Here’s what I imagine happened:

One night, in his first presidency, Trump was in the White House room where he does the most thinking, the bathroom.

Normally, that’s where the most feculent thing he does is send out messages on social media on whatever flitters through his mind. But this particular night, he must have left his BlackBerry somewhere.

Instead, he grabbed whatever was lying around. It just so happened to be a copy of the Constitution.

He certainly could care less about the Preamble, with that “We the People,” “domestic Tranquility” and “Blessings of Liberty” stuff. And Article I was about the Congress, the bane of his existence. It mentioned what Congress’ powers are, but why should any of that matter?

But then he came to Article II.

Here’s how it starts: The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.

He really didn’t bother to read after that, certainly not after that long part about the election of the president, most of which was changed by the 12th Amendment.

This was a sentence Trump thought he understood. Because, after all, wasn’t he an executive? In his mind, a great executive – somehow forgetting those multiple bankruptcies.

From that reading, Trump and his enablers have understood Article II to allow him to do whatever he wants. 

If Article II, Section 1, paragraph 1 was all there was to the Constitution, Trump might be right.

The problem is that, as I’ve tried to illustrate over the past few weeks, if you actually read the whole thing – the Preamble, the seven Articles and the 28 (again, I’m with Biden that the ERA is part of the Constitution) Amendments, Trump’s reading of our founding document is woefully incomplete. 

But Trump, Musk and the demon devils in their sway are citing Article II as the reason they have the right to terminate federal employees at will. As they see it, Trump’s the executive – a variation on the word execute. 

And that’s what he intends to be, the man who executes democracy for the benefit of himself and those who support him. 

If he and his supporters actually did READ THE CONSTITUTION – as they say their opponents haven’t – they wouldn’t have to go far into Article II to see this little gem from Section 3: 

he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed

That would include the right of due process spelled out in the Bill of Rights, even for people in this country undocumented. That would include the judicial authority spelled out in Article III to rule on whether the action of any individual in this country, including the president, is legal – a power that does not fall on the executive branch. That would include provisions against Emoluments – getting gifts or payments that exceed his constitutional limitation. 

That would include abiding by laws duly passed by Congress affecting such things as civil service and civil rights – and by constitutional amendments ratified by the states that grant citizenship to anyone born in this country and limit a president of the United States to two terms in office.

Perhaps the way to combat Trump’s invocation of Article II is to take legal action finding him in violation of Article II. I wonder what that would take.

I don’t know how we’re going to stop what’s happening to our country. I’ve read every word of this Constitution over the past two months, and there’s nothing in here about how you act against an executive intent on running roughshod over it, especially when a small majority in Congress is complicit in it.

Our Founding Fathers didn’t imagine anyone as craven as Trump. I can’t blame them, because we didn’t see this either. We thought Richard Nixon would be the worst president we ever saw. 

But we’ve got to figure out something. And by “we’ve,” I mean political leaders, civic leaders, corporations, educators, artists and anyone else you can think of. What Chuck Schumer did last week in capitulating to Trump and the Republicans was extraordinarily unhelpful.

And we just can’t allow Trump to use our Constitution – Article II included – to wipe himself when he’s done.