The Lessons Trump Learned from Birtherism

1. The Origin of a Constitutional Misunderstanding

Birtherism was not a mere ploy for Donald Trump; it was a belief he genuinely held. He believed Barack Obama was not a natural-born citizen and therefore could not legitimately occupy the presidency. What makes this belief significant is not its falsity, but its persistence despite constitutional failure. The courts had already rejected efforts to challenge Obama’s eligibility before Trump took up the cause. Yet Trump revived a claim that had been legally buried — and in doing so, learned a dangerous lesson: that public belief could outlast constitutional fact.

2. The Lesson Mislearned

Birtherism taught Trump that the President could not easily be removed, even if accused of violating the Constitution. The effort to delegitimize Obama’s presidency failed not because the system was weak, but because it was strong enough to reject baseless claims. Yet Trump seems to have drawn the opposite conclusion — that a President is nearly untouchable once in office. He is now testing that theory in full view of the nation.

3. The Misunderstanding of Presidential Power

Trump’s greatest error is to assume that the Constitution cannot act without the courts, and that enforcement depends on political will rather than constitutional fidelity. Had President Obama possessed the power Trump now claims — the power to disregard constitutional restraints — the United States would already have ceased to be a constitutional republic. The survival of the Constitution depended not on judicial supremacy, but on the internal restraint of those who swore an oath to it.

4. The Broader Constitutional Blindness

Trump is not alone in misunderstanding the Constitution. Americans, across political lines, have come to view it as a document that others — courts, Congress, or Presidents — are responsible for enforcing. In truth, the Constitution was designed to protect itself through the Oath of allegiance, which binds every officeholder and citizen to resist acts repugnant to its principles. When we forget that shared responsibility, we make constitutional violations appear as mere political disputes.

5. The Real Lesson of Birtherism

Birtherism should have taught the nation that constitutional protection begins long before the courtroom. The real threat is not that a President might be illegitimately elected, but that legitimate power might be used illegitimately. The Constitution is not self-executing by chance; it is self-executing by design — through the conscience and courage of those who have sworn to preserve it.

Title: America250 and the Temptation of the Old World

As the United States approaches the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of its Declaration of Independence, a troubling paradox has emerged. The nation born out of resistance to concentrated power now flirts with its return. Many Americans—out of frustration, fear, or nostalgia—openly express admiration for strongmen, for decisive rule unencumbered by deliberation, and for the myth of the benevolent autocrat who can “fix” what democracy has broken. It is striking, and deeply ironic, that this yearning for authority resembles the very system our founders risked everything to escape.

I. From Subjects to Citizens

The first settlers who left Europe for the New World were not seeking a new king. They sought relief from religious persecution, economic oppression, and arbitrary rule. They came to establish communities where the conscience of the individual, not the command of the crown, would be sovereign.

A century and a half later, the signers of the Declaration of Independence gave political voice to that spiritual and moral exodus. “We hold these truths to be self-evident…” was not a declaration of superiority but of equality—the claim that the right to govern oneself was not a privilege conferred by a ruler but a condition inherent in humanity.

The Constitution later gave this principle its institutional form. It did not merely create a new government; it created a new kind of government. Its genius lay in distributing power so that no one could claim to be the government. Every branch was limited, every officer bound by oath, every act subject to the supreme law of the land.

II. The Oath and the Revolution of Responsibility

Unlike the Old World monarchies, where allegiance was to the crown, the framers required allegiance to the Constitution. This Oath represented a revolution in moral and political responsibility. It declared that fidelity to law, not loyalty to men, was the foundation of legitimate power.

Every officer of the United States—civil or military, elected or appointed—swears this Oath. It is the invisible thread that holds the republic together. It transforms power from a personal possession into a public trust. When that trust is violated, the act is void—not merely illegal, but without constitutional existence.

Chief Justice John Marshall understood this when he wrote in Marbury v. Madison that “an act repugnant to the Constitution is void.” His point was not to expand judicial power but to reinforce the supremacy of constitutional responsibility. The Constitution is not self-enforcing; it lives through the fidelity of those who have sworn to uphold it.

III. The Temptation of the Old World

Yet today, that fidelity is under strain. Many have come to equate freedom with disorder and order with domination. They view democratic debate as weakness and constitutional limits as obstacles. In their impatience, they seek salvation in strong personalities and sweeping powers, forgetting that the Revolution itself was a rejection of that very impulse.

