DON’T BRING A KNIFE TO A GUN FIGHT

 The evolution of life on this planet has always been about survival of the fittest and survival of the fittest has always involved conflict, which is generally defined as “a struggle or clash between opposing forces.” Civilization throughout human history has been an attempt to regulate conflict, to make it less destructive, based on the realization that human beings need each other to survive and prosper and, if only the strongest individuals survive, there won’t be enough of us to survive as a species.

Civilization regulates conflict by establishing norms, rules and laws and a system to enforce them. That system can be authoritarian and operate by the use of force, or it can be democratic and operate by shared consent. Regulated conflict is called competition and is a part of daily life in every civilized society. When conflict is unregulated, either because there are no norms, rules or laws or because they exist but are unenforceable, we call that war; and there has never been a time in human history that there wasn’t a war going on somewhere in the world.

Regulated conflict (competition) and unregulated conflict (war) are absolutely incompatible in the sense that unregulated conflict will defeat regulated conflict every time. You can’t stop a coup d'état with a lawsuit. That’s the intended message of the title of this post. The “Don’t bring a knife to gun fight” line was made famous by Sean Connery in The Untouchables and demonstrated by Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Why do I bring this up now? Because that is what we are facing in the United States right now. The MAGA movement is pursuing its agenda without regard for the Rule of Law while those opposed to the MAGA movement are still playing by the rules. 

Allow me to digress for a moment with a brief civics lesson. The President of the United States does NOT have the authority to decide how our tax dollars will be spent. Authorizing expenditures and appropriating funds to support those expenditures is totally and exclusively the responsibility of Congress; and both the House and the Senate must agree on every authorization and appropriation. These decisions by Congress are called laws. The responsibility of the Executive Branch of government, led by the President, is to implement and enforce those laws. The responsibility of the Supreme Court is to ensure that the laws enacted by Congress and the way in which they are implemented and enforced by the Executive Branch do not violate the Constitution and its Amendments. In other words, what Donald Trump has been doing since he took office, shutting down government programs and agencies authorized by Congress and freezing funds appropriated by Congress to support those programs and agencies, is illegal. He does NOT have the constitutional authority to do that.

So, there are only a couple of questions that should matter right now to the American people who care about maintaining our constitutional republic. One, will Donald Trump honor federal court orders to stop what he is doing and, if he doesn’t, will the Republican controlled Supreme Court uphold the Constitution and respect the legal decisions made by lower federal courts? Two, if it doesn’t, or if it does and Mr. Trump still refuses to obey the law, will the Republican controlled Congress act to take back its constitutional authority? It would only take a half dozen Republican members of the House of Representatives and a dozen Republican senators joining with the Democrats to impeach Donald Trump and remove him from office. They would still have a Republican President and could still pursue a conservative agenda, but JD Vance is not Donald Trump. He is an articulate, educated opportunist, not an ignorant, malignant narcissist and he is much more likely to play by the rules than Mr. Trump, especially if Mr. Trump is impeached for not playing by the rules. Our constitutional republic will survive four years of competing over policies no matter which side wins or loses. It won’t survive the hostile, lawless takeover of our government.

If the Supreme Court and Congress do not support and enforce the Rule of Law then we, the American people who still believe in our constitutional republic, will have to go to war and do WHATEVER IT TAKES to win that war, in order to save it. And we, I say we because I am one of them, will have to make that decision and act on it the instant the Supreme Court or Congress fail to support or enforce the Rule of Law. If we wait, if we keep playing by rules that are no longer enforceable, if we bring a knife to a gun fight, we will most certainly lose the battle and you can bet your bottom dollar there will not be midterm elections for Congress in two years or a Presidential election in four years; and our constitutional republic, the envy of the free world, will be reduced to just another “banana republic” in the  Americas.

The writing is on the wall. During his campaign, while referring to his own lie about the 2020 Election being stolen on his Truth Social media platform, Donald Trump called for “the termination of all rules, regulations and articles, even those found in the Constitution.” He also told attendees at a Christian Convention in Florida, “If you vote for me, you won’t have to vote anymore. It’ll be fixed.” We have been warned and we need to heed that warning and be ready to respond accordingly. We will have only ourselves to blame if we don’t.