“There will be Voter I.D. for the Midterm Elections,” US president Donald Trump declared in a February 13 Truth Social rant,  “whether approved by Congress or not!”

While I oppose government ID mandates for any purpose — as did “conservatives,” at least as late as the 1990s,  when it came to national requirements of the sort — I don’t consider voting a special case for which my objections need be stronger or weaker.

Voting in America is a ritual through which we flatter ourselves that we’re engaging in “democracy,” even “self-government,” when 99% of participants periodically choose between two convergent (and nearly identical) wings of the single state-approved political party.

As for the other 1%, which includes me (I’m a partisan Libertarian), we enjoy the freedom to cough during communion, to whisper “I rather prefer freedom” as the crowd yells “Hail Caesar,” but it’s not like our votes are going to bring down the Church of American Government.

It makes about as much difference to how we’re governed from DC as the selection of local Communist Party delegates in Norilsk made to how the Soviet Union was governed from Moscow.

Since voting is purely ceremonial affirmation of our masters’ authority over us, I don’t see that adding a card-flashing element to the liturgy makes much difference.

I am, however, glad to see Trump once again reaffirming Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought’s 2022 observation that “we are in a post constitutional moment in our country.”

Vought says that like it’s a bad thing, calling on his audience to become “radical constitutionalists.”

His version of “radical constitutionalism,” though, can’t be found anywhere in the actual Constitution. Instead of the mere functionary described in the Constitution, whose job is to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,” Vought envisions the president as Kim Jong Un on the Potomac.

Which brings me back to voter ID.

According to Article I of the Constitution, “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.”

And the Constitution leaves the selection of presidential electors to the states.

Here’s the constitutional role of the president in American elections:

THIS SPACE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK

So, constitutionally, Trump is not acting — and cannot be acting — as president when he bellows “whether approved by Congress or not!”

Post constitutional much?

But that’s just saying the quiet part out loud. In reality, we’ve been in “post constitutional” mode for most of the country’s history. As early as 1867, Lysander Spooner noted that “whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain — that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.”

Now that even supposed constitutionalists are openly admitting it, the rest of us should start acting on it.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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