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Originalism is having a moment.

Although its been used to refer to slightly different ideas at various points in the recent past, originalism generally refers to the idea that the only proper way to interpret the U.S. Constitution is to examine what its words meant at the time they were ratified.

The late Justice Antonin Scalia was originalisms most famous evangelist. Neil Gorsuch, the man Donald Trump named to replace Scalia, is also an avowed originalist.

Indeed, Gorsuch presents himself as something of a Scalia fanboy. In a 2016 lecture, Gorsuch spoke about how he couldnt see the rest of the way down the mountain for the tears after he learned of Scalias death while skiing. During a White House ceremony on Monday where Gorsuch took the oath of office, he said that he will never forget that the seat I inherit today is that of a very, very great man. (He meant Scalia, not Merrick Garland.)

Yet for all of Gorsuchs performative worship of Justice Scalia, Goruchs record suggests that he takes a very different approach to the law than his judicial predecessor. Although Scalia and Gorsuch both identify as originalists, they came of age during very different times in the evolution of American law.

There have been three great waves of originalist thinking in the last century. The first, led by Justice Hugo Black, was a liberal wave that washed away decisions imposing a libertarian economic model on the workplace while also invigorating the Bill of Rights. The second, led by Scalia, was a conservative wave seeking to wash away decisions such as Roe v. Wade, which Scalia and his allies viewed as too aggressively activist.

Gorsuch belongs to a third wave, which is both far more at peace with judicial power than Scalia and far more skeptical of democracy.

Scalia, at least for most of his time on the bench, envisioned originalism as a force of judicial restraint. Gorsuch, by contrast, is far more likely to wield it to sweep away liberal reforms and to siphon power away from the two elected branches of government.

He will make Scalia look like a moderate.

Senator Hugo Black accepted President Franklin Roosevelts appointment to the Supreme Court at a turning point in American constitutional history. In the decades before 1937, when Black took his seat on the Court, the Supreme Court largely divorced its decisions from the Constitutions textdenuding provisions like the First Amendment of any real meaning, all while striking down child labor laws and other protections for workers.

Black joined the Court just months after the Supreme Court reversed course on at least some of these decisions. The Court abandoned a line of cases that struck down the minimum wage and laws protecting labor unions on a highly dubious constitutional theory. And it upheld Social Security and other key prongs of the New Deal.

Roosevelt hoped that Black, his first Supreme Court appointment, would get the Court out of the way of progress. And FDR was not disappointed.

Thats why I came on the Court, the justice said in 1967. I was against using due process to force the views of judges on the countrya reference to the Constitutions Due Process Clause, which early twentieth century conservative justices interpreted to strike down the minimum wage and similar lawsI still am. I wouldnt trust judges with that kind of power and the Founders did not trust them either.

Black, however, was not solely a proponent of judicial restraintindeed, he was quite far from it. Justice Black probably did more to expand the role of the Bill of Rights than any other jurist in American history.

Before Black became a justice, most of the Bill of Rights was understood to apply only to the federal governmentstates could violate them without risking a federal court order. Black made it his mission to ensure that these amendments would bind state and federal officials alike, and he largely succeeded in this project.

Justice Black, moreover, announced this project in an opinion laying out his originalist approach to the Constitution. I would follow what I believe was the original purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment, he wrote. To hold that this Court can determine what, if any, provisions of the Bill of Rights will be enforced, and if so to what degree, is to frustrate the great design of a written Constitution.

Nearly 40 years later, Justice Scalia joined the Court. Like Black, Scalia was profoundly frustrated with state of American legal precedents. Unlike Black, however, Scalias frustrations were directed more at decisions protecting womens reproductive choice, among other things, than at decisions placing extra-constitutional limits on workplace regulation.

Yet even as Scalia railed against liberal decisions he viewed as wholly illegitimate, there was a profound thread of judicial restraint woven through his rhetoric. Whether you think prohibiting abortion is good or whether you think prohibiting abortion is bad, the late justice said in a 2012 interview, regardless of how you come out on that, my only point is the Constitution does not say anything about it. Scalia denied that he wanted to enact his own anti-abortion views, and insisted that the courts should simply stay out of this space.

