Constitutional Accountability

On the road for the next couple of days, but I wanted to get in a sort post about something that’s been bothering me for a while and for which I do not have an answer.

We know that the Trump Admin is breaking the law, ignoring judges rulings and doing end runs around them, and pursuing unconstitutional policies.

The Trump Admin has figured out that capturing SCOTUS and asserting full control of the DOJ precludes the main method of accountability for breaking the law - criminal proceedings.

But there is a flaw in our system that is just as problematic - the fact that there are essentially no consequences for actions that are clearly and/or eventually determined to be unconstitutional.

The courts have no true enforcement mechanism. All people/orgs can do is sue to stop unconstitutional action, but there are no consequences to the government’s actions other than a court telling it to stop and/or rectify its behavior (yes, courts can hold people in contempt, but 1) they are hesitant to do it, and 2) that is clearly nota deterrent).

To a government run by people with a lust for power and no shame, this lack of ability to impose any accountability consequences is an invitation for those same people to run roughshod over, well, any perceived guardrails until they get their way, in the process obliterating what we all wanted to believe was an exquisitely crafted political system that would survive just such attempts at power consolidation and malfeasance.

It’s a flaw. Maybe we can’t do much about it, but we should recognize it and develop strategies to counteract…