Tuesday, September 10, 2024

Part I

---

One of the Most Consequential Presidential Debates in U.S. History: What to Watch For Tonight as Former President Trump Faces Off Against Vice President Kamala Harris

Well, as Americans are looking to the 2024 presidential election, and predictably right now there’s little discussion in terms of the media other than that, you come to understand that what takes place tonight in Philadelphia could be determinative. And that’s not always been the case. When you look at presidential debates, they have not always loomed with this kind of significance. But in this case, let’s just remember that the last presidential debate was so impactful that President Joe Biden had to withdraw from the race. The president’s disastrous performance against Donald Trump in the first of what was supposed to be a duo or series of debates, it was enough to press him from the race. Democratic leaders eventually coalesced around the agenda of forcing Joe Biden from the ticket and replacing him with his Vice President Kamala Harris.
And thus, the debate tonight is going to be the Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris, who is the 2024 Democratic nominee, against Donald J. Trump, the former president of the United States, who is the Republican nominee. And those two have never faced off in this kind of debate before. And one of the things we need to note is that as of tonight, the former president becomes the most experienced presidential debater in terms of this kind of face off in all of American history, so he has a lot of experience. When it comes to Kamala Harris, not nearly so much experience, and quite frankly, some of that not so good.

But both campaigns right now recognize two huge issues as we go into the debate tonight. The two big issues are these. Number one, this race is extremely close. It is so close that it’s really a matter of looking at this poll or that poll when trying to measure the difference. Now, that means to some extent that there’s an advantage to the former president, which is to say that in this kind of situation, Republicans generally under poll and Democrats over poll, so if they’re looking just about dead even and some kind of dead heat, reality is that probably is at least something of a Republican advantage. But anyone who counts on that could well be a defeated candidate.

The second thing we know is that Donald Trump is one of the most well-known political figures in all of America. Probably in election terms, you could say Donald Trump is one of the most familiar names in electoral politics. You look at Kamala Harris, not nearly so much. Donald Trump, an extremely known category going into the debate tonight; Kamala Harris almost equally unknown. And you say, “Well, she’s been vice president of the United States the last several years.” And I’ll simply say, “That is not necessarily a highway to celebrity.” And Americans do not vote generally with much attention to the second part of the ticket. They’re voting for the presidential candidate, so quite honestly, no way of knowing how many Americans really want Kamala Harris as president.

And then there’s another situation, a part of this second concern, and that is this: Kamala Harris has never been on this kind of political stage. You say, “Well, she’s been in debates before.” Yes, but she was in the early stages of debates for the Democratic Party nomination. That’s a very different thing than being on the big stage for what is probably the one debate where the prize is actually the Oval Office. We’re looking at the biggest stakes in American electoral politics.

There’s something else. When you’re looking at Donald Trump, you’re looking at someone who has won a lot of primary elections. He got the Republican nomination in 2016 by winning those primaries, by making those arguments, by appearing in so many debates against Republican challengers, by laying out his issues, getting political experience running for office. When it comes to Kamala Harris, she has never actually gotten to the point of a single primary vote. And when you look at the 2024 election, the reality is Kamala Harris has been very untested. Americans really don’t know who she is. And so you also have democratic consultants who are saying, “You know what Kamala Harris needs to do? Is show Americans who she is.” And yet even some who are insiders in the Kamala Harris campaign are saying, “There’s no reason for her to disclose too much at this point.”

As we go into the debate tonight, Donald Trump is probably making the very safe assumption that anyone watching the debate has a really good idea who Donald Trump is. At the same time, they probably have a lot less than a very good idea of who Kamala Harris is, so Kamala Harris is going to try to define Kamala Harris. But here’s the thing: Donald Trump is going to do his best to define Kamala Harris.

