The use of social media for networked incitement foreshadows a dark future for democracies. Rulers could well come to power by manipulating mass social movements via social media, directing a movement’s members to serve as the leaders’ shock troops, online and off.

This is the prevailing legal standard that would apply to Trump. The fact of his indictment and potential trial is irrelevant to his qualifications for office under the Constitution. Nevertheless, there seems no question that indictment, conviction or both – let alone a prison sentence – would significantly compromise a president’s ability to function in office. And the Constitution doesn’t provide an easy answer to the problem posed by such a compromised chief executive.

As the story moves along, Doug and Ralph become unwitting agents in the breakout of the coronavirus, which was orchestrated by fake Hillary to get rid of fake Trump after the 2016 election. It’s hard to tell what purpose Tucker and Ralph serve in the plot, since apparently, they don’t have any sway in the government despite being immortal and witnessing all the major events of American history. Since they have both been around for centuries, this is just an excuse for them to rant about the erosion of American values.

Of the many so far unaccounted-for crimes of his administration, few are as pernicious as the way Donald Trump and his corrupt ilk have warped reality and called basic truths into question. Whether Trump caused the right-wing wave or expertly rode it, his shamelessness and grifter tendencies have diminished the office of the presidency. He also hastened the collapse of civility and any impulse among his followers to cooperate with so-called “enemies of the state” (that is, anyone who disagrees with him).

While his vice president was still in peril of being captured and killed by the pro-Trump mob ransacking the Capitol, Trump unleashed a torrent of invective, attacking Pence for not doing his utmost to illegally overturn the results of the election. “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!” Trump tweeted.

Over the past five years, though, another kind of press criticism has come to prominence after a period of marginalization. This brand of press criticism takes a free and independent press as a necessity for life in a democratic society. Instead of seeking to delegitimize the press, these critics are simultaneously explaining the workings of the press to the public and holding it accountable in its role as the public’s representative and watchdog.

A flashpoint of this contention has been the executive order. Most notably, President Obama's statement that “I've got a pen and I've got a phone,” which covered more than actions requiring the secrecy and dispatch that other areas in which the presidency is accorded a freer hand, namely foreign policy: “Helping to make sure our kids are getting the best education possible, making sure that our businesses are getting the kind of support and help they need to grow and advance, to make sure that people are getting the skills that they need to get those jobs that our businesses are creating.”

To sum up, some of the compromises that our Founding Fathers had to make may have been necessary at the time they formulated our Constitution but the reasons for these compromises simply no longer exist. As recent events have shown, these obsolete compromise provisions can be exploited by less-than-trustworthy politicians to undermine our democratic institutions -- a clear and present danger to the future of our republic.

On Election Night 2008, at an Obama campaign party, I had cried tears of joy. It wasn’t just because my side had won. It was because I believed the whole country had won, no matter how they had voted, because of the inspiring values Obama stood for and — as his campaign staff knew well — lived by. I cried in 2016 too, for very different reasons. But across the street, the Arizona Republicans were holding their election night party. From there, I heard a rising roar of exultation.

 A laser-sharp political awareness doesn’t flourish in a vacuum and studying at the Workshop for People’s Art had exposed Sue Coe to the poster art and library sources that fueled her imagination.  If the likes of Rembrandt, Goya, and Kathe Kollwitz filled her nascent eyes, expressionist Otto Dix and social muralist Jose Clemente Orozco heightened it further.  She visited prisons, AIDS wards, even slaughterhouses to peel the layers of her vision clean.