His courage is admirable and, given the temptation to temper expectations or even give up, he reminds me that I should always want and expect more while supporting the right of everyone to live fully in a liberal society.
"Let the government of the country rest securely down upon the shoulders of the
whole nation; let there be no shoulder that does not bear up its proportion of
the burdens of the government." mf could write
“Each for all and all for each” is so much better than “one for all and all for one” — and, I note to your point, if you pay attention to the way your mouth moves, it is much more appropriate to the embouchure of military shouting. It’s the sort of thing to sound off to the unit at a charge
Lin Manuel Miranda was on to something, eh? I love how he brought those characters into our conversation by using Rap to prove their relevance.
"Miranda saw parallels between Hamilton's life and the lives of rappers, which led him to envision a hip-hop musical about Hamilton."
We knew the problems from the start. The compromise was solve those problems in a way that could result in an ineffective or trust that enough good people were available to constrain the evil in power. The latter gambit work for some 200 years.
Among other things, to people who have to write convincingly Douglass is the God of Bangers. I think every History major gets put through the process of having to squeeze through Henry Adams and Stuve, etc and then they assign Douglass and it's like oh it wasn't my brain it's writing!
https://oyc.yale.edu/history/hist-119 Harvard University is now offering a free online course on our Constitution and the institutions around the same, that hopefully is as good as Professor Blight's one!
Many historians list Donald John Trump below James Buchanan and Andrew Johnson on a POTUS best to worst list. Given that nuclear weapons exist today, given that Donald Trump's skill set is not equal to that of James Buchanan, and his innate biases are worse than Andrew Johnson's...
David Blight quoting this Douglass quote in his Reconstruction course [available on YouTube] puts so pithily so much of American history:
"If war among the whites brought peace and liberty to blacks, what will peace among the whites bring?"
Putinism is alien to democracy, and Trump’s admiration for that system and other authoritarian regimes, his debts to them and implementation of their advice, has been a disaster, though Trump is a citizen.
Sir, I wish to thank you for posting this. I realize how little I know about Fredrick Douglas.
After reading these two paragraphs, I see I need to learn more about this great man.
I am experiencing similar resonances from the 19th century into today, reading Wife No. 19 by Ann-Eliza Young (1875) describing narcissistic Brigham Young!
Though I am glad Biden saved his last living son Hunter from being summarily executed by Trump and Bondi for crimes which are so minor they're almost never charged as standalone crimes.
After the last few months, does anyone doubt Trump would try this? He still wants to kill the Central Park Five.
>2/3s of states should be able to ratify revisions to significantly quash this easily abused power … such as require pardons to get 2/3 of senate to approve
“Pardoning! How inexpressibly base have been the uses made by this power —this beneficent power. It has been that with which a treacherous President has trafficked. He has made it the means of securing adherents to himself instead of securing allegiance to the government.” - Frederick Douglass, 1867
My suggestion would be modifying the process to required it to be vetted by a Congressional committee and then requiring Senate vote of two thirds for approval.
Deserving persons would breeze through, but political action would have little chance to be approved.🤔
🙏❤️💕
When I consider the question of “which historical figures would you want to invite to your fantasy dinner party”, Mr. Douglas is high on the list. His life story is quite extraordinary.
Trump easily fits the description of "bad President ", and many will have to hang their heads in shame when their children, and children's children, hear about their support for him.
As much as the end of the Civil War would have been a relief, going from Lincoln to Andrew Johnson must have felt depressing. What a massive downgrade!
An educated man - we don’t need private schools & computers. The Greatest Generation of Americans were schooled in one-room school houses.
Just teach our kids the basics & they can learn anything!
Yep. The Constitution is supposed to be a living document. We used to adjust it as necessary, like giving women the vote in the 20s. The pardon power should be reduced, the way the Senate is chosen should be changed to a democratic model, and of course the electoral college should be abolished.
It is truly one of the stupidest laws in america. You might as well have a king/queen when presidents have this much power. Trump is using it as an ATM.
Oh where is our Frederick Douglass to cut through this knee-deep BS with clear words and keen insight?
America has not deserved her Black people, who have given so much and received so little.
We must do better.
…and here we are, Bad Man with Treacherous power enabled and empowered by the greedy, feckless, and coweringly inept who are ever elected by the Gullible, Prejudiced, and Mean.
We should never have had this pardon power thing in the first place. Either the courts render just verdicts or they are fundamentally unjust, and giving an executive the power to undo a court decision implies the injustice is baked into the system. Remove the pardon and fix the courts, I say.
i do know, if our country survives this crap and those traitors responsible are convicted, i'm going to have a huge problem if the president pardons any of them
Douglas and Marx were born in 1818. There's a bronze of Douglas outside the Natural History Museum/NYC it sets my imaginary to see them brothers.
