A Chant for No Kings Day
Chants can be powerful at mass demonstrations, as a way of building solidarity, sending a concise message, and attracting media attention. With June 14, now renamed “No Kings Day” coming up, and mass demonstrations planned in all 50 states, I’ve come up with a good chant for this crucial historic moment:
A LONG TRAIN OF ABUSES:
NO MORE EXCUSES!
FOUR-TEENTH AMENDMENT:
REMOVE TRUMP NOW!
Nothing good can happen in our nation and world until Donald Trump is removed from power. There are two legal ways of removing Trump from power: (1) impeachment, and (2) invoking the 14th Amendment. Impeachment, right now, is impossible in Congress: we just don’t have the votes. But the 14th Amendment, according to many top-notch legal scholars such as Lawrence Tribe and J. Michael Luttig, is self-enforcing. Their argument can be stated in the following syllogism: (1) Article 3 of the 14th Amendment clearly states that anyone who actively participated in an insurrection against the US Government can be removed from power; (2) Trump did just that on January 6, 2021, and continues to do the same thing today by repeatedly violating the Constitution and ignoring court orders. (3) Therefore the Constitution requires his removal from office, and that of all his appointees, since his power is illegitimate.
(4) According to the Fourteenth Amendment, the ONLY exception to this mandate is if a 2/3 majority of Congress overrules it in the case of a particular person. It follows that ANYONE in Congress can call for a vote by Congress — not on whether to remove him, but on whether to countermand his removal. Otherwise the 14th Amendment necessarily applies, and he MUST be removed from power immediately, along with his entire cabinet. So my slogan encapsulates this watertight legal argument, in four lines and 12 drumbeats (3 per line).
Just imagine if this slogan went viral, and at demonstrations and townhalls throughout the nation, this chant became ubiquitous, starting with a handful of people, and then picked up by the rest of the crowd! Especially as we can align June 14th with the 14th Amendment in our publicity, and since July 4 comes shortly thereafter, when the chant alludes to that vital conclusion drawn in the iconic Second Paragraph (the thesis statement) of the Declaration of Independence: “When a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty to THROW OFF such government, and establish new guards for their future security.” This is our time for collectively demanding that our elected officials honor their oath of office to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; [and] bear true faith and allegiance to the same…”
Bearing “true faith and allegiance” to the Constitution entails the obligation of every elected official to adhere to it, in letter and spirit, in every proposal they make, in every vote they take, and in their recognition of a President’s executive authority. The third article of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution does not give them the option of recognizing Donald Trump as President, unless and until a 2/3 majority of both houses, in joint session, agree to override the clause in that Amendment that precludes insurrectionists from holding elective office in the US Government. Without such a 2/3 majority, the Fourteenth Amendment renders Donald Trump’s presidency as illegitimate, and Congress has the authority, on behalf of the American people, to declare him and his administration null and void, and either hold a new election, or take whatever other action they deem appropriate to fill the resulting leadership vacuum. Even if the next person, unappointed by Trump but elected by Congress, is sycophantic speaker Mike Johnson (as the Constitution mandates), and hence not much of an improvement, we would restore the supreme authority of the US Constitution, and put an end to Trump’s lawless and malignant reign.