To adopt the habits of the Old World would be to forget that the American Revolution was not a war for conquest but an act of separation from a system that placed rulers above the ruled. It was an experiment in self-government, not a rebellion for power. The founders’ goal was not to enthrone new masters but to dissolve mastery itself.

The Constitution they drafted is not a monument to power but a manual of restraint. Its checks and balances are not symptoms of dysfunction; they are the machinery of liberty. The deliberate pace of lawmaking, the independence of the courts, the accountability of elections—these are not flaws in the design but features of a system meant to protect us from our own worst instincts.

IV. America250 and the Renewal of Constitutional Memory

As America prepares for its 250th anniversary, the commemoration risks becoming a pageant of patriotic nostalgia. But true remembrance requires more than flags and fireworks. It demands that we recall why we became a nation and what we vowed never to become again.

The founders’ rejection of monarchy was not merely political—it was philosophical. They understood that the concentration of power in one person or faction is incompatible with the dignity of free citizens. They believed, as James Madison warned, that “the accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands…may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”

If we have learned anything from our history, it is that liberty does not perish in a single act of oppression but through a gradual forgetting—when we cease to see the Constitution as a living covenant and begin to treat it as an obstacle to our desires.

V. A Call to Constitutional Fidelity

America250 should be a moment of renewal, not regression. A time to remember that power in America is not self-justifying—it is accountable. That no oath is to a person, party, or ideology, but to the Constitution itself. That the experiment in self-government continues only as long as we, the People, remember that we are both its subjects and its stewards.

We are heirs to a Revolution that replaced submission with responsibility. The founders did not fight for the right to rule but for the right to be ruled by law. To forget that is to betray not only their memory but our own future.

The world will be watching in 2026. Whether we present a republic faithful to its founding or a people nostalgic for its undoing will depend on whether we remember that the Constitution’s greatest strength is not its age but its timeless truth: that sovereignty resides in the People, and that all who govern do so only by their consent.

America as One Living Organism

Blaise Pascal once observed that “the entire succession of men, during the course of so many centuries, should be considered as one man who subsists always and learns continually.” Humanity, he said, is one long-lived being — forever learning from its errors, slowly acquiring wisdom through the continuity of its collective life.

If we apply that insight to the history of the United States, we can begin to see our nation not as a succession of administrations or political eras, but as a single constitutional organism — one whose lifespan is measured in centuries rather than years. Like Pascal’s immortal man, America is a being that subsists always and learns continually.

1. The Constitution as America’s DNA

The Constitution is the genetic code of this living entity — a record of the principles that determine how the body politic repairs, reproduces, and sustains itself. Each generation interprets that code, sometimes faithfully, sometimes in error.

When the First Congress enacted the Judiciary Act of 1789, it altered the constitutional structure it had just ratified, unaware that it was mutating the new organism’s DNA. When Chief Justice Marshall decided Marbury v. Madison (1803), he did not seize power for the Court, as later myth would suggest; he diagnosed the mutation and restored the principle of constitutional fidelity — that acts repugnant to the Constitution are void.

That principle is the immune system of the Republic. Yet in the centuries since, Americans have confused that immunity with judicial supremacy, allowing one organ of government to claim authority over the others. The resulting fevers — from Dred Scott to Dobbs — are symptoms of the same underlying disorder: forgetting that the Constitution belongs to the whole body, not a single branch.

2. Error and Learning in the Constitutional Body

Every generation of Americans repeats this cycle of error and learning. The Civil War was a violent autoimmune crisis — the organism attacking its own limbs in confusion over its own identity. Reconstruction was the painful process of recovery. The New Deal rebalanced the metabolism of federal power. The Civil Rights Movement reopened the neural pathways between principle and practice.

Each of these episodes represents what I have called the Hydraulic Constitutional Force — the self-correcting current that moves through the body politic, pushing it toward constitutional balance even when its parts resist. The nation learns through trauma, just as the body learns through pain.

3. The Educational Purpose of History

If we read history this way, its purpose is not to glorify past triumphs but to teach constitutional physiology. The Founding is America’s infancy; the Civil War its adolescence; the twentieth century its maturation. Our present divisions may mark the onset of midlife crisis — a struggle to remember why we exist at all.

