For all the high-minded harrumphing of Democrats during Donald Trump’s impeachment show trial, Americans know better. We remember Kamala Harris grinning like a cat with a gut stuffed with mice as she praised the BLM/Antifa riots. We recall the icy look behind Michelle Obama’s eyes as she issued her Democratic Convention extortion threat. That is, vote Biden, or expect more riots and chaos.

We watched Joe “President” Biden eliminate the 1776 Commission, devoted to teaching American principles to young citizens. We see Democrat-run teachers unions shoving the 1619 Project conspiracy theory down clueless students’ throats. A whole generation in blue states will grow up believing they know why America was founded. To stop King George III from freeing the slaves. 

More 2020 Election Frauds … Forever?

We know the Left rigged the election. TIME magazine documented it. We strongly suspect they outright stole it. Now they’re trying to rig every US election going forward through HR 1, which enshrines mail-in (i.e., unverifiable, insecure) voting forever. And voting by felons, by postcards from prison. The Democrats plan a massive amnesty of illegals and dismantling of our borders. They’re even turning loose sex offenders who deserve to be deported. All to conjure up more Democrat votes, by fair means or foul.

The Democrats are doing to the US government what Antifa and BLM rioters did to the statues of its founders. Why should we be shocked that Chuck Schumer and his lackeys in the Senate now wish to defy specific provisions of the US Constitution? All to try and prevent the one man they fear the most, Donald Trump, from running again for office.

Congress Declares You Guilty

You might not know about “Bills of Attainder.” But our founders did. They thought this maneuver from the dark days of royal absolutism wicked enough that they outright forbade it. In the very first Article of the US Constitution, in fact: “No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law will be passed.” (Article I, Section 9, paragraph 3.)

A bill of attainder is a way for a king or parliament to declare someone guilty without a trial. British kings used such bills to dispose of disloyal noblemen. Or family members they didn’t trust. Or wives whom Henry VIII grew tired of. Some of the worst miscarriages of justice in British history happened by attainder. No surprise that our founders forbade them. Much of the wisdom found in our Constitution came from wise, moderate men learning from the past.

Schumer Dreams of Being Henry VIII

This second absurd and lawless impeachment of Donald Trump, now out of office, will fail as the first one did. So the constitutional penalty for being removed from office won’t apply to Trump — legally, an innocent man.

But Schumer has a back-up plan: Pass a law by simple majority vote declaring that Trump has violated the clauses in the 14^th Amendment forbidding former “rebels” and “insurrectionists” from holding public office. Then Trump is off the table for the 2024 election. And Democrats can hope the GOP swamp burps up some lesser member of the Bush or Cheney family to foist on the party.

A clever move, no?

Shredding the Constitution

Well, no. Because in the absence of a legal finding of guilt — for instance, a conviction in the Senate — the Congress has no grounds for applying the 14^th Amendment against citizen Donald Trump. It would have to declare him guilty in the bill Schumer wants to pass. And that, my friends, is a bill of attainder, exactly like the bills that declared Henry VIII’s cast-off wives guilty of treason and adultery.

If Congress can do that to Donald Trump, out of office, without a trial, it can do that to anyone. It can do that to Josh Hawley, Kyle Rittenhouse, your pastor, or to you.

Bulldozing All the Barriers to One-Party Rule

The Democrats hate the past, and want to repeal it. They wish to pack the US Supreme Court to remove the last few restraints on their untrammeled power. Especially the last backstop against tyranny (according to our founders, in their ratification debates), the Second Amendment.

Let us pray, and pray hard, that they’re overplaying their hand. Let’s remind people that the party which lies about the very reason the US came into existence, and trashes the statues of its founders, can’t be trusted with its Constitution either.

John Zmirak is a senior editor at The Stream, and author or co-author of ten books, including The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Catholicism. He is co-author with Jason Jones of “God, Guns, & the Government.”