Tonight, the bottom line, as we watch the debate, is that both sides are at least, in large part, going to be concerned with how to define Kamala Harris. And they’re going to have opposing arguments, to say the very least. They have almost exactly opposite challenges going into this race. One of the big things to watch is whether Donald Trump will focus on policies rather than personality. He has had a very mixed track record in that, and in particular in this campaign season. It’s also going to be very interesting to note how revealing Kamala Harris is in terms of answers, because even some of her advisors appear to be advising that she do her best to avoid answering some of the really prickly questions. And that’s what she’s done, just as a matter of habit. If the problem is that Donald Trump says too much in so many occasions, when you look at Kamala Harris it is the equal and opposite problem. She, at the end of the day, says too little. You can’t really run a campaign on “joy.” Eventually, someone’s going to have to explain how that joy is tied to presidential politics and policies and legislation and, well, all that stuff.

Looking at the debate tonight, it’s also really interesting that many veteran political observers are saying that one of the big questions is going to be the role of President Joe Biden in this debate. And you say, “Well, wait just a minute. He’s not going to be on the debate stage.” No, but he’s going to be in the debate because one of the crucial questions of strategy for the vice president is whether she’s going to run as Joe Biden’s vice president or whether she’s going to run from Joe Biden in terms of her being the 2024 Democratic nominee. I’ll just state the obvious. She really can’t have it both ways. And we’re going to find out I think fairly early in the debate which way she has decided to go. Either way, the stakes are pretty high.

Here’s what I’m going to encourage Christian families, Christians watching the debate, and I know it’s pretty late eastern time, but when you look at a 9:00 presidential debate, you really are looking at civics in action and the Christian worldview demanding an analysis here. And so I’m going to suggest that if it’s possible, parents and children, parents and teenagers in particular watch the debate together and try to figure out exactly what’s going on. Here are a couple of points I wish you would consider as you watch the debate. I would say it comes down to a couple of things. Number one, what was said, and number two, what wasn’t.

Okay, now the first point might be more obvious because people are going to be talking about what was said, but it’s equally important to recognize what wasn’t said. Let’s just take those apart for a minute. What is said, “Well, that’s pretty easy,” you say. You can print out a transcript of what is said. Yeah, but people can say a lot without saying anything. And one of the tricky issues in this kind of debate is how much of it is actually to any extent about real policies or real answers to the questions? And of course, one of the question questions is what are the quality of the questions? And that’s going to be up to the moderators, in this case from ABC News.

But Americans are going to have to watch this trying to figure out, okay, what exactly did he say? What exactly did she say? And as you’re looking at that, you need to recognize that one of the goals of a politician in this kind of context, is to get away with answering as little of the moderator’s question as possible. And so this is actually political advice. It’s also advice given to CEOs and others who find themselves in a position of having to make public comment. You will have advisor say, “Here’s the thing: Say as little as possible. Shift the subject. Keep the language coming. Keep a smile on your face. Don’t appear to be rattled. But it really doesn’t matter what they ask; you say what you’re there to say.” That’s the kind of advice coming from many political consultants. I just have to hope that Americans aren’t going to put up with that because we deserve answers to a lot of these very important questions. Now, I don’t have any control over what the moderators ask, but we do have the responsibility to watch and say, “That was a very significant question. How did he answer it? How did she answer it? Or how did he not answer it or she not answer it?”

What is said tonight is going to be really important, but here’s where we also need to outthink those who are on the stage and at least try to take the thinking apart here and recognize that’s really interesting because she just said that, and it amounts to nothing. And I’m trying to use the pronouns going back and forth. And by the way, at this point, we are still talking about categories we understand and Christians will affirm are real such as he and she. I hope that’s an issue that comes up tonight.
When I talk about what’s not said, just be watching for this: When there is a question posed to one of these candidates, and you can see in the candidate’s eyes he doesn’t like this question, she doesn’t like this question, what follows may be a calculated, or for that matter, an improvised at the last minute non-answer. And here’s where we need to understand that a non-answer is, in one sense, a real form of an answer. It means this person, this candidate does not have a policy that he or she believes the American people are going to believe or to buy.

