How to Get a Senior Job in MAGA-land – Lose an Election or Get Convicted

  Democrats vs Trump/Musk

The Supreme Court has set the stage for a “justified” post-constitutional America. Antonin Scalia, the proselytizer of “originalism” as the sole legitimate judicial method to interpret the Constitution, effectively guaranteed a post-constitutional era. If our founders intended for the Constitution to be effective to carry the nation through inevitable future massive change, it needed to be flexible enough to embrace that change. But in Heller v District of Columbia (a 2008 case about an attempt by the municipal government to control the proliferation of guns), Scalia applied the notion that the Second Amendment had to be governed within the nexus of muskets and flintlocks (the reality of 1789 when the Bill of Rights was passed), so Glocks and AR-15s were reviewed within a very limited “reality.” “Originalism” was applied.

He missed that one too, so determined was he to deregulate gun ownership, he misapplied British law and ignored that the Amendment’s reach was simply to allow Revolutionary Citizen soldiers to take their muskets home with them. Heller was the first case in our history in which that Court declared relatively unrestricted gun ownership had always been the law of the land. It wasn’t, but hey, a “dead” constitution (Scalia’s own description) could be neutralized. Forgetting about the anomalies of the Dred Scott ruling, soon to be rejected by that Court, the modern era produced new Supreme Court rulings that unleashed big money to spend unrestricted funds on political issues, allowed state legislatures to impose obviously biased voter restrictions, and extracted from thin air the notion of presidential immunity from criminal investigation and prosecution of the President… as long as he couched those efforts within some as aspect of this “official actions.

Without that thread of Supreme Court decisions – once able to stop Richard Nixon from relying on criminal acts to support his reelection bid – the judiciary tilted severely to the MAGA right. Judicial guard rails fractured. Former federal felons – from Jared Kushner’s father becoming our ambassador to France to finding jobs for individuals tried for violent crimes – were now being considered for senior appointments in the Trump administration. Would pardoned, corrupt former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who served eight years in prison on corruption charges, be considered by Trump as a possible U.S. ambassador to Serbia? Maybe. Look at all the losers (dozens of MAGA candidates defeated in their election bids) finding their way to senior appointments within the Trump administration – like Kari Lake now set to run the Voice of America, Dr. Mehmet Oz to serve as the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a key federal agency that oversees health insurance, or Herschel Walker as our ambassador to the Bahamas, etc., etc.

How many J-6 pardoned felons would find work within the Trump umbrella? Even pro-Trump supporters in the financial sector see the benefit of hiring trump-backed individuals of questionable judgment. Less than two months after he was acquitted in the subway chokehold death of Jordan Neely, Marine vet, Daniel Penny, was hired by Andreessen Horowitz to work in Manhattan as a deal partner on the firm’s American Dynamism team, which invests in government and defense tech. Trump’s power is so extensive within the GOP that elected MAGA supporters are ready to defy unambiguous constitutional limits to serve Trump’s dictates and take down anyone who is attempting to rein Trump’s/Musk’s excesses that most constitutional scholars agree have been ignored. “Patriot” and even the American flag have been coopted as MAGA symbols.

How about Arizona GOP Representative Eli Crane? He is drafting articles of impeachment against federal Judge Paul A. Engelmayer, who is presiding in a trial filed by 20 state attorneys general trying to prevent DOGE from accessing the very private Department of the Treasury personnel files. Crane maintained that Engelmayer was "attempting to stop White House employees from accessing the very systems they oversee." DOGE has zero federal employees! Meanwhile, the Trump administration was ignoring federal trial court orders to stop the overall spending freeze imposed by Trump, to restore Congress-approved agencies from being shut down by DOGE, and to end attempted forced buyouts of federal employees. Trump has also ordered the Department of Justice to pause prosecutions of American companies using bribery of foreign officials as a business practice (a felony under US law).

Yet hapless Democrats are like deer in the headlights. Frozen, railing and rallying with no unifying force, often battling within their own factions with elitist ideological arguments – even with Minnesota’s Ken Martin’s becoming chair of the DNC – as Trump has forced the GOP to unity with an iron, threat-filled hand. Democratic Progressives repeat the mantras that failed to find traction in the November election, struggle against “moderates”… keeping the Dems powerless as Trump has his way with the nation… his approval level still strong, particularly with the working class where Dems once prevailed.

Oh, did I mention that there has been no genuine effort by the Democratic Party to LISTEN to that missing constituency. There also seems to be a missing awareness over how much Americans have grown to distrust government bureaucracy, viewing it as a cesspool of waste and corruption (believing the baseless MAGA claims)… and that a momentary break from democracy just may be necessary to “drain the swamp” and annihilate the “deep state.” They miss that Trump is creating his own swamp and a forever deep state… even going so far as to require new civil service applicants to acknowledge loyalty to Trump above all else… even the Constitution. They still believe television is a relevant communications device… while Republicans rule in social media (owning X and Truth Social) and podcasts.

Trump could provoke a constitutional crisis by ignoring court orders and forcing the Supreme Court to recognize the damage its recent decisions have wrought… but what if the don’t? King Trump? Tsar Musk, whose very wealth has been accelerated with billions of dollars of federal contracts? The Visigoths have arrived.

I’m Peter Dekom, and if the Dems have even a slight shot at prevailing without complete reliance on “not Trump,” they must unify, regroup, listen to the other side… and only then act with extreme force and vigor… everywhere, all at once!