Donald Trump has probably never read any of the Constitution. Why would he have? There have been myriad examples of policy questions which have come up during this campaign which, when posed to Mr. Trump, his answer reveals that he has clearly never thought about the matter before.
Which is not necessarily a bad thing. There are so many issues which fall under the office of the President which most people never need to consider. It would be encouraging if he showed that he had cared enough to at least brush up on some of them a little bit before running for the Presidency, but he clearly doesn’t think that is important for him to do.
But his willful ignorance seems to extend to the Constitution, as well. He has just never saw any reason to worry about what it says…or to think about what it means. For many people, this is not a problem; indeed, for some, it is probably viewed as a positive. Prior to this election season, I had believed that most such people were on the political left. Clearly, that is not the case.
I do not believe that following examples require much in the way of explanation. If you can read through the list and still believe that Mr. Trump has a governing philosophy which is based on (or even aware of) the Constitution, there is probably no way to convince you of the truth.
With regard to the First Amendment’s protection of Freedom of the Press/Speech:
* February 26, 2016:
“We’re going to open up those libel laws so when The New York Times writes a hit piece, which is a total disgrace, or when the Washington Post, which is there for other reasons, writes a hit piece, we can sue them and win money instead of having no chance of winning because they’re totally protected,” he said. “We’re going to open up libel laws and we’re going to have people sue you like you’ve never got sued before.” (http://money.cnn.com/2016/02/26/media/donald-trump-libel-laws/)
Trump added that, should he win the election, news organizations that have criticized him will “have problems.” (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/trump-threatens-to-weaken-first-amendment-protections-for-reporters/)
* Indeed, Trump has a long history of filing frivolous libel suits in an attempt to silence critics:
“Donald Trump has been filing and threatening lawsuits to shut up critics and adversaries over the whole course of his career. He dragged reporter Tim O’Brien through years of litigation over a relatively favorable Trump biography that assigned a lower valuation to his net worth than he thought it should have. He sued the Chicago Tribune’s architecture critic over a piece arguing that a planned Trump skyscraper in lower Manhattan would be “one of the silliest things” that could be built in the city. He used the threat of litigation to get an investment firm to fire an analyst who correctly predicted that the Taj Mahal casino would not be a financial success. He sued comedian Bill Maher over a joke.
…And Ilya Somin cites further elements forming a pattern: Trump has expressed his wish to “have the FCC take some of his critics off the airwaves” and his regret that protesters at his events could not be dealt with in such a way that they “have to be carried out on a stretcher.” He also writes that should Trump proceed to appoint judges who strongly share his view of libel law, those judges “are unlikely to effectively protect other important speech rights and civil liberties.” And a late-January post from Patterico recalls Trump threats against the Washington Post (again), John Kasich, a t-shirt company, and a Jeb Bush PAC, to which might be added the Club for Growth, reporter Tim Mak, Scotland, Univision, and many more.”(http://overlawyered.com/2016/02/trump-libel-law/)
Trump repeatedly makes it clear that he does not see the value of protected speech. He wants to “open up libel laws” because writers are too protected by the constitution. He would lack the power to actually do much with libel laws or curtailing the first amendment, at least in an formal way. But entrusting the Presidency to him means that he has every regulatory and federal enforcement agency at his disposal to deal with those he considers enemies. While he won’t be able to win a lawsuit against a newspaper for printing a protected story or shut it down for protected speech, he can use the IRS, FTC, EPA, FDA, FBI and the rest of the alphabet soup to make life difficult for the paper, or its investors or business partners. As he has said in the past, simply causing the offending writer to have to spend money defending himself was enough for Trump to get his rocks off. So giving him the entire federal government to use to force his opponents to spend time and money defending themselves seems wildly irresponsible.
