Jim Jordan is constitutionally clueless
Extremist Congressman Jim Jordan threatened the New York City District Attorney with federal investigation if Donald Trump was criminally prosecuted in New York City for what he lied about as being a “bookkeeping error.”
When I was growing up we had French exchange students stay with us over the summer. My father and most of the dads seemed to think if they spoke louder and slower it would help them be understood. It was an amazing phenomenon. Similarly, Jim Jordan must believe that by speaking fast his lying can’t catch up. He’s as wrong about that as he is in his understanding of how the US government actually functions.
Jordan is a special case within the MAGA cesspool. He distinguished himself by covering up systemic sexual abuse at the Ohio State wrestling program long before he put the truth in an extremist headlock. When it comes to the MAGA freak show Jordan is an original cast member. He is a buffoonish charlatan perfectly constructed for America’s most rancid era. He is a bespoke suit, perfectly fitted for the lies and delusions of America’s sinister propaganda empire that incited sedition for billions in profit. Rupert Murdoch lets him nibble in his sewer of mendacity, and Jordan gets the attention he craves.
Sadly, most Americans lack basic knowledge of how the United States government is organized, and who holds what power and where. Jim Jordan’s threat is outrageous. He has no standing whatsoever to threaten the people of New York State. When an attorney from the District Attorney’s office in New York City rises in a court of law they do so on behalf of the people who have granted them authority to do so. Jim Jordan has no jurisdiction whatsoever in the state of New York. Imagine driving down the highway in your home state and being pulled over by a visiting police officer from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The Mountie has no jurisdiction. None. Zero.
The reason government is organized like this is simple to understand. This is how liberty is preserved and protected. Power is diffused and spread around in the American system, where decentralization protects the citizen from exploitation by government that threatens oppression. What Jim Jordan did is deeply radical. His threats are ominous and un-American even though they are performative and toothless. Even the most uninterested amongst us should understand the grave importance of understanding Jim Jordan’s motives and imagine him having the actual power to exact revenge, protect his friends and take what he wants because he can. It gets dark very fast.
The US Constitution is a work of singular genius. Its endurance alone is testament to that fact. Though we are a young nation we are the oldest constitutional republic in the world and humanity’s most important and enduring experiment in democratic rule. The Constitution is unjust as a moral document, but utterly exceptional in its complexity and flexibility that allows each generation the ability to sustain the American revolution until it is fully completed. The Constitution is the vehicle by which human dignity and freedom have expanded to include all people in America.
Jim Jordan seems unaware that it is the states that created the federal government for the purpose of providing for the protection of liberty, which is deeply vested in the concept that no American is above the law. When the US Constitution was being debated a series of essays were anonymously published by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay. They were respectively 30, 36 and 42 years old when they wrote what came to be known as the Federalist Papers. The essays are works of incandescent genius that explain the American system.
Below is an excerpt from Federalist 51:
Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.
A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.
The purpose of the American government is not to exercise control of the functions of government on behalf of the officials of government. There is no official in America that holds a position of supremacy across all branches of government everywhere at once. There is no central or final authority that stands apart, above and beyond the law, who possesses the power to act on whim, take as he pleases and do what he wants to whomever because of power for power’s sake. The strong have no entitlement to dominate the weak.
The Trump administration went off the rails within seconds of its commencement because it attempted to attack the truth and redefine reality. It sought to make truth whatever Donald Trump believed. It metastasized quickly because what came next was the demand that believing the lie was patriotism. Getting in line became virtuous, while obedience became bravery. The lowest vices were raised up, and the essential virtues were brought low. Along the way, it was inevitable that a cult of personality and obedience would turn against a system built on the diffusion of power and the absolute supremacy of human dignity and the rule of law.
Jim Jordan’s corruption and abuse of power isn’t a small thing. The magnitude of America’s democracy crisis should be measured against the numbness of the response to such an utter overreach of authority by a federal official — one who claims to be a member of the political party that supports limited government.
There is no big government like authoritarian government. That is exactly what Jim Jordan’s threat against New York proposes. Jim Jordan sounds like a cocky Chinese minister threatening Taiwan from CCP headquarters in Beijing. America doesn’t work that way. It never will.
The American way of life is dependent on sustaining the systems of government that have existed since 1787. Their overthrow in the name of Donald Trump is a stupendously bad idea, yet bad ideas seem to be the power source of the MAGA movement.
Read the words of District Attorney Alvin Bragg in response to Jim Jordan. It’s not a letter about Trump. It’s a letter about how America works. It’s worth a read.
Bragg's letter brought a much needed sense of comfort to me yesterday, and rereading it did same this morning. I hope more folks read this column and understand the magnitude of Jordan's ignorance of our constitution.
My mother had a saying that is perfect to describe Jim Jordan, a poor excuse for a human being. We can add many of his fellow Maga Republicans to that club.