Constitutional scholar cites danger from within

A renowned constitutional scholar who has become a popular face in North Idaho spent an hour Thursday evening warning locals about the document’s — and the nation’s — fragility if its citizens continue to allow the government to sway toward tyranny.

“At this particular point in time, it has to be ackowledged that our Constitution is facing tremendous challenges,” said Dr. David Adler of the Alturas Institute. “We have seen challenges not only in the form of state laws … that undercut the rights of voters, but we have seen the president assert unprecedented powers.”

Adler made his comments Thursday evening in a virtual lecture commemorating Constitution Day — the 223rd anniversary of the 1787 signing of the document — that was picked up by the Coeur d’Alene Public Library. The library has long been a popular venue for Adler, though the COVID-19 pandemic has forced prior engagements to revert to digital lectures.

But there was nothing virtual about the weight of his critiques Thursday night.

“When President Trump has asserted that he enjoys ‘absolute power,’ that under Article Two, he can do anything that he wants to do, that’s an assertion of power that has never been uttered by any of his predecessors," Adler said. "That is an assertion of power that does not, in any way, square with the constitutional creation of the presidency, nor does it square with any clause in Article Two, which is the Executive Clause. It finds no precedent in our history.”

Adler expanded on Trump’s April 13 decree by asking the audience to imagine hearing such claims of total authority from a hypothetical leader in the 1930s or 1940s.

“They would send chills down your spine,” he said, “because you knew those assertions were ones asserted by leaders of Germany, and the Soviet Union, and Spain, and Italy — countries that became an anathema to the United States because they represented the worst kind of challenges — indeed, the worst kind of threats to the rule of law and constitutional democracy.”

Adler said the government’s actions against protesters over the summer in the wake of the George Floyd killing — including extrajudicial detentions without due process and violent attacks on its citizens — would be unrecognizable to the Founding Fathers, as they viewed a government at war with its own people no different than a foreign invasion.

“The indulgence by the American people, of a government that would disregard the supreme law of the land was unimaginable …," he said. "Surely, the American people would not tolerate a government that would turn on the people themselves.”

Adler’s writings have appeared throughout the modern judicial and legislative discourse. His work has been quoted by the United States Supreme Court, the offices of the United States Attorney General and White House counsel and on the floor of the United States Senate and House of Representatives.

Adler has taught constitutional and Supreme Court law at Idaho State University, Boise State University and the University of Idaho.

Adler said Trump’s repeated abuses of his authority — citing in particular Sept. 10 revelations that the president knew about but downplayed COVID-19’s dangers — continues to damage Americans’ basic relationship with the Constitution.

“‘Is it possible for people to govern themselves through reason, discussion, deliberation and debate?’” Adler asked, quoting Alexander Hamilton. “Or must the people forever suffer the imposition of government upon them?"

"… The answer would be, ‘Yes,’ but only if we get facts. Only if we get evidence. Not if we’re misled. If we are misled by our national leaders who are unchecked in their spread of misinformation, then we live under the mercy of the whims and the arbitrary views of those executive leaders.”

Adler ended Thursday’s lecture not far from where he began it: in Philadelphia in 1787, when Benjamin Franklin walked down the steps of Independence Hall and was greeted by a woman who asked what kind of government the Constitutional Convention had decided to provide.

“‘A republic, madam,’” Adler quoted Franklin in reply, “‘if you can keep it.’”