Education, in this view, is not merely civic instruction but cellular memory. Each citizen, by the Oath of allegiance, becomes a living cell in the constitutional organism, charged with preserving the DNA of self-government. When we forget that responsibility — when we think the courts or the president will do it for us — we invite constitutional disease.

4. Rediscovering the Role of the Citizen-Cell

Pascal’s vision helps us see that national renewal is not a matter of winning elections but of restoring the flow of constitutional consciousness through the body politic. Every act of fidelity — every refusal to accept what is repugnant to the Constitution — is a cell remembering what it is.

This is why the right to vote, the duty to serve, and the Oath to support the Constitution are not merely privileges or legal forms. They are biological functions of the Republic’s living body. When neglected, the organism weakens; when performed in good faith, it strengthens its immune response.

The true measure of national health, then, is not prosperity or power but the integrity of its constitutional metabolism — the balance between its organs of government and the vitality of its citizens’ understanding.

5. The Practical Benefit of the Pascalian View

The greatest benefit of viewing American history through Pascal’s lens is humility. We see that the United States, like the human species, has not yet reached maturity. We are still learning how to govern ourselves, still discovering what fidelity requires.

This perspective also replaces cynicism with purpose. Each of us, whether judge, legislator, or ordinary citizen, becomes a participant in the organism’s education. Our task is not to perfect the Union by force but to help it remember what it already knows — that justice, liberty, and fidelity are not ideals we impose on the Constitution but properties that emerge when we live by it.

6. A Living Republic

To speak of the United States as one living being is not mere metaphor. It is the only way to explain how a document written in 1787 continues to adapt, correct, and renew itself through the choices of those bound by its Oath.

Like Pascal’s immortal man, America subsists and learns continually. It suffers fevers, forgets lessons, recovers strength, and grows wiser through experience. Its errors are our own; its recovery depends on us. The Constitution is not a relic we preserve but a life we sustain.

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In the end, the history of the United States is not a record of what its leaders have done, but a record of what its body has learned.

And the lesson, repeated through every generation, is the same one Pascal discerned in humanity itself:

We are one being, still learning to remember what we are.

— Darius A. Lecointe, PhD, JD

Wheat and Tares in America’s Field

For a time, America looked like wheat. The young nation that rose from the improbable victory of independence carried the air of something chosen, something blessed. It grew swiftly, spreading its influence beyond its own borders, and came to be called the “leader of the free world.” To many, it appeared a field heavy with golden grain, ready to nourish not only its own people but also nations far beyond its shores.

But now, the field looks different. What once looked like wheat increasingly resembles tares. The noble stalks we thought would feed the world reveal weeds entwined among them—poisonous, deceptive, choking out the good. The nation that once inspired others to strive for liberty and justice seems now to be voluntarily giving up its place among the sisterhood of nations, ceding its moral authority in exchange for division, resentment, and short-sighted gains.

Do we know what we planted? Perhaps that is the wrong question, for the truth is that the seeds were given to us. America did not invent liberty. It did not create justice, nor did it fashion human dignity from nothing. These seeds were gifts—sown from English common law, from Enlightenment philosophy, from the lived faith of persecuted minorities, and from the wisdom of those who declared that “all men are created equal.” But mingled among these were other seeds: slavery, exploitation of the vulnerable, arrogance cloaked as destiny, and the compromise of principles for power. The field was never pure.

For a long season, the harvest looked good. America prospered, outpaced rivals, and seemed to embody the ideals others only spoke of. But wheat and tares look the same until the time of maturity. Only when they ripen do you see which feeds and which poisons. Now, as the world realigns and America stumbles under the weight of its contradictions, we begin to see clearly what was sown.

This is not cause for despair, but for reckoning. To ask what we planted is to remember that we were entrusted with seeds we did not own. They were given to us by Providence, by history, by generations past who believed enough in freedom to risk everything for it. What will we do with that trust? Will we allow tares to choke the field, or will we, with humility, labor to preserve the wheat?

The harvest is not yet complete. There is still time to distinguish, to protect, and to cultivate what is good. But the season is advancing, and the signs are visible. America must look again at its field and remember: the gift was never ours to squander.

For a time, America looked like wheat. The young nation that rose from the improbable victory of independence carried the air of something chosen, something blessed. It grew swiftly, spreading its influence beyond its own borders, and came to be called the “leader of the free world.” To many, it appeared a field heavy with golden grain, ready to nourish not only its own people but also nations far beyond its shores.

