Joseph Sabino Mistick: Constitution is not a buffet

Sometimes it would be nice to treat the United States Constitution like a buffet. Imagine if you could take the parts you want and leave the rest behind. But that’s just not the nature of our Constitution.

Donald Trump always gets cheers at his rallies when he promises to protect the Second Amendment rights of gun owners. In the wake of the latest mass shooting, he might float the idea of reasonable reform, but he always scurries away after the tragedy slips from the news.

Trump told a crowd in New Hampshire last August, “We can’t make it harder for good, solid, law-abiding citizens to protect themselves. We will always uphold the right to self-defense, and we will always uphold the Second Amendment.”

Trump thinks he likes the way the Founders thought, at least when it comes to guns. This “originalist” approach holds to the plain meaning of the Constitution when it was drafted, with no adjustments for the shift from muskets to machine guns.

And it makes political sense for Trump to think that way. It was the position made famous by the late Justice Antonin Scalia, who was the model Trump said he preferred when he was shopping for Supreme Court nominees. Scalia once said that the Constitution is “not a living document. It is dead, dead, dead.”

But Trump only places his faith in the wisdom of the Founders when it suits him. He wants to end that part of the 14th Amendment that says that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”

“You can definitely do it with an act of Congress, but now they’re saying I can do it just with an executive order,” Trump told Axios.

And he comes down on both sides of the First Amendment. When he was criticized after tweeting an insult about former Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch while she was testifying before Congress, he struck back.

“I have the right to speak. I have freedom of speech just like other people do,” Trump said later. And he has a point.

But that has not kept him from calling for changes to libel laws so it would be easier to sue reporters. He wants their First Amendment rights to be less than his.

Impeachment is the part of the Constitution that Trump has the most trouble with these days. Through their representatives, the people have the power to challenge and remove their highest public officials, even the president. Trump sees it differently.

“As I learn more and more each day, I am coming to the conclusion that what is taking place is not an impeachment, it is a COUP, intended to take away the Power of the People,” Trump tweeted in October.

But the Constitution plainly says, “The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

And whether you are an “originalist” or you think that the Constitution should bend with the times, it can’t get any clearer than that.