We’ll be watching it together tonight. And I guarantee you that tomorrow we’re going to have a lot to talk about because it is almost unprecedented in America’s electoral history that it comes down to one debate like this; just one debate that no one knew we were going to be having just a few weeks ago that may now turn out to be the most important singular event of the 2024 presidential campaign.

And if you think that sounds like a really big statement, well, just consider this: Donald Trump and Kamala Harris have never appeared on this kind of platform together before. And in a very real sense, it’s unlikely they will ever appear on this kind of platform again, but they do represent the big choices being presented to the American people on the ballot in November for the highest office in the land. I’ll just say if you don’t find this interesting, frankly, I don’t know what would interest you. We’ll be back to talk about it tomorrow.

Part II

---

Wait, Scholars are Arguing the Constitution is a Threat to Democracy? The Left Seeks to Put the Constitution and Electoral College on the Chopping Block

Well, all right, while we’re thinking about these things, I need to say that sometimes there’s a big cultural turning point, and when it happens, you just need to really note it and you need to take account of what it means. Here’s a headline in the New York Times in recent days in the print edition, September the 7th, that’s Saturday. The headline: “Is The Heart of America Threatening Democracy?” Jennifer Szalai is the reporter on the story. It’s the Critics Notebook section of the New York Times. And the subhead of the article says, “The Constitution may be the cause of our dysfunctional politics several scholars argue.”

Okay, now, wait just a minute. To her credit, the reporter actually does begin with the question I had, which is what side are you taking on this constitutional issue? Because the Democrats have been saying, “Donald Trump’s a danger to the Constitution. Donald Trump’s a danger to the Constitution.” And now you have liberal scholars coming out saying, “The Constitution’s a danger to America, the Constitution’s a danger to America.” That’s exactly what is taking place.

I have in my hands here in the studio the book by Erwin Chemerinsky, who is the dean of the School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, one of the most well-known, very liberal constitutional scholars in the United States. His new book is entitled: No Democracy Lasts Forever, the subhead, How the Constitution Threatens the United States. Now, wait just a minute. Here, you have one of the most influential liberal legal scholars and America writing a book telling us that the Constitution threatens the United States. And so you have two warnings coming out right now. You have the warning coming from the Left, “Donald Trump is a threat to democracy, a threat to America’s constitutional order,” and then you have the argument coming from the Left now, “The Constitution’s a threat to the American order.” Now, which is it?

Now, to the credit of this New York Times piece, it actually, in just a matter of one paragraph, understands the irony of what it’s all about. “It’s no surprise then that liberals charge Trump with being a menace to the Constitution, but his presidency and the prospect of his reelection have also generated another very different argument that Trump owes his political assent to the Constitution, making him a beneficiary of a document that is essentially anti-democratic and, in this day and age, increasingly dysfunctional.”

Okay. Now, I’ll just tell you that when you look at the political ideological bifurcation in the United States, let’s just say liberal and conservative, left and right, I want to say that you can have some very bad thinking on both ends of that spectrum. But what we’re looking at here is a massive, not to say ironic inconsistency on the part of the ideological Left in the United States. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t have it that conservatives are a threat to the Constitution, oh, wait just a minute; the Constitution’s a threat to our democratic order. You can’t present yourselves simultaneously as the savior of the Constitution and the one who wants to call for the end of our constitutional order. Someone at least needs to recognize this inconsistency. If nothing else, let’s start to recognize it right here, right now.

Okay, let me just fast-forward and tell you what the big critique is. The big critique is that the US Constitution ratified late in the 18th century as a way of concretizing and making operational the American order. And that includes, of course, the Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments to the US Constitution. You would think that’s virtually, in a secular age, sacred territory for the ideological Left, but the argument is now that there are huge problems in the Constitution and that it was wrongly negotiated because of the necessity of getting all 13 of the states to ratify the document. And so deals were made, and there were very bad deals that, at least according to some of these theorists, invalidate the Constitution now.