Not just the hair, the eyes, the determined look.
Marx articulated a philosophy of praxis, Douglas embodied it.
The racial struggle is the human struggle
Frederick Douglass has been one of my heroes for a long time, ever since I read in his autobiography that he'd had enough of his "master"'s bad treatment and beat the shit out of him. How he developed that amazing sense of his own value after his childhood I'll never understand, but it's great!
Would a constitutional amendment that clarifies pardons can’t be given for any crime that benefits the president or vice president personally, professionally or politically? I guess it would be SCOTUS that would have to determine that?
And by "making a farce" of the pardon power, isn't he in violation of the Presidential Oath of Office? And if in violation of the POO, isn't this then an impeachable offense? When the POTUS acts as a "judge", isn't the first test of any judge the test for recusal? The COTUS is not a suicide pact!!!
It’s almost like checks and balances are what make for fair governance, and any power without an express check/balance can and eventually will be abused by the faithless.
Other hand, the pardon is not a terrible idea, but it should be in the hands of a non-political operator. I would give it to Pastor William Barber II. I think he could handle it wisely.
I find myself of late thinking about how much better off we might have been if Andrew Johnson had been convicted and removed and the the civic mythology around the failure to impeach Andrew Johnson distilled into it's final essence in by Kennedy and Soronsen.
In the now, the lesson is not that trump has/is doing this but that WE need to do this to shift the nation back into balance and then have the courage to eliminate anyone from gaining that power going forward
Remarkable the extent to which norms and the character of individuals in government were responsible for holding our flimsy constitution together for centuries, undone by a handful of cretins and cowards
Of all the founders saw and knew from history, I think "shame" was a given emotion that they assumed would stop even the worst tyrant. There have always been shameless people but I would guess none like Trump. They couldn't imagine someone like him not being impeached or resigning.
There's a lot in the Constitution indicating they did imagine a POTUS like TACO. They never imagined a Congress that would roll over and play dead and a SCOTUS owned and operated by the same billionaires who elected him.
I'm kinda jealous of countries that allow snap elections when they wanna redo their government. With Citizens United & corrupt Rethugs in charge of elections & districting, the power has been taken from the people. We need to take it back!
Yes. They may have envisioned a corrupt President and they failed to imagine both Chambers of Congress so weak and intimidated-they wouldn’t act as a check or a balance. Add a corrupt Supreme Court and you have a fascist state. Ruled by the power of one branch-the presidency or as Trump sees fit. 👑
If you do read it I will be so happy because I keep telling people I know to read it and they’re mostly like “this sounds too dense to get into” but it’s seriously the most informative thing I’ve ever read about how modern American politics developed
I’m looking on https://bookshop.org right now! I want to dive in to this period specifically — much was “left out” in history classes and I’m grateful for your recommendation! If there’s an audiobook option, maybe that will help? Can be easier / more accessible. Thx again!
I read this via Audible. I had tried two years ago and hated the narrator but was able to trade it in and get the updated version as narrated by Grover Gardner and that was excellent (he’s also the narrator on their version of Rise and Fall of the Third Reich)
Awesome! Funny thing: recently listened to Gardner’s reading of “Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” — great to know he’s done this one as well. Audiobooks provide so much flexibility! Thx!
@dollemore.com , was watching your Recent YouTube video "Josh Hawley HAS ASS HANDED TO HIM by Constitutional Law Professor"
Professor Of Law #KateShaw
#JesseDollemorr
I teach (still, for now) reading at a Job Corps center. My students must prepare to TABE test, in part, on historical documents. Frederick Douglass and John F. Kennedy have saved us all from frustration and grumbling. These brilliant, timeless men still spark intelligent and profound discussion.
The presidential power to pardon is just an overriding of the judicial branch and decisions made by a jury of the convicted's peers. It is saying, "Nope, you were wrong to sentence this person, so I will free them." It's one branch interfering with another branch of government.
Damn. Someone SHOULD'VE written it into law back then!
I'll NEVER understand how it never occurred to anyone that we'd have a FELON president granting pardons for money! Or a FELON president in the first place! It blows my mind when I wake up and see Trump still in the White House!
Exactly 💯 These presidential pardons are out of control and need to be amended as unconstitutional. And for fs, a felon can be president!!?? This country needs some serious revisions in our so-called "checks and balances."
For REAL! I don't think the Founding Fathers meant the checks to go under the table to the president as bribes nor the balances to be completely out of whack to the tune of trillions in the deficit...
