Benjamin Franklin famously remarked, “A republic, if you can keep it,” in response to a question about the type of government the Constitutional Convention had created. This statement underscores the idea that maintaining a democratic republic requires active participation and vigilance from its citizens.

You’ve heard by now that the Supreme Court has ruled in favor of Trump in his immunity case. How bad can that really be?

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who has come out punching like the new RBG, wrote the main dissent;

“A President’s use of any official power for any purpose, even the most corrupt, is immune from prosecution. That is just as bad as it sounds,” she wrote.

Then, “In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law.”

But wait, there’s more:

“Today’s decision to grant former Presidents criminal immunity reshapes the institution of the Presidency. It makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of Government, that no man is above the law.”

Ash Bhagwat, a professor and expert in constitutional law at UC Davis, told me none of that was an exaggeration. The office of the president is now weaponized for personal use — as long as the president can claim some sort of official connection.

He brought up Trump’s famous line: “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK?”

“After this decision, if he did it, he’d be in trouble,” Bhagwat said. “But if he ordered the Army to do it, he’s immune.”

And if you aren’t scared enough, let me bring up another Supreme Court decision last week: Chevron vs. Natural Resources Defense Council.

For 40 years, legal precedent has essentially given federal agencies the power to determine how best to regulate industries that don’t like to be regulated but that Congress has ordered to be watched.

The Supreme Court overturned that precedent and said if Congress didn’t spell out every itty-bitty detail on something like, say, what constitutes polluting our water supply, then the agency in question can’t decide for itself.

Basically, it guts federal regulation — all of it, across the board — by making it subject to court interpretation. This has long been a dream of ultra-conservatives and goes hand-in-hand with Trump/Project 2025 threats to fire civil servants if elected.

So little things like how Medicare and Medicaid health plans are administered, how clean air and water rules are implemented and how tobacco sales are regulated are all up for grabs. If any industry doesn’t like it, it need only find a like-minded judge.

But he’s got a bigger worry. Over the past decade, he said, there have been a series of rulings giving the executive office greater power over the federal bureaucracy.

Combine that increase in power with today’s immunity ruling — and top it off with the purge of civil servants Trump has promised if elected, the last line of defense of anyone willing to argue with him — and we are a democracy in name only.

The National Nervous Breakdown -This brings us to the debate, also known as the National Nervous Breakdown. It wasn’t just hard to watch Biden stumble and fumble — it hurt our collective, democracy-loving psyche. If we can’t have clean water, can we at least replace the fluoride with Prozac?

There are already people displaying Nazi flags. More than a fifth column believes it is justifiable to overthrow the govenment.

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