And then they come back and say, “There are two other big issues, two other huge issues. Number one, it’s just not fair because of the United States Senate.” And the argument is that the United States Senate, which awards, of course, two senators from every state; that’s disproportionate because you have a state like California where you have two senators and you have a state like Wyoming where you have only one member of Congress, but you have two US senators. Well, that means that the senator from Wyoming is representing just a certain number of people. In California, it’s a radical multiple of those. You still have two senators. That’s not fair, especially, they would say, when it comes to the power of the United States Senate to say, “Confirm or not confirm presidential nominees,” whether it be for the cabinet, subcabinet positions, for military positions, by the way. You notice that’s also a very important issue that plays into congressional responsibility. And for the Senate, especially when it comes to treaties, when it comes also, most importantly, at least in terms of this argument, to the confirmation of nominations, such as nominations to the Supreme Court of the United States.

And so why are the liberals so upset? Because they say, “Look, Donald Trump served one term, but he got away with nominating three justices to the United States Supreme Court. And those three justices turned out to be absolutely crucial to the reversal,” You know where this is going. “of Roe v. Wade in the Dobbs decision in 2022. That shows we have a major problem with our Constitution.”

Then the second big issue along those lines in terms of the argument about representation goes to the Electoral College because the Democrats are in a situation where, just to be honest, the Democratic vote keeps on piling up in states like New York and California, and yet the Electoral College doesn’t work in such a way that it guarantees that the candidate who wins the popular vote is going to win the actual election in terms of the Electoral College, which is set up, remember, proportionally state by state according to, number one, most importantly, the number of congressional seats in all of these states plus the Senate seats.

And so they’re saying, “Look, this is just another example of the Electoral College, which isn’t direct democracy.” Which is the point, of course, as I’ve often pointed out on The Briefing. Our founders did not want a direct democracy, they wanted a constitutional republic. And right now, it’s just very telling that on the Left you have people who are becoming more and more clear and more and more honest. This is not a fringe figure. This is the dean of the law school at the University of California coming back to say, “We don’t want this kind of constitutional republic. We want more of a direct democracy.” And in one sense, if you’re a liberal living in California, you can understand why this argument would be very popular. But that’s where it’s important to remember that our Constitution was not written and ratified so that everyone would be in full agreement with it all the time. It’s the stability of a constitutional order, which is the very principle upon which our system as a constitutional republic is premised.

But there’s more here because even as you look at this argument, Erwin Chemerinsky, I mentioned, he is the dean of the law school at Berkeley, in his book, No Democracy Lasts Forever, he actually raises the issue of a constitutional convention calling for a new Constitution. As the New York Times mentions, the law dean even anticipates there could be a division of the United States. “He entertains the possibility of secession. West Coast States might form a nation called Pacifica. Red States might form their own country. He hopes that any divorce, if it comes, will be peaceful.” Well, isn’t that kind?

As I said, I have the book. I’m going to read from it now. On page 165, he writes, “No Constitution lasts forever. Someday, the United States will be governed by a different Constitution, hopefully one better than the current one.” “With trepidation,” he writes, “I think the time to start that conversation is now knowing that the process will likely take many years to come to fruition. Rather than pursue several individual amendments to fix what is broken in the current Constitution, it might be better to start over and adopt a new Constitution.”

He later writes that it’s time for the procedure pursuant to Article V of the Constitution be invoked when states can call for a constitutional convention that Congress must then convene. He recognizes that we could come out not only with a new Constitution, but we could come out with a new nation, or even, as the New York Times reminds us, his argument could lead to new nations. He acknowledges the danger, “The danger exists that the new Constitution would be worse than the existing one.” Now, how’s that for an inspirational message? Follow my plan. You could come out with something even worse than what we’ve got now.

He continues, quote, “Liberals surely fear a document that enshrines the current conservative agenda while conservatives obviously fear the reverse. How will the constitutional convention deal with the most divisive issues like abortion and gun rights? Both sides of the divide on these issues will try to have the document embody its views. Both sides know that their work will be not unless the document can be passed by the convention and ultimately ratified by the people.”