But now, the field looks different. What once looked like wheat increasingly resembles tares. The noble stalks we thought would feed the world reveal weeds entwined among them—poisonous, deceptive, choking out the good. The nation that once inspired others to strive for liberty and justice seems now to be voluntarily giving up its place among the sisterhood of nations, ceding its moral authority in exchange for division, resentment, and short-sighted gains.

Do we know what we planted? Perhaps that is the wrong question, for the truth is that the seeds were given to us. America did not invent liberty. It did not create justice, nor did it fashion human dignity from nothing. These seeds were gifts—sown from English common law, from Enlightenment philosophy, from the lived faith of persecuted minorities, and from the wisdom of those who declared that “all men are created equal.” But mingled among these were other seeds: slavery, exploitation of the vulnerable, arrogance cloaked as destiny, and the compromise of principles for power. The field was never pure.

For a long season, the harvest looked good. America prospered, outpaced rivals, and seemed to embody the ideals others only spoke of. But wheat and tares look the same until the time of maturity. Only when they ripen do you see which feeds and which poisons. Now, as the world realigns and America stumbles under the weight of its contradictions, we begin to see clearly what was sown.

This is not cause for despair, but for reckoning. To ask what we planted is to remember that we were entrusted with seeds we did not own. They were given to us by Providence, by history, by generations past who believed enough in freedom to risk everything for it. What will we do with that trust? Will we allow tares to choke the field, or will we, with humility, labor to preserve the wheat?

The harvest is not yet complete. There is still time to distinguish, to protect, and to cultivate what is good. But the season is advancing, and the signs are visible. America must look again at its field and remember: the gift was never ours to squander.

Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven

Everybody wants to go to heaven (because they don’t like conflict), but nobody wants to live there (because they can’t accept everyone). That paradox says as much about our politics as it does about our faith.

We imagine heaven as a place of perfect peace, where conflict is resolved and all is harmony. But if we are honest, what most people mean by “heaven” is the absence of struggle, not the presence of justice. We want quiet, not reconciliation. We want relief, not responsibility.

The problem is that real heaven—whether we conceive it religiously or as the political community we claim to be building—cannot exist without acceptance. If heaven is where “all are welcome,” then it is not enough to want to go there. We must also learn how to live there, side by side with those we would rather avoid.

The Constitutional Parallel

This is precisely the dilemma the framers of the American Constitution handed us. They drafted a structure designed not to abolish conflict, but to discipline it—to make a durable peace out of disagreement. The Constitution does not promise heaven. What it does promise is a community of self-government strong enough to absorb differences without falling apart.

But that only works if we are willing to live in it. And here is the echo of my opening paradox: Americans want the benefits of constitutional order without its demands. We want rights, but not responsibilities. We want liberty, but not the acceptance of those who exercise it differently. We want the shelter of constitutional heaven without learning how to live with our constitutional neighbors.

Marbury and Voidness

Chief Justice John Marshall’s great lesson in Marbury v. Madison was that acts repugnant to the Constitution are void. That principle was not about power, but about fidelity. It was meant to remind every branch of government—and every citizen—that constitutional responsibility belongs to all of us.

Yet over time, we have distorted Marshall’s insight into a myth of judicial supremacy. Instead of embracing our shared responsibility, we offloaded it onto the courts. Like people who say they want heaven while expecting someone else to do the work of living there, we have expected judges to preserve our constitutional order while we pursue private comfort.

This is why we are surprised when our constitutional “heaven” feels more like a battleground. We wanted peace without acceptance, order without participation.

The Hydraulic Constitutional Force

There is, however, a deeper truth that refuses to be ignored. The Constitution has what I call a Hydraulic Constitutional Force—an energy that self-corrects, nudging us back toward fidelity even when we resist it. We saw a glimpse of this when the D.C. Court of Appeals acknowledged that force in Trump v. Thompson. The Constitution pushes back against attempts to make it an instrument of exclusion, just as heaven pushes back against our attempts to privatize it.

But the Hydraulic Constitutional Force does not abolish responsibility. It only reminds us that responsibility cannot be escaped. To want the Constitution without living in it is to miss the point entirely.

Living with Our Neighbors

So the question is not whether we want heaven. Of course we do. The question is whether we are willing to live there—willing to accept our neighbors, political and otherwise, as fellow residents in a shared order.