The main danger in judicial interpretation of the Constitution, Scalia told a law school audience a couple of years after joining the Supreme Court, is that the judges will mistake their own predilections for the law.

As the influential originalism scholar Keith Whittington wrote, the second wave originalism was a reactive theory motivated by substantive disagreement with the recent and then-current actions of the Warren and Burger Courts. It was developed as a way of explaining what the Court had done wrong, and what it had done wrong in this context was primarily to strike down government actions in the name of individual rights.

Scalia represented a conservatism that was still getting its sea legs after the battering it took during the liberal Warren Court era. His originalism was rooted in an understanding that conservatives may not always control the Supreme Court, so judicial conservatives would do well to articulate lines that no judge, liberal or conservative, must ever cross.

Gorusch carries none of this historical baggage. He graduated from Harvard Law School the same year that Justice Clarence Thomas replaced the civil rights icon Thurgood Marshall, entrenching conservative control of the judiciary in the process. Then, Gorsuch spent his entire professional career watching the Court grow more and more conservative. His own appointment is but the latest step in this rightward march.

So, while Gorsuch almost certainly shares Scalias view of Roe v. Wade and many other decisions that affirmatively moved the law in a liberal direction, he lacks Scalias instinct for restraint (though, in fairness, Scalia himself sometimes departed from his own stated principles, especially near the end of his life).

As Whittington explains, if originalism in its modern form arose as a response to the perceived abuses of the Warren and Burger Courts, then the advent of the [conservative] Rehnquist Court made it largely irrelevant. Third wave originalists such as Gorsuch are less likely to emphasize a primary commitment to judicial restraint and far more comfortable with an aggressive role for the judiciary.

After all, why should they fear the courts when they own them?

Prior to Gorsuchs ascension to the Supreme Court, the nations preeminent third wave originalist was Justice Clarence Thomas. And Thomas is, in many ways, the anti-Hugo Black. Though both men often speak in the language of textualism and original history, Thomas embraces the same interpretation of the Constitution that pre-New Deal justices used to strike down child labor laws. His views are incompatible with the Supreme Courts decision upholding the national ban on whites-only lunch counters. He wants to dismantle the entire system of executive branch regulation that, among other things, makes it possible for the United States to have any meaningful kind of environmental law.

Gorsuchs record is much thinner than Thomasunlike Thomas, Gorsuch has not spent the last quarter century on the Supreme Court. Yet Gorsuchs record does indicate that, on matters where Scalia and Thomas disagreed, Gorsuchs views are much closer to Thomas than Scalias.

Scalia, for example, explicitly rejected Thomas wholesale assault on federal agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency. Gorsuch, by contrast, explicitly embraces many of Thomas views on agency regulation, and he wrote at least one opinion suggesting that he might share Thomas anti-regulatory views in their entirety.

Whether Gorsuch proves as radical as Thomas its unclear where Gorsuch stands on child laborremains to be seen. But Gorsuch is very clearly a creature of the third wave of originalism. He now sits on the most powerful Court in the nation, and he is chomping at the bit to exercise that power.

One of the primary arguments in favor of originalism is that it seems to provide some certainty about what the law is. The original understanding of a constitutional provision appears to be a fixed star. Once that provision is committed to writing, its original meaning does not change over time.

And yet, as the history recounted above suggests, originalism has done little to achieve such certainty. Nor has it, as Scalia hoped it would, mitigated the possibility that judges will mistake their own predilections for the law. Both Black and Thomas embraced a kind of originalism, and yet the two men reached strikingly opposite conclusions about what the Constitution requiresconclusions, it is worth noting, that largely align with their policy preferences.

Nor is originalism particular useful for the single most important task facing judgesthe task of deciding difficult cases. In his 1988 lecture laying out his philosophy of originalism, Scalia begins with a tale of Chief Justice William Howard Taft who, authored a great originalist opinion which declared unconstitutional congressional attempts to restrict presidential removal of executive officers.