Any compromise just emboldens bullies to push harder. We keep shouting slogans and making harmless gestures that don’t faze them. It’s time to act. Every small effort combined can build a real force.
the constitution has many black holes that we knew existed but there were relatively consistent cultural norms. trump could not care less and is exploiting them all for personal and financial gain.
The Anti-Federalists also argued against the pardon power during ratification. Impeachment and removal was the remedy offered by the Federalists and we can see that has failed.
Douglass was ahead of his time. Why has no biopic been made about him? I would have loved to hear James Earl Jones reading Douglass’s autobiography. I recommend Blight’s book about Douglass.
Old Frederick Douglass was the REAL DEAL - he was the first Black Intellectual recorded, at least widely in America
He gets significantly less credit than he deserves, being a man outside of time
#Trump’s a #panderer of pardons, a #clemencyforcash schemer, like #Tennessee’s lameduck #governor Ray #Blanton pulled decades ago. #Pardons & #commutations for direct & indirect #bribes. #FollowTheMoney, #darkmoney or #crypto or #memecoin.
And yet we still have it. For this country to let the pardon power be all inclusive for years even for a corrupt president is our own fault Trump has used it for his own political & monetary gain. I hope some day the democrats will have enough majority to change it & get rid of citizens United also
there is a walking tour of his life in the city! you can go from place to place and listen to its significance from a recording. obvs you know about the statues etc but this was pretty cool as well!
Comments
whole nation; let there be no shoulder that does not bear up its proportion of
the burdens of the government." mf could write
How does one be very shouty without being overloud
Generations have acquired ability to detect and deliver underspeak.
I congratulate you.
"Miranda saw parallels between Hamilton's life and the lives of rappers, which led him to envision a hip-hop musical about Hamilton."
And, if MAGA has their way, we’ll never see another one before this empire fades away.
A light bulb just went off in my head.
Thank you so much.
I never thought of that before.
https://bsky.app/profile/sababausa.bsky.social/post/3kqdrizaaqt2y
"If war among the whites brought peace and liberty to blacks, what will peace among the whites bring?"
Putinism is alien to democracy, and Trump’s admiration for that system and other authoritarian regimes, his debts to them and implementation of their advice, has been a disaster, though Trump is a citizen.
After reading these two paragraphs, I see I need to learn more about this great man.
After the last few months, does anyone doubt Trump would try this? He still wants to kill the Central Park Five.
reads as prophetic
candidate-45 overtly expressed quid pro quo which approaches Douglas' description during rallies, targeting protestors and critical journalists
now, i'm starting to think we aren't in kansas anymore
Deserving persons would breeze through, but political action would have little chance to be approved.🤔
🙏❤️💕
https://youtu.be/82tk31IHnoY?si=76SQDHRdXpeROQ5h
Just teach our kids the basics & they can learn anything!
America has not deserved her Black people, who have given so much and received so little.
We must do better.
standing head and shoulders above
Mr. Douglass is of a few clear-thinking, clear-sighted individuals that did/do understand.
Very well.
Thank you for posting!
Thanks for the history lesson today.
https://frederickdouglasspapersproject.com/s/digitaledition/item/18126
Frederick Douglass knew there could be a president as evil and corrupt as Donald Trump.
Tragic that it came true.
should be reserved for some kind of council with a bipartisan consensus threshold.
Not just the hair, the eyes, the determined look.
Marx articulated a philosophy of praxis, Douglas embodied it.
The racial struggle is the human struggle
And defining what is a benefit to Trump would be dependant on Republicans and SCOTUS so we would be exactly where we are.
It's almost as though Frederick Douglass was a bit of a prophet.
Other hand, the pardon is not a terrible idea, but it should be in the hands of a non-political operator. I would give it to Pastor William Barber II. I think he could handle it wisely.
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:vxg47amllfuqqki2lfvlvwvw/post/3lq52ouaqdk27
Pardoned are for correcting injustices & a show of mercy (also for injustices past)
If they are not for one or both if these reasons, they are weaponized to concentrate & show undue power of those in power
Professor Of Law #KateShaw
#JesseDollemorr
It’s almost like he had seen tyrants in action before
I'll NEVER understand how it never occurred to anyone that we'd have a FELON president granting pardons for money! Or a FELON president in the first place! It blows my mind when I wake up and see Trump still in the White House!
This is the fault of all Republicans.
He gets significantly less credit than he deserves, being a man outside of time
#RICO #FifthColumn #pardonpandering #bribery #PardonGate
It should be removed.
It's a parking lot now.
But there's a nice sign to explain what's been paved over.