I have said it many times before, I will say it again now, and I will continue to say it as long as he continues to do it.  Mr. Trump continues to thumb his nose at congress and all voters whether they are Democrats, Republicans, or Independents.  He even thumbs his nose at those voters who voted for him when they dare to ask him to explain anything that is not in line with his thinking on how those things should be handled.  Things like his income tax returns, who is visiting the White House, who is visiting him at Mar-a-Lago and other – perhaps less ominous – things like why is he visiting Mar-a-Lago so often and playing golf so much since he complained about how much President Obama’s travel was costing America and how much time he was spending playing golf and then saying how he, if elected president, would just stay at the White House and “work my ass off for the country”.  Mr. Trump is conducting himself more like a king than a president.

While he is making a mockery of the Emoluments Clause and laughing off the longstanding norms regarding the avoidance of nepotism – which his son Eric says is a beautiful thing, he is continuing to busy himself with destroying the State Department, dragging down the Justice Department, ruining America’s reputation and to the greatest extent possible, dismantling everything that President Obama implemented during his term in office.  During the whole time that he has been doing this, the Republican congress has been protecting him.  They have continued to protect him despite the fact that their constituents have been demonstrating against Mr. Trump and demanding that he release his tax return information and demanding that congress not repeal Obamacare.

Mr. Trump’s business dealings and the fact that he continues to refuse to divest himself of his many businesses raises many questions as regards how those businesses impact on him personally: can he be compromised by domestic or foreign enemies as a result of those business ties and/or dealings?  Has he already been compromised?  These are things that we do not know and that is why these questions and others like them need to be answered.  And they need to be answered quickly.  Because Mr. Trump refuses to cooperate and help America to get the answers to these questions and do it as expeditiously as possible, it might be necessary to force him to cooperate.

One way to force Mr. Trump to cooperate is via the Emoluments Clause.  But in order to effectively use this clause as leverage, Mr. Trump will likely have to be sued.  Not just anyone can sue him using this clause; whoever sues him must have standing.  In other words, they must be able to prove to the court that they have been harmed as a result of his shunning of the Emoluments Clause.  That generally means that not just any American citizen, like you or me, can sue Mr. Trump based on this clause.  And it further means that there is a relatively small number of people or entities that can sue him.  Congress is among that number that can.  But with the way that they have been protecting Mr. Trump, the chances of congress investigating him at all, let alone suing him to augment the chance that such an investigation will actually occur, are slim-to-none.  There are some businesses that likely have standing.  And at this point – should they choose to sue him, that is about the best shot available to American voters who want to see this matter cleared up to attain an investigation that is based on Emoluments.

It seems that Republicans believe that because they hold so much power at the federal and state levels and because of all of the gerrymandering that they have done recently that they are invincible.  They have been emboldened by Mr. Trump’s baseline constituents to the point that they feel that they can even ignore the demands of their overall constituents.  This is due in part to them depending upon voters in general to have their usual short memories; especially if come election time Republicans have had some victories and candidates shower voters with sleek sound bites and ads.

I would venture to say that for many years now, far too many of us have opted to base our vote on the sleek sound bites and ads; and especially during the 2016 presidential election.  Look what we got.  A lot of voters are obviously happy with what we got but the majority are unhappy with the results.  Many of those who thought that Mr. Trump was who they wanted to be president based on all of his glowing promises now realize that those were empty promises.  They realize that his promises, just like his word, are not steadfast; both things depend on how much positive attention it will bring him and how popular it will make him if followed through upon.  And because he has failed to deliver on many of his promises because they proved to be unpopular and because he went back on his word for the same reason, those supporters are having voters’ remorse.

So voters, the time will arrive in 2018 and 2020 when we once again will have to decide whether or not we will hold our elected officials accountable.  And once again we will have to decide if we will vote based on candidates voting records and accomplishments or on their sleek sound bites and ads.  We seem to have developed a reputation for voting based on the latter.  If this were not the case, politicians would not spend boatloads of money and time on sleek sound bites and ads during each election cycle.

Let’s surprise them this time by stripping them of their longstanding ability to play political games with us voters.  Let’s get informed now and stay informed.  Let’s take some time to think about the situation between now and the elections in 2018 and 2020.  Then, during each of those election cycles, let’s show our elected officials that we have not forgotten how they have treated us and that we will hold them accountable.  If they have done the job that we elected them to do, then let’s reward them by way of our vote; if they have not done it, then let’s punish them by way of our vote.  And whether you are a Democrat, Republican or Independent; and whether you decide to reward them or to punish them always remember, your vote is the most important one of all…unless you don’t use it!

Eulus Dennis – author, Operation Rubik’s Cube and Living Between The Line