The Court first heard oral arguments in Myers v. United States, in December of 1923. As Scalia explains, it was set for reargument and heard again the next Term, almost a year-and-a-half later, on April 13th and 14th, 1925. Then, Tafts seventy page opinion for the Court, as well as a one-page dissent by Justice Holmes, a sixty-one page dissent by Justice McReynolds, and a fifty-five page dissent by Justice Brandeis, did not issue until more than a year-and-a-half after this second argument, on October 25, 1926.

Thats nearly three years from first argument to a final decision. Three years in which neither the president nor the Congress knew the scope of its own authority.

And, if anything, three years is a extraordinarily brief period for a panel of lawyers untrained in historical research to conduct such an inquiry.

Consider District of Columbia v. Heller, the landmark Second Amendment decision which originalist scholar Lawrence Solum describes as the high-water mark of Scalias efforts to bring originalist methods to the Court.

In Heller, the Courts five conservative justices examined the text and original history of the Second Amendment and determined that this amendment protects an individual right to bear armsa result that aligns with conservative political preferences.

Meanwhile, the Courts four liberal members conducted a similarly originalist inquiry and determined that neither the text of the Amendment nor the arguments advanced by its proponents evidenced the slightest interest in limiting any legislatures authority to regulate private civilian uses of firearms. In an incredible coincidence, that also happens to be the outcome favored by most liberals.

Nor did this 54 decision happen overnight. Not so long ago, the idea that the Second Amendment does not protect an individual right to bear arms was so widely accepted that Chief Justice Warren Burger, a Nixon appointee, labeled any suggestion to the contrary a fraud on the American public.

This idea began to change, albeit slowly, after a lawyer named Don Kates published a law review article in 1983 entitled Handgun Prohibition and the Original Meaning of the Second Amendment. But it took 25 years of work by scholars and advocates, many of them funded generously by the National Rifle Association, to bring the gun lobbys view of the Second Amendment into the legal mainstream. And even then, this effort was only able to convince the five justices who were most inclined to side with conservatives in the first place.

My point isnt that one side or the other was correct in Heller. It is simply that historical research is hard. It takes a very long timeand a great deal of resourcesto do it well. And there will nearly always be evidence on both sides of a difficult question about the original meaning of the Constitution.

This slow pace also raises difficult questions about what should happen if historians and originalist scholars actually do manage to prove that a long-accepted reading of the Constitution is not consistent with the documents original meaning.

Suppose, for example, that historical documents emerged tomorrow which demonstrate that Constitution was originally understood to render the entire federal highway system unconstitutional. Does that mean that these roads need to be torn up? And, if so, what happens if the documents are later discredited (something like this actually did happen in the debate over the Second Amendment)?

People rely on existing legal doctrines. Businesses make investments assuming that the state of the law today will closely resemble the state of the law tomorrow. Governments pass laws. Entire legal regimes governing civil rights, environmental policy, union rights, and, yes, child labor, develop on the assumption that they will not all be cast aside tomorrow because someone shows Neil Gorsuch a law review article claiming that 80 years of precedent are wrongly decided.

If you care about stability in the law, you cannot believe that fundamental assumptions of our law should be cast aside simply because some clever advocates claim that three generations of judges were bad at history.

Which brings me to my ultimate point. Originalism isnt about adding stability to the law. It isnt about attaching legal doctrines to a fixed star in the sky. And it certainly isnt about divorcing judges from politics.

One thing that Justices Black, Scalia, Thomas and Gorsuch all have in common is that they have (or had) profound disagreements with longstanding precedent. The thing that sets them apart is how much they want to change the law, not how much they hope to stabilize it.

The judiciary is an institution built on precedent. Hugo Black could not simply show up for his first day or work and decree that dozens of pre-New Deal precedents would henceforth be ignoredany more than Neil Gorsuch can show up and simply declare that abortions must stop because he does not like them.

Conversely, when a judge cites precedent, they legitimize their own decision by grounding it in preexisting legal doctrines that they themselves may have played little or no role in shaping. Precedent is one of the most important legal mechanisms that keeps judges from substituting their own preferences for the law.

