Constitution Day managed to sneak up on a lot of us this week, even though it arrived today in an era testing exactly the kind of checks the framers built into the document.
Although the framers couldn’t possibly have predicted the twists and turns of our nation’s development, it’s OK to give them credit for a little prescience. The Constitution wasn’t built assuming people would always play fair. It was mostly created assuming they wouldn’t, and giving people a tool to correct course.
The tool is the ballot. And during the second Trump administration, voters have been handed more reasons than usual to wield it.
The administration has sent federal agents into cities including Chicago, Memphis, Los Angeles, Portland, Ore., and Washington, D.C. In Minneapolis, “Operation Metro Surge” brought about 2,000 agents to the area. Raids were concentrated in and around neighborhoods where people of color live. It wasn’t unusual for everyday working families, with no criminal records, to be targeted. Has the judicial system had to consider the Posse Comitatus Act more in the past two years than in the previous 100?
Now add money to the mix: The Federal Reserve yesterday voted to raise its interest rate by a quarter of a point for the first time in three years. That means pricier credit cards and home loans at a time when American consumers are already feeling squeezed. It doesn’t help that Fed officials are indicating it’s not the last rate hike; most forecast another hike before the end of the year.
It’s all a little strange, by the way. The Fed doesn’t usually change policies so close to an election. In fact, for the last few decades, they’ve been more likely to cut rates than raise them within weeks of an election.
None of this is happening by accident and none of it is uncorrectable. When the party in power stretches the rules or an interest rate hike chokes household budgets, voters don’t just have to take it on the chin.
We have a scheduled shot to change our representatives.
The Constitution gave us that chance. But the reset button only works if the people show up to press it on November 3.
