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation Professor of Israel Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles.

MORE: Bipartisan coalition pushes for national strategy on antisemitism —Axios

Schoen: The world needs a united America

“There should be no debate over whether a Putin-controlled Russia is a threat to the United States. Vladimir Putin is a dictator and a war criminal whose military has interfered in our own elections, and those on the political right—including but not limited to the former president—who kowtow to him are actively putting the free world at risk. … And make no mistake, supporting Ukraine is not only a matter of countering Vladimir Putin. It is just as much about sending a loud message to other autocratic leaders—particularly in Beijing and Tehran—that the United States will not stand by as democracy is actively threatened abroad.” —Douglas Schoen in The Hill

Douglas Schoen is a political consultant who served as an adviser to former President Bill Clinton and to the 2020 presidential campaign of Michael Bloomberg. He is the author of “The End of Democracy? Russia and China on the Rise and America in Retreat.”

MORE: David Szalay: The rise of the international nationalists —The New York Times

SCOTUS takes on voting

Tomorrow is the big day. The U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear opening arguments in Moore v. Harper, a case brought by North Carolina Republicans, that could significantly increase the power of state lawmakers over elections for Congress and the presidency. Earlier this year, the North Carolina State Supreme Court struck down new district maps drawn by the Republican-controlled legislature, ruling them unconstitutional due to partisan gerrymandering. However, House Speaker Tim Moore, representing the plaintiffs in the case, believes the State Supreme Court overstepped its bounds. The justices of the 6-3 conservative court will decide whether they agree with him. “This is the single most important case on American democracy—and for American democracy—in the nation’s history,” said former federal judge Michael Luttig, a prominent conservative who has joined the legal team defending the North Carolina court decision. Stay tuned. —Cleveland.com

MORE: Supreme Court won't hear case brought by a group of voters against Dominion Voting Systems and Facebook —CNN

Anderson: It’s time for real election reform 

“[Ranked-choice voting] is basically a winnowing process. While recognizing the candidate preferred by most voters—not simply by Democratic or Republican voters—it also tests how deep that preference goes. And eliminates those that are not strongly preferred by most voters. No more two-person, ‘lesser of two evils’ choices. And it has the potential to advantage candidates who are more centrist as well, since they would not be eliminated in a sharply partisan primary election where only the purest party identifiers tend to vote. Gerrymanders and party primary voting have poisoned the political well. So, let’s be at least willing to try something else.” —R. Bruce Anderson in The Ledger

R. Bruce Anderson is the Dr. Sarah D. and L. Kirk McKay Jr. Endowed Chair in American History, Government, and Civics at Florida Southern College and Miller Distinguished Professor of Political Science. He is also a columnist for The Ledger and political consultant and on-air commentator for WLKF Radio.

MORE: Burlington residents to use ranked-choice voting in special election —CBS News

Schaus: Party disloyalty gives rise to cautious optimism

“As it turns out, not all voters view the ballot as a binary contest between two large political factions—some voters, apparently, care about what name is next to the letter that denotes a particular party affiliation. Those voters who split their ticket should be considered a warning to partisans that the traditional team-sport approach to elections is going to have to change with a growing percentage of the public feeling disillusioned about our current state of political affairs. And make no mistake, plenty of voters apparently feel disillusioned—the ever-increasing market share of unaffiliated voter registrations being one obvious manifestation of such discontent.” —Michael Schaus in The Nevada Independent

Michael Schaus is the founder of Schaus Creative LLC and previously worked as a news director, columnist, and director of communications for a public policy think tank. 

MORE: Group wants to ask voters for open primaries again —South Dakota Public Broadcasting

The modern Republican Party has abandoned its roots and must rediscover them to survive. Abraham Lincoln defended the Union and basic human rights. Theodore Roosevelt championed environmental and corporate responsibility. Dwight Eisenhower warned against the military-industrial complex and respected the judiciary. Ronald Reagan promoted peace through strength. George H.W. Bush accepted our international obligations to maintain peace. This current trajectory of Trumpism is unsustainable and corrupts our nation's spirit. —Leonard C., Texas

Former President Trump's latest outrage (as of this writing)—namely, his proposal to terminate laws, articles of the Constitution, et. al.—laid bare his ambition and objectives on Jan. 6, 2021, as well as the accumulated sworn testimony of so many Republicans in his own administration who could no longer work for him after the insurrection. Yet, why, even now, are so many Republican leaders still so hesitant to denounce him forthrightly?

Perhaps there is now an opportunity for the Forward Party to recast itself as the Constitution Party, to draw an unambiguous line between those who stand for the rule of law under democratic accountability and the morally compromised who have so easily accommodated political opportunism at the expense of constitutional law. —Steve J., Pennsylvania

The views expressed in "What's Your Take?" are submitted by readers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff or the Renew America Foundation.