But precedent also is not the only source of legitimacy in the law. As I have argued in the past, the genius of Blacks appeal to constitutional text and the original purposes of the framers, is that it allowed him to root his own decisions in something even more authoritative than the precedents he despised. Originalism allowed Black to say that it wasnt just his desire to bury decisions striking down child labor laws, it was also the Constitutions desire.

And originalism will also allow Gorsuch to make the same claim about laws protecting workers and the environment.

The brilliance of originalism is that it enables judges to claim the mantle of an unchanging Constitution, even as they rely on sources that are no less malleable that the arguments deployed by so-called living constitutionalists. Conservatives can claim that the Constitution has always protected an individual right to bear arms. Liberals can claim that the Constitution has always said the opposite. And whoever controls a majority on the Supreme Court can wield this awesome power to undermine precedents they simply do not like.

And now this awesome power rests in the hands of Neil Gorsuch.

More:
Gorsuch will make liberals miss Scalia - ThinkProgress

The governing B.C. Liberals brought in more than half their $13-million in donations last year from controversial cash-for-access fundraisers, such as golf tournaments and dinners with the Premier, techniques that have been widely criticized for helping create a Wild West political system unlike any other in Canada.

Elections BC data released last week show the party reported holding 143 events last year grossing $6.9-million more than the $6.2-million the opposition New Democrats received from any type of donation. The NDP, whose leader has promised to ban corporate and union donations if elected in May, held 96 fundraising events last year that grossed $1.2-million.

The issue of political fundraising is expected to emerge as a campaign issue ahead of the May 9 vote in a province that has few limits on who can donate or how much they can give. The governing Liberals have so far rebuffed calls to ban private fundraising events in which corporate donors are invited to pay thousands of dollars to meet with candidates, cabinet ministers or the Premier.

Investigation: How B.C. lobbyists are breaking one of the province's few political donation rules

Christy Clark recently responded to such criticism by promising to appoint an independent panel to review B.C. campaign finance laws, though the Premier has not said what, if any, limits she believes should be imposed.

The events have become a lucrative source of revenue for the BC Liberals. For example, the party raised $938,800 at a single event on June 6 in Vancouver. In contrast, the NDPs biggest fundraiser was an event on Oct. 27 called the Leaders Levee, which grossed $192,861 from several hundred attendees.

Such events factored into a recent Globe and Mail investigation that found lobbyists and others had donated in their own names and were later reimbursed by the companies they represent. Such indirect donations which often involve purchasing tickets for fundraising dinners are prohibited under the provinces election laws, and the RCMP is now investigating.

The Liberals have identified at least 43 prohibited donations worth about $93,000 that are being returned, as well as at least 30 others with clerical errors. The NDP has identified five prohibited donations.

Most of the Liberal events detailed in Elections BC financial reports were reported as fundraisers or golf tournaments, while the New Democrats often married food with their events and branched out into playing host to bowlathons or art exhibitions.

The Liberals also shelled out a lot more to stage such events, spending $2.2-million last year compared with the opposition partys $319,455.

Not every fundraiser was a win.

A womens networking event held on Jan 25, 2016 lost the Liberals $14.70 despite selling 24 tickets for $20 a piece. The New Democrats held a tournament for the popular Settlers of Catan board game and wound up grossing just $239.50 on June 11.

The Greens held 10 fundraising functions last year that grossed the party almost $30,000.

The Elections BC data released last week show both main parties would lose substantial funds if corporate and union donations were banned, with Liberal figures showing nearly two thirds of their money $7.7-million came from a relatively small collection of corporate and other business donors. That dwarfs the $1.8-million donated to the NDP by unions.

Both parties have been dogged by sustained national and international coverage of the provinces lax political finance rules. The NDP have advocated banning corporate and union donations even though the party accepts those donations now. The Greens have already stopped taking money frobc liberslm corporations and unions. And while the Liberals are promising to review the rules, the party has not advocated they be changed.

Other governments tightened their rules after a recent Globe investigation into political fundraisers. The Trudeau Liberals effectively banned private cash-for-access events in addition to already strict limits of about $1,500 a year a donor. Ontarios Liberal government put an annual cap of $1,200 on donations and barred MPPs from attending cash-for-access fundraisers.