Skeptical? When the Washington Post published an article of which Mr. Trump did not approve, he lashed out not only at the paper, but at owner Jeff Bezos, and Bezos’ other company, Amazon:
“I have respect for Jeff Bezos, but he bought the Washington Post to have political influence. And I gotta tell you, we have a different country than we used to have. We have a different… He owns Amazon. He wants political influence so that Amazon will benefit from it. That’s not right. And believe me, if I become president, oh do they have problems. They’re gonna have such problems,” said Trump. (http://www.weeklystandard.com/trump-attacks-jeff-bezos/article/2001298)
I will add that I doubt that Mr. Trump would understand the nuances of the law enough to realize that the latitude that he has to remove protestors from his presence at his private rallies doesn’t extend quite as broadly to many of the public appearances making and public places he would be visiting as President.
Would Mr. Trump appoint judges or Justices who share his lack of respect for the Freedom of the Press or Freedom of Speech? Would such judges help to weaken our first Amendment protections? Any jurist who shared this mindset would almost certainly plan to overturn Citizens United.
With Regard to the First Amendment’s Protection of Freedom of Religion:
* November 20, 2015:
“Nobody wants to say this and nobody wants to shut down religious institutions or anything,” Trump told Fox News, but the U.S. will have “absolutely no choice” but to shut down some mosques. Trump also said he was open to the idea of forcing Muslim-Americans to carry a special government identification card and forcing Muslim-Americans to register in a national government database. (https://reason.com/blog/2015/11/20/donald-trump-has-now-trashed-the-1st-ame)
* December 8, 2015
“Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on,” a campaign press release said.
Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski told CNN on Monday that the ban would apply not just to Muslim foreigners looking to immigrate to the U.S., but also to Muslims looking to visit the U.S. as tourists.
“Everyone,” Lewandowski said when asked if the ban would also apply to Muslim tourists. (http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/07/politics/donald-trump-muslim-ban-immigration/)
The First Amendment prevents the government from playing favorites with religions, and prevents interference with the free exercise of religion. Suggesting that it is ok to close down houses of worship, require a database of religious adherents or use religion as a screen for visiting this country is clearly not reflective of an underlying respect for the Religious Protections afforded by the First Amendment.
Would Mr. Trump appoint Judges and Justices who would issue rulings which set precedents allowing the government to infringe upon religion? You may be ok that it “just the Muslims” now, but once it’s the law, the next President can come after you.
With Regard to the Fifth Amendment
The Due Process guaranteed by the fifth amendment would also be a hindrance to Trump’s plans to target Muslims as discussed above. It also would be a serious speed bump in an attempt to unilaterally deport millions of people, or to confiscate money being sent from the US to Mexico.
His interpretation of the portion of the fifth amendment dealing with the taking of private property has also always been a very liberal one. You can read a decent history of it here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/08/19/donald-trumps-abuse-of-eminent-domain/
If he appointed judges or justices who share his lack of respect for due process and for private property, protections for all of us would be weakened. The Kelo decision may never be overturned, regardless, but it certainly wouldn’t be if new justices shared Trump’s love of eminent domain. And Civil Asset Forfeiture is becoming a huge problem in this country, as law enforcement abuse their power to steal from the accused. Trumpian judges will not help to put an end to this problem.
With Regard to the Fourteenth Amendment
“I don’t think they have American citizenship,” Trump told Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, in reference to the U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants. “It’s not going to hold up in court, it’s going to have to be tested.”
If you need a little background on the 14th Amendment:
On March 27, 1866, President Andrew Johnson sent a message to Congress vetoing the landmark civil rights bill it had just passed. Among the provisions “which I cannot approve,” Johnson wrote, was the first section, which stated, “All persons born in the United States, and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States.”
Not only would this grant of birthright citizenship make citizens out of “the entire race designated as blacks,” Johnson protested, it would also make citizens out of “the Chinese of the Pacific States, Indians subject to taxation, [and] the people called Gipsies.” He wouldn’t sign it.
