Turley On The Regime's Assault On Our Constitutional Order

I understand that Professor Turley would prefer a more nuanced title to this post, but in a practical sense it's hard to characterize what's going on much differently. Turley has written two good articles, both arising from the Covid Regime, which illustrate a shocking disregard both for the federal republic that the US is supposed to be under its Constitution, as well as for the rights of the individual citizens.

I'll keep this brief.

The first article addresses the outrageous scheme by the regime to pay Florida teachers to break Florida laws:

Federal Subsidy or Accessory? Biden Pledges to Effectively Subsidize Violations of State Laws By Teachers

There was a great deal of criticism of President Joe Biden’s press conference from his refusal to take questions on the Afghanistan situation to his calling for the use of Civil Rights laws to oppose any state laws barring mask mandates. One line however received little attention but contained a breathtaking and troubling pledge: “If a governor wants to cut the pay of the hard-working education leader who requires masks in a classroom, the money from the American rescue plan can be used to pay that person’s salary 100%.” With that line, Biden pledged to indemnify people who violate state laws, including orders upheld by the courts. ...

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Biden’s pledge could create some new law. The Supreme Court has long held that it is unconstitutional to coerce or commandeer states to undermine their authority under federalism guarantees. Now a president is openly calling for the defiance of state laws by state employees and promising to financially support such violations. He is moving from commandeering state legislatures to commandeering state employees.

When he ran in 2020, President Biden promised that he would end Trump’s disrespect for the courts and return the country to “the rule of law, our Constitution.” Subsidizing the violation of state law is a curious way to fulfill that earlier pledge.

If the GOP is raising a ruckus over this, I haven't heard about it.

Next, Turley addresses the whole issue of "coerced consent", which of course is no consent at all. He's talking about the way the regime is using private entities to coerce citizen compliance with the regime's preferred citizen behavior. He addresses the legal and constitutional issues, but ends on a political note--political in the larger and more philosophical sense:

The Biden Administration Goes To War With The “Non-Vacs”: Is Coercion the Answer?

... The push by the Biden Administration for private companies to enforce mandates and restrictions has increased in the last week. There is a high likelihood of a new round of litigation as pressure builds for new mandates and even lockdowns.

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 ... the Biden Administration is using private companies as a type of direct surrogate for a public mandate.

“They didn’t get vaccinated.” Those words from President Biden summed up why his administration made a critical shift in its COVID policies, from mask recommendations to mandatory shots for federal workers. And that represents a third stage of government policy, toward a more confrontational approach to “them” — the increasingly demonized unvaccinated class that is roughly half of America.

But this stage could face legal challenges in coming weeks, as citizens and some states push back on mandates.“

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We are now entering the “coerced consent” stage. Unable to persuade or purchase consent, many are arguing to make it difficult to be gainfully employed or functionally active without proof of vaccination. It is a type of de facto pandemic passport [which, in turn, is simply an internal domestic passport under a different name]. After indicating the administration was considering a federal vaccine mandate, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said this week, “I was referring to mandates by private institutions and portions of the federal government. There will be no federal mandate.”

Unwilling to face the legal or political challenges of mandating a vaccination program, the Biden administration has actively encouraged companies to bar unvaccinated people from planes, restaurants and other venues. The danger is that using companies to censor opposing views and restrict people can amount to a type of government-by-surrogate, a shadow state.

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The greatest danger with the coercion model is that it will further deepen our divisions and turn vaccine resistance into a type of patriotic resistance for some people. Recently, a shocking poll found that almost 50 percent of Republicans believe “patriotic Americans [might] have to take the law into their own hands.” The poll shows how many Americans are increasingly alienated from the government, the media and the established order. Conversely, some commentators on the left have declared that the unvaccinated are terrorists using “biological warfare” against the nation.

Threatening to make the lives of the unvaccinated a “living hell,” or isolating them from society, likely will do little to increase the level of vaccination — but it will do much to increase the level of alienation in our society.

One observation. Whereas previously the DC regime has demonized mostly whites, whether they realize this or not these notions of making life a living hell for the unvaxxed will directly target the Dem base.