Letter to the editor: Written and unwritten rules
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Our Constitution contains the written rules governing our political system. It floats on a sea of unwritten rules needed to make it work as intended.
Adolf Hitler was not elected chancellor by voters. He was appointed chancellor by a conservative German president without consulting any parliament. This was perfectly legal. It violated no written rule, just unwritten rules and the spirit of the German Constitution. To the eventual sorrow of the German people.
Mitch McConnell, a tin-pot fascist, did the same. In refusing Merrick Garland a hearing for Supreme Court justice, he broke no written rule. The Constitution said a president can nominate a Supreme Court justice, but actually giving a nominee a hearing was only an unwritten rule. McConnell’s action was perfectly legal but did real violence to the Constitution, and put the lives of millions of women at risk.
Trump was different. He mobilized a mob and thumbed his nose at the written constitutional rules governing certification of a presidential election. That was completely illegal. It jeopardized all of the written rules — the entire Constitution — making them subject to a president’s whim. It would be as if we no longer had any rules governing our political system — a Wild West town where anything goes. And without the written rules, the unwritten rules become meaningless.
It is astonishing to me that so many Trump supporters seem unaware of this. Or that if they are, don’t seem to care.
Robert Supansic
McKeesport