That is the harder work. It means tolerating dissent without equating it with treason. It means recognizing that the Oath of office binds every official, regardless of their ideology, to protect and defend the Constitution—not as a weapon, but as a common home.

We may not always like the neighbors. We may not even fully trust them. But if heaven is real, and if constitutional self-government is to endure, then we must learn to live with them anyway.

The Real Invitation

The paradox I began with is more than clever wordplay. It is a test of fidelity. To want heaven but refuse its terms is to want an illusion. To want constitutional government but deny its responsibilities is to build on sand.

We have to decide: are we content with imagining peace while avoiding our neighbors, or are we willing to accept the invitation to live in it?

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Darius A. Lecointe, PhD, JD

The Founders Didn’t Plan the Great American Experiment — They Found Themselves in One

When we talk about “the Great American Experiment,” we usually speak as though it were deliberate — as though the Founders had a blueprint and set out to design the most ambitious government in human history. But that narrative is backwards.

The Founders did not plan an experiment. They found themselves inside one.

Identity Before Governance

The first constitutions drafted by the newly independent states were less about governance and more about identity. These were not technical manuals for running governments. They were declarations of being; documents that said, this is who we are now.

Their purpose was to mark the break with Britain and to enshrine in writing that sovereignty now resided with the people. Rights were listed not so much to protect against imminent abuse, but to announce a new political identity to the world and to one another.

Governance Was an Afterthought

Because identity was the focus, the structures of government that emerged were often improvised, inconsistent, and in some cases, deeply flawed. Many states simply repurposed colonial charters or borrowed heavily from English models. The first national framework — the Articles of Confederation — reflected this mindset. It preserved state sovereignty above all else and offered little in the way of actual governing power.

For a time, this seemed enough. The Revolution had been won, independence secured, and the idea of a strong central government still made many nervous. But the weaknesses of the Articles quickly became obvious: Congress couldn’t regulate trade, enforce laws, or even reliably pay soldiers. Governance — neglected at first — now demanded urgent attention.

When Crisis Forced the Question

The Constitutional Convention of 1787 was not the final act of a carefully laid plan. It was a response to a national crisis. Only when the Articles failed did governance become the central concern. In that sense, the Constitution was not so much invented as discovered.

By trial and error, the states had learned what would not work. By 1787, they were ready to design something that might. The result was not perfect — it never is when humans are involved — but it has endured longer than any other written constitution in history.

We Are Still Part of the Experiment

If we did not plan this experiment, then we are not its masters — we are its participants. That means we are not at liberty to bend it to our will, as some among us, seem to think they can.

And that raises deeper questions: Who planned this experiment? And who is running it now?

The best answer may be that the experiment was planned by the same force that orders the natural world — by Providence, or by what the Founders themselves called “the laws of nature and of nature’s God.” The Constitution, viewed in this light, is not merely a human invention but a discovery: a record of principles waiting to be recognized.

And who runs the experiment? Not any one person or party — not even the Supreme Court — but the Constitution itself. Its structure contains what I call the Hydraulic Constitutional Force (HCF): a self-correcting mechanism that resists distortion and rebalances the system over time. Chief Justice Marshall captured this reality in Marbury v. Madison when he declared that “a law repugnant to the Constitution is void.” That principle of voidness is not an assertion of judicial supremacy, but a reminder that no branch of government — not even the judiciary — is free to bend the constitutional order to its own preferences.

And this is not just historical reflection. The D.C. Court of Appeals, in Trump v. Thompson (2022), effectively recognized the same reality when it described how the constitutional system itself responds to crises. That decision reads less like a narrow ruling and more like a description of the HCF at work — acknowledging that the Constitution’s design contains within it the very pressures and pathways by which it protects itself.

A Lesson — and a Challenge — for Today

Remembering that our constitutional order began as an experiment should give us both humility and courage. Humility, because we are not the final word — our generation can still learn and correct. Courage, because the Founders themselves did not wait for perfect solutions before acting.

But reflection is not enough. The experiment is ongoing, and its survival depends on us. Each constitutional crisis — from Dobbs to Trump v. United States to the debates over presidential immunity — is a signal that the HCF is active, pressing us toward correction. These moments are not merely partisan battles. They are invitations to reassert constitutional fidelity.

The Great American Experiment is not ours to end. It is ours to honor — by learning, by teaching, and by acting to keep the system in balance.

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 After a long hiatus I'll be publishing my ideas on the gap between mythology and reality.