Trump v. United States, an Engineering Assessment

Specifying an authoritarian world

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NOTE: Within this text, wherever gender is not key to the explanation, I am using the Elverson ey/em construction of the Spivak Pronouns.

When the Supreme Court of the United States issued Trump v. United States, I heard the same complaints from competent attorneys and judges that everyone else did. The President now has the authority to assassinate opponents, to rape members of the Cabinet, to arrest opposition Congress-members prior to an important vote and many other things that sane people believed would be prohibited in any nation guided by the rule of law.

Aware of all this, I became curious how anyone could publish a technical document of this sort that would so obviously make President-for-life a real thing in the United States. When, several years ago, I heard well-known commentator and author Thom Hartmann make a claim about the U.S. Constitution that seemed unreasonable, I found a copy of the Constitution, read it, concluded that he was incorrect and published that founding document in a number of forms so that anyone else could double-check odd claims about it as well.

So, why don’t I just read and assess Trump v. United States? Some will say that only a legal expert could understand a Supreme Court opinion, but I’m…