Follow Mike Hager on Twitter: @MikePHager

Excerpt from:
In 2016, majority of money raised by BC Liberals came from cash-for-access fundraisers - The Globe and Mail

A re-elected BC Liberal government would increase and introduce tax credits for renovating homes for seniors as well people caring for seniors as part of a program on seniors care.

The measures to be announced in the party platform Monday come as the government has faced accusations of shortcomings on seniors care as campaigning intensifies for the May 9 election.

The Liberals say they will double the home-renovation tax credit from $10,000 to $20,000 to make home improvements to house seniors and also introduce a tax credit of up to $2,500 for people caring for seniors.

Read more: Rocky political start shows B.C.'s Clark willing to take some risks

Both measures would also apply to individuals with disabilities needing care.

Referring to the tax breaks, Vancouver-Langara candidate Michael Lee, speaking for the Liberals, said the measures are aimed at reducing the burden on seniors and caregivers to do whats necessary to provide additional care so people can live longer in their homes.

In an interview, Mr. Lee said he agreed more could be done for seniors living in residential care, but that 94 per cent of seniors are actually living in their homes.

Seniors represent 18 per cent of British Columbias population or about 853,000 people, according to the provincial Office of the Seniors Advocate.

Other measures in the seniors agenda include building and publicly funding an additional 500 long-term care beds across British Columbia by 2022, and, in another tax measure, introducing a tax credit to support seniors living active healthy lifestyles.

The measures come after the Liberals, in March, said they would invest $500-million over the next four years to improve seniors care across the system including direct-care hours for seniors in residential care.

But they also come as both the NDP and the BC Greens are honing in on the seniors file as an area in which they say they could do better.

In Kelowna last week, NDP Leader John Horgan presided over a roundtable of seniors, hearing stories about challenges in housing and health care.

In response, Mr. Horgan talked about working to drive down the cost of prescription drugs, possibly through bulk buying. He also denounced heartbreaking cases of couples being split up when using residential seniors care.

During a rally in Surrey on Sunday, Mr. Horgan said nine out of 10 seniors facilities in British Columbia do not have the resources to give seniors the care they need. He did not elaborate, but said an NDP government would address the issue. The NDP has yet to release its platform on seniors care.

Seniors are fundamental to all of us. Its a fundamental tenet of our citizenship as Canadians, Mr. Horgan told the rally.

Were going to make sure seniors get the care they deserve.

Andrew Weaver, leader of the BC Green Party, will be touring retirement communities in Victoria on Monday, although the party also has yet to issue a platform on seniors issues,

BC Greens believe that seniors need more support, the party said in a statement. Our platform will include investments to help make life more affordable for seniors, including investments in care and ensuring facilities meet guidelines. We support measures to give seniors as much independence as possible and give them the care they need in their homes for as long as possible.

Follow Ian Bailey on Twitter: @ianabailey

More here:
BC Liberals pledge tax credits to seniors, caregivers for renovations - The Globe and Mail

Photo: Janet Van Ham, HONS

Said Bill Maher, "Everybody loves this f---- thing. Cable news loves it when they show footage of destroyers firing cruise missiles at night. It's America's money shot."

Said Bill Maher, "Everybody loves this f---- thing. Cable news loves it when they show footage of destroyers firing cruise missiles at night. It's America's money shot."

'Even the liberals were all over this': Bill Maher disgusted by the cable news response to Syria

Bill Maher understood why Republicans were happy to see 59 cruise missiles streaking into the sky over Syria early Friday - President Donald Trump was asserting his authority as commander in chief against a dictator who'd used chemical weapons on his own citizens.

But Maher said he was disgusted by the words of another group that seemed mesmerized by the missiles: TV journalists.

"Even the liberals were all over this last night," he said during his opening monologue Friday night on "Real Time with Bill Maher."

"Everybody loves this f---- thing. Cable news loves it when they show footage of destroyers firing cruise missiles at night. It's America's money shot."

Trump authorized the strike on a military airfield in retaliation for a chemical attack on civilians that killed at least 86 people.

The attack "ratchets up the intensity of a complicated regional conflict," according to The Washington Post's James Hohmann, and makes a conflict with Russia more likely.

