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Trump’s Nominees Would Support the Constitution More than Senators Have

Senators should consent to nominees who would use their constitutional powers to limit governments.

Robert F. Kennedy, the nominee announced to head Health and Human Services, wrote three books exposing harmful government actions on Covid.

Pete Hegseth, the nominee announced to head Defense, has said that “any general that was involved, general, admiral, whatever, that was involved in any of the DEI, woke s–t has got to go.”

Lee Zeldin, the nominee announced to head the Environmental Protection Agency, voted against national environmental regulations 86% of the time.

In these important ways, these nominees have indicated that they would use their constitutional powers against others in governments and cronies to limit them.

That’s how you support the Constitution.

Supporting Accidentally

Media and politicians typically just play to audiences.

Media are running stories about whether Trump’s announced nominees are moral and about whether they have tenures in bureaucracies that make them qualified. Trump has been nominating people who are popular or whose money can buy popularity. Swing senators are prepping to platform salacious storytelling and to posture about their duty to advise and consent.

Even so, despite these people’s every inclination, this time we might actually get something from them that’s valuable, if we hold them to it. Or more likely, if we hold Trump to it, or if we hold ourselves to it.

The key in governing seasons, like in election seasons, is to hold out for what we want—to never settle for less.

Supporting by Limiting Others

The Constitution is designed to make our life, liberty, and property secure by having government people limit others in governments.

Officials can be personally quite moral, and distressingly often this doesn’t help us. Instead, superficially-good officials avoid conflicts with their colleagues in governments. The only people we could reasonably count on to protect us, then, leave us unprotected. These officials’ public actions are not moral.

Officials can be experienced and impressive in managerial roles, and this won’t help us, this will hurt us. An unconstitutional organization that’s more efficient is more despotic.

What matters is whether an official will make our unalienable rights secure.

Trump’s current nominees, to a far-greater extent than his first-term nominees, promise to take significant actions to constitutionally limit others.

Starting as Well as They’re Ready To

Even though in these qualifying rounds some things are looking up, we still can already see that things are not the best. Not one of the nominees has advocated executively closing his fully or significantly unconstitutional organization. Not one has even recommended repealing his organization.

As this long season starts, the best that initially could be on tap would be if Trump would strongly support each nominee the exact way we need him to, starting now and continuing all the way through on-the-record confirmation votes:

  • Each nominee, Trump, and each constitutionalist senator should start his job in earnest now, by fleshing out answers and questions that will show how the nominee and Trump will use their constitutional powers to limit others in governments and cronies.
  • Outside each confirmation hearing, Trump should make this case for each nominee directly to the people.
  • Inside each confirmation hearing, each nominee should make this case directly to the people. Constitutionalist senators’ questions should help open the way.
  • Trump and allies should force all senators to vote on the record.

Senators’ votes need to highlight which senators need to be challenged in primaries—one long season that has already started.

Long Seasons Ahead

Senators have amply shown that they’re poised to fail this test.

The Republicans, especially, have long supported the unconstitutional filibuster cloture rule. Under this rule, senate leaders unconstitutionally count minority senators’ votes as more equal than majority senators’ votes, and everyone agrees to unconstitutionally deprive vice presidents of tie-breaking votes that would determine whether bills will pass.

Even our most-valuable activist media and politicians have been conditioned into accepting that senators only do their actual jobs of passing bills by simple-majority votes a few days a year—and even then, only when a few legitimate, narrow, pressing bills are tacked on to monstrosity bills.

The worst monstrosities are the bills that unconstitutionally grab the executive’s power to allocate budgets by line item, stripping him of control over enforcing constitutional laws, and stripping him of accountability for results.

J.D. Vance, when he is sworn in as the next senate’s president, should preside and should require constitutionally-required simple-majority voting on all bills.

Republican voters, for their part, repeatedly shoot themselves in the foot, election after election.

Most Republican voters have been always voting against the perceived greater evil by voting for the perceived lesser evil of Republican Progressives. These voters have been unwilling to purge the Republican Progressives, live with Democratic instead of Republican Progressives for one more term in office, temporarily call on other offsetting powers like in the state governments to limit our losses, and by doing so, finally elect constitutionalists in the next election.

Trump, backed by Elon Musk, may break this paradigm. Voters, too, can always break this paradigm on their own.

Legislative season opens soon. People, get ready.

At the same time, Trump will have the power and duty to executively close every organization that he independently interprets correctly is unconstitutional. The Project 2025 people wouldn’t have helped. Trump’s announced nominees aren’t helping right out of the gate. Vivek Ramaswamy is closing in on helping, and Elon Musk is a fast learner. Lew Rockwell stands ready to explain how changes can work out. Javier Milei is showing that changes are politically possible and that extensive changes that are for the best work out for the best very quickly. The best results take hold when you change extensively, and do it quickly.

Executive season opens soon too and continues every day. Fair game abounds everywhere, and Trump’s quota is the whole lot of them.

Accept nothing less.

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Free the People publishes opinion-based articles from contributing writers. The opinions and ideas expressed do not always reflect the opinions and ideas that Free the People endorses. We believe in free speech, and in providing a platform for open dialogue. Feel free to leave a comment.

James Anthony is an experienced chemical engineer who applies process design, dynamics, and control to government processes. He is the author of The Constitution Needs a Good Party and rConstitution Papers, the publisher of rConstitution.us, and an author at Blaze Media, Western Journal, Daily Caller, The Federalist, American Thinker, Lew Rockwell, American Greatness, Mises Institute, Foundation for Economic Education, and Free the People. For more information, see his media and about pages, overview, and fresh takes on the Constitution.

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