Comments by "dixon pinfold" (@dixonpinfold2582) on "The Lincoln Project"
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In fairness to the voluble and often impulsive Mr. Trump, election results which are fraudulent (as he professes to believe) can hardly be constitutional themselves. Yet if they are upheld by corrupt means (as he likewise professes), means which are nonetheless upheld, accepting them necessarily entails accepting an illegitimate government. If I am not mistaken, the leaders of the American Revolution regarded Britain's rule as illegitimate, consequently rebelled, and thereby violated the British constitution which was then the law of the land.
I grant that this is in no wise a sophisticated nor even, I assume, an adequate view of constitutional law. I'm not a constitutional lawyer, and neither is Mr. Trump. But I think it is a line of rough-and-ready moral reasoning which many if not most Americans would find generally acceptable if it suited their partisan leanings in the case of an allegedly fraudulent election outcome. (In other words, if they believed their own side, not their opponents, had been unlawfully deprived of an electoral victory.)
In this light we may consider a few reflections of eminent Americans:
"We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution." — Abraham Lincoln
"One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws." — Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once?" — Henry David Thoreau
I of course realize that many quotations could be marshalled against Mr. Trump, perhaps including the one of Lincoln's above.
Indeed, all this is not to express my support for Mr. Trump. For one thing, I am in no position to form a belief about the legitimacy of the 2020 election. For another, he might even be acting in part or entirely on ill intentions. No, it is merely to give whatever credit is due to him, marginal though it might in fact be. I don't know.
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