“[T]he opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves, in their, own sphere of action, but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch.” —Thomas Jefferson (1804)

In 1992, when Bill Clinton was overwhelming George H.W. Bush’s campaign for re-election, his chief adviser, that Ragin’ Cajun James Carville, framed Clinton’s successful campaign around these words: “It’s the economy, stupid.”

In the most recent presidential election, Donald Trump’s advisers framed his campaign around that same theme, combined with one other: “It’s the Constitution, stupid.”

In fact, Trump’s victory was, in large measure, due to his commitment to nominate constitutional constructionists to the Supreme Court. As I noted repeatedly last fall, the presidential election was “much more than a quadrennial vote — it is a quarter-century vote for the composition of the Supreme Court.”

This week, conservatives across the nation are unified in declaring Mr. Trump’s nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch, currently serving on the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, as his nominee to replace the SCOTUS seat vacated by the revered late Justice Antonin Scalia.

This nomination is an unequivocal victory for Rule of Law, which is why it will triple the howling hysterics of statist Senate Democrats and their wailing mass of minions across the country.

Notably, despite how the Democrats and their Leftmedia echo chambers want to frame this issue, it is NOT a “Republican versus Democrat” or “conservative versus liberal” debate. This is a Rule of Law versus a rule of men issue, the terminus of the latter irrevocably being tyranny.

Our Founders and Constitution prescribed that the specific role of Supreme Court justices was, and remains, to uphold Rule of Law in accordance with their oaths “to Support and Defend” our Constitution. Otherwise they would become, as Jefferson warned, a “despotic branch” whose jurists legislate by judicial diktat, as has been the case with statist Supreme Court jurists for the last 70 years.

Perhaps through the din of liberal rants, some of our young countrymen will gain some much-needed civic insights into Liberty and Rule of Law. And one of the most highly acclaimed tools for those insights is our pocket guide to Essential Liberty.

As noted last week, I’ll be devoting much-needed time in the coming weeks to a thorough revision of our Essential Liberty Guide — just in time for the Reagan revival now underway.

Production of the Essential Liberty guides is not in The Patriot‘s budget, rather it’s a project of our non-profit arm, the Patriot Foundation Trust. With your generous support, we’ve been distributing these highly acclaimed booklets for years at no charge to students and other citizen groups who will be force-multipliers to sustain and defend Liberty in the future.

Will you please help us fund the next printing of Essential Liberty and extend Liberty to the next generation? The cost to produce 250,000 of these guides is approximately $57,600.

Please send your tax deductible donation by check to the Patriot Foundation Trust, and mail it to:

Patriot Foundation Trust
PO Box 507
Chattanooga, TN 37401

Thank you for standing with us in defense of Liberty. Neither our mission nor operations would be possible without you.

Mark Alexander
Publisher, The Patriot Post