Election 2026 #2
Election 2026 #1 was intended as a warning/reminder that this is an important election year. In the United States, there are important elections at one or more levels of government somewhere every year, but every two years, we elect or re-elect over 460 of those who represent us at the Federal level. No mater what political philosophy you support, it is essential that you vote.
I tried to restrain myself in Election 2026 #1. I tried to keep my political opinions to myself. (As usual, I failed to do so.) Beginning with this article, all bets are off; no more restraints.
We the People
I am a member of We the People … as were many of my ancestors.[1] If you are a citizen, so are you. Anybody who is physically in the country, regardless of status, has the protection of the Constitution and the Law, If you are a member of We the People, you have a responsibility to the Constitution and the Law. Contrary to what the President, the Congress, and the Courts would like you to believe, we are not their subjects. They are our employees subject to the Constitution, the Body of Law, … and to our Vote.
The Constitutional Oath
Article VI of the Constitution states:
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.
The exact wording of the oath was encoded into Law in the 1860s and is taken by all members of the Federal except the President:
I, ________________, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.
The Presidential Oath of Office is:
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
Trump vs. The Constitution
Within hours after his inauguration to his second term, President Donald J. Trump violated his oath of office by words and actions that are opposed to the Constitution of the United States. The most direct attack was his attempt to change the 14th Amendment by Executive Order.
The 14th Amendment states:
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. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Executive Order #14160, signed on the afternoon of January 20, 2025, states two different situations where a person is no longer a U.S. citizen at birth:
- When the mother was unlawfully present in the U.S. and the father was neither a U.S. citizen nor a lawful permanent resident when the person was born.
- When the mother was in the U.S. in temporary status, such as a student visa, work visa, tourist visa or under the Visa Waiver Program, and the father was neither a U.S. citizen nor a lawful permanent resident when the person was born.
I wonder what President Trump thinks “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” means. Some may point to the phrase “… and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” … saying that undocumented immigrants are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States. That is unutterable nonsense that only someone ignorant of the way our laws work[2] would believe. The moment one enters this country (and, I suspect, any country) you are subject to its laws.
The only way to modify an amendment to the Constitution is by passing and ratifying another amendment. The best example of that is in the 18th and 21st amendments.[3] The 21st cancels the 18th. Some amendments modify the main body of the Constitution itself and/or add things that those who wrote the Constitution did not consider. The basis of our Law is … and was designed to be … a living document.
Promises Made; Promises Ignored
During their campaigns, Presidential Candidates make a lot of promises. Implicit to those promises is a leading phrase somrthing like “I will work with the Congress to ,,,”. They uderstand that it is the Representatives of The People who are charged with: [4]
- Laying and collecting Taxes;
- Regulating Commerce with foreign Nations and among the several States;
- Establishing uniform rules of Naturalization;
- Declaring War and making Rules concerning Military activity on land and water;
- Making all Laws necessary and proper for carrying out all Powers vested by the Constitution in the Government of the United States.
Supporting the promise of the Constitution is, by definition, a combined effort Congress, the Administration, and the Courts, but it is Congress that takes the lead in change. The President can suggest changes and work with Congress to bring those changes to fruition, but it is the Representatives of The People who make those changes,
Most Presidents and most, but not all, of The People understand that. Some voters did not learn how our our democratic republic works. Either they weren’t taught, weren’t paying atteneion, or just didn’t want to be bothered. To the best of my knowledge only one President has ever said, “I alone can fix it.” That President is, of course, the egocentric and delusional Donald John Trump.
Let’s take a look at how well President Trump has kept Candidate Trump’s promises after 14 months in office. (Bear in mind that his party controls both the House and the Senate,)
- Candidate Trump promised to bring prices under control. Have you noticed how much prices have dropped during President Trump’s first year? Neither have I.
In April 2025, President Trump declared import tariffs … ranging from a baseline of 10% up to 50% … on virtually every country in the world. He claimed (and continues to claim) that the exporting countries are paying us a lot of money. Unfortunately, tariffs are paid by importers … the U.S. companies and citizens who are buying the products and accepting them at port of entry. If the importers cannot afford to absorb the extra cost, they must pass the cost along to We the Customers. Tariffs are effectively a National Sales Tax. (Perhaps the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School should rescind the Bachelor of Science in Economics that Donald Trump “earned” there in 1968.) - Candidate Trump promised promised to get control of immigration. He put particular emphasis on going afer the criminal element among the undocumented residents who had entered our country.
The administration of President Trump has turned Immigration and Customs Enforcement (I.C.E.) into gangs of masked and amred thugs who seem to believe that they are not subject to the law. Instead of going after “the worst of the worst”, they often go after any dark-skinned person who they think might be undocumented … including those who are following the law in seeking asylum, those who have valid non-resident visas, and even some U.S. citizens.
Those captured are often imprisoned and some are even deported without the due process of law promised by the Constitutions regardless of citizeship. During their assult on Minneapolis, I.C.E. agents killed two U.S. citizens using the excuse that they were violent protestors theatening their lives, An overwhelming quantity of video, from many angles, disproves their claim. - Candidate Trump promised to end the wars in Gaza and Ukraine “on day one”.