So the Republican-controlled 39th Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 over the president’s veto. As Sen. Lyman Trumbull (R–Ill.), the bill’s primary author, declared from the Senate floor, “the child of an Asiatic is just as much a citizen as the child of a European.” Several months later, that same Republican Congress passed the legislation that became the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which, among other things, declared, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” Upon ratification in 1868, the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause enshrined the principle of birthright citizenship in the text of the Constitution. At the same time, it overturned the U.S. Supreme Court’s notorious 1857 decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford, which held that persons of African descent could never be U.S. citizens. It was a magnificent achievement for the young Republican Party.
https://reason.com/archives/2015/11/10/trump-vs-the-constitution/
With regard to Article 1, Article 2, and Article 3 (that is, Separation of Powers)
* December 10, 2015
“One of the first things I’d do in terms of executive orders, if I win, will be to sign a strong, strong statement that will go out to the country, out to the world, that anybody killing a policeman, a policewoman, a police officer, anybody killing a police officer: Death penalty is going to happen, okay?” (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/12/10/donald-trump-wants-the-death-penalty-for-those-who-kill-police-officers/)
This manages to step on the powers or Congress and the Judiciary, along with the States (so add 10th Amendment).
* February 29, 2016
During the last Republican presidential debate in Texas, Donald Trump spoke of his sister, a liberal activist judge who he says would make a “phenomenal” Supreme Court justice, and defended her against criticism she has received “for signing a certain bill”—his words—from the bench. He then said his sister wasn’t the only judge who had “signed that bill”; more than one judge had “signed that bill.” (http://www.weeklystandard.com/trump-on-the-separation-of-powers-judges-sign-bills/article/2001315)
* Trump acts as though the President can unilaterally do almost anything. Which is unfortunately becoming more and more true, but is not how it was intended, and is not quite how it is:
The real estate mogul has said that he would convince the Mexican government to pay for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, forge close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin and stop U.S. jobs from being outsourced abroad. When asked how he will achieve these outcomes, Trump often points to his success in business, particularly his ability to negotiate.
But Trump, these scholars argue, is promoting an idea of the presidency sometimes referred to as the Green Lantern theory, named after the Green Lantern Corps, a fictional police force in DC Comics whose members wear all-powerful rings. The U.S. president, according to this theory, is often cast as a person with essentially a magic wand allowing him or her to shape outcomes.
Scholars say such a view ignores the role, incentives and power of members of Congress, the American public, private businesses and foreign governments, who can block or limit the goals of a president. (http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/scholars-doubt-donald-trumps-approach-presidency-n458011)
With Regard to the Second Amendment
Mr. Trump mostly says all of the right things now about the right to keep and bear arms (it’s his “whole thing,” after all). But it is important to consider his history of support for gun control, along with his history of adapting his positions to suit the needs of the moment.
I do not believe that Mr. Trump would actively work against second amendment rights, but I am also not convinced he is a reliable defender of them. That is, he may be persuaded to accept some gun control measure as part of a compromise with a future democratic congress. Or, perhaps in the wake of a high-profile tragedy, may be persuaded to endorse gun control by forceful advocates and popular opinion.
I also wonder how important second amendment rights would be to him as he chose judges and justices. Indeed, if he were to pick a judge who shared his opinions on the rest of the constitution, it is unlikely that judge would be a staunch defender of the second amendment while finding the rest of the constitution to be very open to interpretation.
Blustery Forecast
All of this really means that Mr. Trump will either be prevented from doing almost anything that he wants to do, or that he will do so in violation of the constitution. Which really just leaves us with his ability to bluster.
From Trump’s dangerous interpretation of America’s benefits from global stability to his fundamentally flawed understanding of international trade and economics , there is little reason to have faith that the things he could do on his own would be things which were beneficial to anyone. (I wrote the two posts linked in this paragraph, obviously, but you can find a better treatment of Trump’s massively flawed economic philosophy here: https://www.nationalreview.com/nrd/articles/433214/united-states-trade-and-economic-realities
HillbillyThoughts 
Donald Trump doesn’t understand the limits of his own knowledge, which is a profound level of ignorance, and a very dangerous one to have in a President.
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