In New Book Rejecting the Constitution, UC Berkeley Law Dean Chemerinsky Forgets the Nukes

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UC Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky used to be one of my sources on legal matters when he was a prof at USC, then dean and founder of the UC Irvine Law School. I haven’t talked to him in many years. He’s now the dean of the UC Berkeley Law School and has come down with a severe case of TDS – Trump Derangement System. It’s on display in his latest book, “No Democracy Last Forever: How the Constitution Threatens the United States.”

Given he says the U.S. never was a democracy, how can that no longer “last.” He summarized the book in a Los Angeles Times column on Aug. 23, “We’re living under a flawed Constitution. Let’s start fresh and rewrite it.” And the Teri Sforza in Orange County Register wrote an article about book and author, “Is the Constitution threatening democracy? Former UCI law dean argues it is: Column: ‘Having the loser of the popular vote become president cannot be reconciled with the most basic notions of democracy.’”

Of course, as he well knows, the Constitution didn’t even set up a democracy. He writes in Chapter 2, “These choices – the Electoral College choosing the president, and the Senate comprising two senators per state – were problematic from the beginning because of their profoundly anti-democratic nature. Limiting rule by the majority certainly had its virtues, but it is hard to see how either of these institutions help [sic; it should be helped; the noun is “either”] protect against tyranny or enhance[ed] checks and balances.”

These are old arguments debated about at the Constitutional Convention in 1787. Without the compromises made, the United States would have remained under the Articles of Confederation, however that might have worked out. Nothing new there.

The main problem with “No Democracy” is nowhere does it bring up the main duty of the president of the United States: wielding 6,000 nuclear weapons, 1,500 of which can be launched by him at a moment’s notice. The reality is what I detailed in my Sep. 26 article, “Trump or Kamala: You Are Electing a Nuclear Dictator.” The president has “Sole Presidential Authority” over the nukes. Russian nukes can hit us in 26 minutes. That means our Nuclear Dictator has six minutes to decide what to do if he’s informed we’re being attacked – which may be a real attack, or might be a glitch in the computer system.

The Dean is so buried in his law books – in his quiddities now, his quillities, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks – he doesn’t see what’s right in front of his face. Despite his immense jurisdictional erudition as the author of 15 books, including tomes on constitutional law, he doesn’t possess a lick of common sense.

So, how has the Founders’ system worked making sure all 340 million Americans don’t get atomized? Pretty well because we’re still here. But it broke down on Jan. 20, 2021, when the System gave Sole Presidential Authority to a man who even then was an obvious dementia patient. And as the events of the past week have shown, Biden seems hell-bent on taking the rest of us down to hell with him. As Matt Taibbi just wrote, “Our Sixty Days of Nuclear Chicken Have Begun: Expectation of peace talks after Donald Trump's inauguration is pushing all sides of the Ukraine war to escalate, with British and American missiles adding fresh risk.”

So Chemerinsky’s obsession with Trump not winning a majority in 2016 also has to be seen in this context. Because in that case the Constitution protected us from falling into the hands of another unstable warmonger, Hillary Rodham Clinton. Again, the Dean doesn’t even bring up the nukes in this context, or any other.

So, what’s the solution? What can make us safer, putting in power a stable person holding Sole Presidential Authority? The Dean’s reforms on other matters, such as getting rid of the Electoral College for direct democracy, are irrelevant because everywhere he ignores the nukes.

Is there, then, a solution? I have no idea. I can’t figure one out. No matter what happens, one man – or woman will be given that immense power.

For the other nuclear powers, China and North Korea are communist dictatorships; Russia is an autocracy with elections; India has elections but is ruled by a Hindu nationalist; Pakistan currently is ruled by a U.S. puppet after a coup; the UK is a parliamentary democracy and France has a presidential runoff election, but both are vassals to the U.S., and for decades have been curbing free-speech rights; Israel is a parliamentary democracy currently at war and suffering internal turmoil.

The only thing to do, then, is to not make matters worse. The Democratic Party, in particular, and such leftist activists as Chemerinsky, have to start taking the nukes seriously again, as they did during the Cold War. Putting up Hillary and Biden was just irresponsible; and the same holds for the Republicans nominating John “Insane” McCain in 2008.

Perhaps the current nuclear crisis will wake people up – if we survive it. Kamala Harris, actually, probably would have been OK on the nukes, certainly better than Dementia Joe.

Finally, on one point aside from the nukes, free speech, “No Democracy” is incoherent. As mentioned, Chemerinsky used to be my go-to source on free-speech issues. But Chapter 10 is titled: “The 2010s and Beyond: The Internet and Social Media Endanger Democracy.” Yeah, he thinks the Russians rigged the 2016 election, even though that was disproved by the Mueller Report and the Durham Report. At most, some Russian students spent a couple hundred thousand dollars putting up bad social media posts.

Now he’s concerned about “deepfakes,” which make a fake ad or speech look real. Although he concedes, “The Supreme Court, rightly, has emphatically declared the importance of protecting false speech.” And he brings up the key 1964 case New York Times v. Sullivan, and other cases. So at least he doesn’t want to repeal the First Amendment. And he sensibly concludes, “Also, who is going to be the arbiter of what is true and what is false, especially in the political realm?”

But he’s not a politician. And the politicians in our state, led by far-left Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom, just passed a law to censor the internet by banning “deepfakes.” Elon Musk’s X and other platforms are suing. The conservative Supreme Cour the Dean loathes likely will uphold the First Amendment.

But what’s telling now is Dean’s leftist side is endangering our freedoms – and, with Biden, our very existence – not the right-wingers he despises. I suggest he take a quick jaunt to the nearby Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and have them explain the latest technologies in nuclear deterrence. He could start with their 2-minute YouTube.