The war in Gaza is no longer a daily conflict. Hamas has returned the hostages, but has not laid down their arms, On the West Bank, a few Israeli settlers are still harassing Palestinians. The people in Gaza are still suffering. At best, it’s a shaky ceasefire.
The war in Ukraine continues. Trump’s only suggestion about stopping it is to say that Ukraine should give Russia everything it asks. - Candidate Trump promised “America First”. He particularly spoke of keeping us out of foreign entanglements … especially new wars in foreign lands.
President Trump has threatened to takeover Greeland (an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark). He ordered the invasion of Venezuela and the taking of their President and his wife as prisoners, He attacked Iran, not once, but twice. Recently, he has been threatening Cuba saying, “I can do anything I want with it.” He says that the Federal Government can’t fund Child Care, Medicare, and Education because the Pentagon needs $1.5 trillion (i.e., $1,500.000,000,000) for defense … a 42% increase. Guess who pays for that. - Candidate Trump promised to release the “Epstein Files“.
After learning that he is mentioned in those files[5], President Trump began complaining about people “still talking about Epstein”. Both chambers of Congress passed and the President signed the “Epstein Files Transparency Act” (H.R.4405) requiring the Department of Justice to release all of the files on the Epstein case (with victims names redacted). Not only was the DOJ late on releasing any files … with some victims exposed and some potential perpetrators names redacted …, some of the files remain hidden more than 3 months after the deadline specified by the law.
The Bottom Line
Regardless of whatever smoke screens President Trump, his Cabinet, sycophants in Congress, the Press, Social Media, and Corporate America, and/or his diehard supporters say or even believe, one thing is certain. Free and Fair Midterm Elections[6] will result in an enormous “Blue Wave”. When the 120th Congress convenes on January 3, 2027, the Democratic Caucus will almost certainly control the House of Representatives and, perhaps, even the Senate.
7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25Feel free to share this article … through social media, re-post on your own website (blog), e-mail, word-of-mouth, pony express, carrier pigeon, or any other medium.
If you have any comments … in agreement or opposition … or any additional ideas, I encourage you to leave a reply in the comments section at the end of this article.
If you choose to subscribe to this website, the only “junk mail” you will receive is a note whenever I post a new article. I do not have any advertisers. I want to be free to express “my less than humble opinion” whenever and however I choose.
[ Go to Comments Section ]
[ Go to Main Menu ]
Notes
[1]
For what it’s worth, members of three of the four main branches of my family tree were represented in the original colonies before the signing of the Declaration of Independence … the beginning of the American Revolution.
- 65 of my ancestors immigrated to what is now the eastern United States before 1776. 35% of them were still alive at the time of the Declaration.
- 61 of their children were born here before 1776. 85% of them were still alive at the time of the Declaration. 56% lived into the early 19th Century (i.e., the 1800s).
Do I have strong feelings about our country, its intent, and its promise? You’re damned right I do. Whether your family’s citizenship began with the ratification the Constitution; whether you are a first generation U.S. citizen; whether you are anything in between, you should care about the United States as much as I do.
[2]
President Trump has proved time and again that he is ignorant of the Law. Whether he is wantonly ignorant or just plain stupid his word is not law. No President of the United States has had or ever will have that power.
[3]
The 18th Amendment initiated the prohibition of alcoholic beverages in the United States,
Section 1 states:
After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.
The 21st amendment repeals the 18th.
Section 1 simply states:
The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.
[4]
This list is by no means complete. Most of it is derived from a list in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, A few come from other sections of Article I. All are the responsibility of Congress … the branch of government defined by that Article.
The Founders of our country believed that all governmetal power came from The People and that Congress, the branch of government closest to the governed, should bear the greatest responsibility.
[5]
Based on a New York Times review of the Justice Department’s January 2026 release of roughly 3 million pages of Epstein-related documents, Donald Trump’s name (along with references to his wife, his club, and related phrases) appears more than 38,000 times across over 5,300 files.
[6]
The President and his party know that they are in big trouble and are doing everything they can think of to avoid “Free and Fair Midterm Elections”. These include:
- Mid-decade redistricting in so-called “red states” to promote more Republican districts. Some “blue states” have retaliated in kind.
- Efforts to take Federal control of elections. Article I, Section 4, Clause 1 of the Constitution clearly places control of elections under the jurisdiction of the States:
The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators. - Threatening to have Federal Agents (e.g., ICE) stationed at polling places.
- A recent executive order to limit mail-in voting. (Some states have already filed court cases with the Federal Courts on that one.)
[7]
##### TEXT #####
[8]
##### TEXT #####
[9]
##### TEXT #####
[10]
##### TEXT #####
[11]
##### TEXT #####
[12]
##### TEXT #####
[13]
##### TEXT #####
[14]
##### TEXT #####
[15]
##### TEXT #####
[16]
##### TEXT #####
[17]
##### TEXT #####
[18]
##### TEXT #####
[19]
##### TEXT #####
[20]
##### TEXT #####
[21]
##### TEXT #####
[22]
##### TEXT #####
[23]
##### TEXT #####
[24]
##### TEXT #####
[25]
##### TEXT #####
My Less Than Humble Opinion 