The U.S. Constitution is not a suggestion. It is the most sacred document in our country’s history.
Under the government it created, 12,583 people have served in Congress, 116 justices have been appointed to the Supreme Court’s bench and 45 presidents have led the executive branch.
Now one of those presidents is seeking to undermine it. Whether Donald Trump is deporting legal residents in defiance of the courts, freezing federal grants in defiance of Congress, attempting to unilaterally dismantle its amendments, or calling for its termination altogether, the current president seems to think he rules the Constitution, and not the other way around.
The latest case involves a 20-year-old Venezuelan identified in court papers only as Cristian, who was flown to El Salvador in March despite an earlier court order barring him from being deported.
The president can’t change the Constitution even if he wants, as he has no role in the amendment process.
The president is sworn to uphold the Constitution, not undermine it. He can’t even change it if he wants, as the president has no specific constitutional role in the process for amending the Constitution.
Article V outlines two methods, both of which have a high bar. Under the first, a proposal passed by a two-thirds vote of both the House and the Senate is then ratified by two-thirds of state legislatures. In the second, two-thirds of state legislatures can call for a new constitutional convention — something that has never happened in our history. In neither case is the president even consulted.
This is why our government has endured for more than two centuries. The founders designed it to be impervious to the whims of one man, but flexible enough to adapt with the times.
I’m concerned that some Americans think Trump’s word alone can rewrite our supreme governing document. That is not the case, nor should it be — no matter what Trump and his allies tell you.
President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation is rightly studied in schools to this day. But his words aren’t what abolished slavery. The 13th Amendment did that.
The Seneca Falls Convention was monumental. But that’s not what ensured that millions of women could cast a ballot in the last election. The 19th Amendment did that.
And it’s not Donald Trump’s or DHS Secretary Kristi Noem’s words that determine who is entitled to due process under the law. Those are the Fifth and 14th Amendments.
The United States Constitution is not a gaudy skyscraper on Fifth Avenue, with the name “TRUMP” in gold letters. Quite the opposite: It says “WE THE PEOPLE.”
This is the moment we the people must stand up. If the rest of Trump’s term continues on this path, the document he swore twice to protect and defend will be nothing more than faded paper and the 27 amendments forged over centuries to protect us will fade right along with it.
For more thought-provoking insights from Michael Steele, Alicia Menendez and Symone Sanders-Townsend, watch “The Weeknight” every Monday-Friday at 7 p.m. ET on MSNBC.