Well, I’m just going to go out on a limb here and say I don’t think this is likely to become a reality anytime soon, and that’s because I think the law school dean at the University of California, Berkeley set aside here for a moment, I don’t think most Americans are willing to risk what would be involved in a constitutional convention. We know as a nation who we are going into the convention; we do not necessarily know what we would be on the other side. Furthermore, he’s right; there would have to be a ratification process whereby the Constitution, as newly proposed, would be ratified. And at that point, well, he has to end his book with a chapter about how this could lead not only to a different nation but different nations. It could lead to a breakup of the United States of America.

Part III

---

Yes, the Text Still Mean What the Text Says: As Arguments Against Originalism Fail, Liberals Look to Move on From the Constitution

Now, here’s where I just want to underline something really, really important. We’ve been told by the ideological Left that conservatives are the big problem because we pay too much attention to the text of the Constitution. Oh yeah, that argument’s in here too. The argument is reflected in the New York Times article about this book and about the debate in which they’re saying, “Conservatives are paying so much attention to the text of the Constitution textualism,” originalism, strict constructionism, as it is known, when they say, “The problem could be avoided if conservatives would just go along with the fact that we ought to have a more elastic understanding of the Constitution,” which means more like Roe v. Wade, for example.

I am not talking about this simply because it’s a big news story, I’m talking about it because it’s hard to come up with a story, an article, a development which is actually more revealing of the worldview crisis we now face. But as Christians, we understand this is a little more complex than can be reduced to a New York Times story, even one, frankly, as comprehensive as this one. This is not going to be something that can be even adequately described in a book such as Dean Chemerinsky’s new book. This is actually something that Christians understand reaches far deeper levels and, frankly, hits closer to home than many Christians might think. Because when you’re talking about interpreting a text, well, here’s the deal: There are limited ways to interpret it. And it generally comes down to the fact that there’s a conservative and a liberal way of trying to look at any text, and the conservative argument in every case is going to be, “Well, it comes down to words and phrases and sentences and paragraphs. The text means what the text says.” And in various contexts, you have liberals who say, “That’s just tying ourselves to ancient prejudices and to ancient texts. We’re a modern people; we need to have modern interpretation of these texts.”

And you say, “Well, what does this have to do with something peculiar to Christians?” It has to do with the fact that when you talk about liberal and conservative, it’s not just about interpreting the Constitution, it’s about how to read and interpret the Holy Bible because the liberal and conservative directions come down to the very same issues with conservatives saying, “It is the text that matters.” And this is where conservative evangelicals affirm with the church throughout the centuries that the Bible is nothing other than the Word of God. It is not up to us to reframe it, to re-contextualize it, to come up with, we’ll say, meaning that we supposedly find in the words that are not the meaning asserted by the words, sentences, phrases themselves. And in both cases, whether it’s constitutional liberals or liberals when it comes to biblical interpretation, you have people saying, “The text doesn’t have to mean that now. We’re in a different context. We’re modern people, and so we need modern interpretations.”

I think, at least when it comes down to this issue, it’s important to recognize that the liberals in the political sense are running out of runway on that, and so they’re now saying, “What we need is a different text.” That’s a radical statement. And yet in their own way, that’s what a lot of liberals in the theological world are doing themselves. We need a new text. Just look at the fact that so many of them have now just stopped arguing about the Bible and just close the book, moving on to something else.

By the way, the New York Times article, also a liberal scholar who complains about conservatives who have undermined, “Progressive policies while using the soothing language of constitutionalism.” Oh, now we just have to end with this: When you are accused of taking words and sentences too seriously, when you are accused of dishonoring the Constitution by actually saying it means what it says and that’s what stands, you’ve reached the very end of an argument that has reached not only exhaustion, but frankly irrationality. But when it comes to this, we have to recognize this danger is all too real. This proposal is becoming all too common. And it tells us a great deal about where we stand in terms of the future of our constitutional republic.