News networks looped reel footage provided by the Pentagon of cruise missiles being launched from a ship and streaking into the night sky, complete with commentary.

Reflecting on the strike, Fareed Zakaria opined on CNN: "I think Donald Trump became president of the United States last night. "

As The Washington Post's Derek Hawkins reported, Brian Williams seemed so dazzled by the images that he described them as "beautiful" and quoted singer Leonard Cohen: "I am guided by the beauty of our weapons."

Maher wasn't the only one appalled by the journalists' laudatory words.

Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan wrote that "after the strikes, praise flowed like wedding champagne - especially on cable news."

And in a Facebook Post, Dan Rather took fellow journalists to task:

"The number of members of the press who have lauded the actions last night as 'presidential' is concerning," he wrote. "War must never be considered a public relations operation. It is not a way for an Administration to gain a narrative. It is a step into a dangerous unknown and its full impact is impossible to predict, especially in the immediate wake of the first strike."

See the rest here:
'Even the liberals were all over this': Bill Maher disgusted by the cable news response to Syria - SFGate

Donald Trump speaks after the US fired a barrage of missiles into Syria. Photograph: Alex Brandon/AP

So now we know what it takes for an unhinged, bigoted demagogue to win liberal applause: just bypass a constitution to fire some missiles. It had seemed as though there was consensus among those in the anti-Trump camp. This man was a threat to US democracy and world peace. The echoes of 1930s fascist leaders were frightening. This republic is in serious danger, declared conservative writer Andrew Sullivan on the eve of Trumps triumph. That this megalomaniac pussy-grabbing ban-the-Muslims ex-reality TV star would soon control the worlds most lethal military arsenal was chilling. Opposition would be uncompromising, a reflection of the Republican intransigence that Barack Obama faced from day one.

It has taken less than three months for these illusions to be shattered. A man widely castigated as a proto-fascist only needed to drop bombs without observing due process.

Lets examine what is being said about Trump now. A press he denounced as liars and enemies of the people are eating out of his hands, tiny or otherwise. I think Donald Trump became president of the United States, cooed CNN commentator Fareed Zakaria in response to the bombing. Trump reacted viscerally to the images of the death of innocent children in Syria, declared Mark Sandler in the New York Times. The original headline on that article, since amended? On Syria Attack, Trumps Heart Came First.

So the man who once bragged to a baying audience that he would tell five-year-old Syrian refugees to their faces that the US would not offer them safety, is now driven by his heart. Touching indeed. The moral dimensions of leadership had penetrated Trumps Oval Office, declared the Washington Posts David Ignatius. MSNBCs Brian Williams described the missile launches as beautiful three times in the space of 30 seconds.

In Britain, liberal and conservative columnists alike, plus Tory, Liberal Democrat and Labour politicians applauded the raid. Trump is now showing leadership, apparently. Leadership is shown by a man widely feared to be a) unhinged b) demagogic and c) authoritarian, dropping bombs in defiance of his countrys democratic process. Labours Jeremy Corbyn, on the other hand, is savaged for querying whether a military escapade led by Trump will succeed where all other Middle Eastern military adventures have failed.

Those who critique Trumps unilateral assault on Syria are portrayed as heartless in the face of the gassing of children

Those who critique Trumps unilateral assault on Syria are portrayed as heartless in the face of the gassing of little children, just as opponents of war in Iraq and Libya were demonised as indifferent to those murdered and tortured and persecuted by Saddam Hussein and Muammar or Gaddafi. Lets be clear. The gassing of those Syrian children, and the unspeakably sickening deaths that they suffered, is a despicable crime. President Assad is a blood-soaked tyrant who has slaughtered countless Syrians with his barrel bombs, and deserves to spend his final days rotting in a jail cell. Vladimir Putin, too, is caked in the blood of Syrian and Chechen children alike. If I genuinely thought Donald Trump was the plausible saviour of Syrias children, then I would reconsider my position.

The history of western military intervention in the Arab world is of bloody failure. Remember Libya, and how this time things would be different, before the country descended into a violent quagmire overrun by Islamist militia? Those applauding his latest intervention are saying, implicitly or otherwise, that this time will be different. And who will apparently buck the trend of failed, bloody US military interventions in the Arab world? Trump.

There are two plausible outcomes to his raid. One, it was purely symbolic. This, currently, seems most likely. His administration gave the Russians notice, who alerted Assads forces. Syrian military casualties were minimal, and bombing raids from the targeted military base have now resumed. In that case, it was a meaningless slap on the wrists, mostly designed for a domestic American audience at a time when the president has disastrous polling numbers. The other is that this marks the beginning of a further escalation of US involvement in Syrias intractable civil war. That will mean entrusting Trump to spearhead deepening military involvement in a war which has already claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. How palatable are both options?

Good on Trump, some liberal pundits say, but he lacks strategy. In Syria, that is true. He has no strategy there. But lets not pretend for a second that a man who defeated both the Republican and Democratic party machines is lacking in strategy. He has proved adept at winning power, and now he will amass it with the help of this applauded military excursion.

Trump is now emboldened. The pundits are applauding him, his critics have praised him, his appalling approval ratings will surely edge up. Further military action by a man who has repeatedly bragged about disrespecting the norms of war will surely follow. He bypassed the constitution this time, and will be praised for it, so why shouldnt he next time? And if war comes with North Korea, what will the liberal pundits do? Some will cheerlead him all over again. Wheres your compassion for the suffering of North Korea? will be their cryto silence opposition, just as it was with Iraq and Libya. We had the Ronald Reagan Democrats, now the Trump liberals will emerge. Others will say, no, we backed the bombing of Syria, but this new war is different, this is too far.

Too late. They will have legitimised one extra-constitutional military intervention, their subsequent opposition will look as pathetic as it will be hypocritical. A man who backs torture and castigated his predecessors for not stealing Iraq and Syrias oil is being rehabilitated by the liberal pundits: as a man of compassion, a man of strength, with the resolve that Obama apparently lacked.

A wartime martial presidency may then be born, cheered on by some liberals who once decried Trump as a possible American Mussolini. Well fine: it was liberal Italy that handed Mussolini the keys, after all. History shows that war presents the ideal opportunity for the authoritarian-minded to amass, consolidate and concentrate power. Dissent can be more easily portrayed as treachery; jingoism sweeps the nation, boosting the popularity of the ruler; critics fall into line; constitutional norms can be disregarded at a time of national crisis.

What happened in Syria cannot be divorced from what is happening in Iraq and Yemen. In Mosul, at least 150 civilians perished in a Trumpist bombing raid one of the deadliest US raids since the calamitous Iraq invasion. Thats more than perished in Assads gas attack in Khan Sheikhun, even if the American weapons that slaughtered them are legal.

Dozens were killed by a US strike against a school in Syria last month, largely unmourned by Trumps new apologists, as were the 30 civilians killed in Trumps failed Yemen raid in January, children among them. There are children in Yemen too, you know, and they are being slaughtered by US- and UK-backed Saudi warplanes. Trumps liberal apologists wont cry for them or even acknowledge their existence: they are, apparently, unpeople, rather than kids clutching teddy bears as western-backed bombs rain on their heads.

How naive some of us were. Yes, some of those liberals were cheerleaders of George W Bush as he launched an invasion of Iraq which plunged the country and the region into blood and chaos. They learned their lesson, though, right? I mean, Trump almost makes a bloodstained Bush look like a paragon of decency in comparison surely they wont legitimise his war machine too and laud him to boot?

One of the main objections to Trump was that he was unstable, impulsive, with authoritarian instincts, and would disregard constitutional norms. This has turned out to be true, while being applauded by his erstwhile detractors for doing so, emboldening him to go further. Yet Im no fan of Trump, but will be the battle cry of his erstwhile detractors. Still, the children of Syria will die, just as they will die in Yemen and Iraq and elsewhere. History will ask: how did this man become president? And how did he maintain power when he did? Look no further than the brittle, weak, pathetic liberal opposition. The US deserves better, and so does the world.

More here:
Why are liberals now cheerleading a warmongering Trump? - The Guardian