ANALYSIS: Free speech, Electoral College among the beefs
Two well-known UC Berkeley professors — one, a former official under the Clinton administration, the other the dean of its law school — recently expressed their disdain for the U.S. Constitution.
Robert Reich, U.S. secretary of labor throughout the 1990s and now a professor of public policy, penned an article in The Guardian in which he trashes X (formerly Twitter) proprietor Elon Musk — and free speech.
Reich claims Musk is using his enormous wealth and influence to help Donald Trump “and other authoritarians around the world” … and his evidence? The billionaire is using his right to free expression.
For example, Reich says Musk reposted a “faked version” of Kamala Harris’ first campaign video in which an ersatz Harris voice says she doesn’t “know the first thing about running the country” and is the “ultimate diversity hire.”
Reich alleges Musk “not only allowed instigators of this hate to spread these lies,” but repeated and supported them.
Worse still, Reich continues, Musk has “prophesied a future civil war related to immigration,” posted “50 false election claims” on his X, and responded with the F-word to a “reminder” letter from European Union Commissioner Thierry Breton regarding the Union’s laws on “harmful content” and “disinformation.”
Speaking of disinformation, Reich also advances a nine-year-old canard: claiming “evidence is mounting” that Russia plans to use X to “disrupt” the 2024 U.S. election “presumably” in Trump’s favor.
One of Reich’s suggestions is to “threaten [Musk] with arrest” if he doesn’t cease “disseminating lies and hate” on his platform. In the U.S. specifically, Reich says the Federal Trade Commission could demand Musk “take down lies that are likely to endanger individuals” — or else sue him.
Little surprise, then, that Reich wanted Donald Trump barred from running for president again due to committing “treason” by questioning aspects of the 2020 election.
MORE: Robert Reich: Tea Partiers radical, extreme, fanatical
Meanwhile over at MSNBC, UC Berkeley School of Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky told the audience choices made in the creation of the U.S. Constitution have “come to haunt us” — the main issue being that the winner of the Electoral College in presidential elections has increasingly been losing the popular vote.
Chemerinsky also claimed each state having two senators is problematic (due to population differences between the states), as is the lifetime tenure of Supreme Court justices.
In response to one of the show’s hosts pointing out the danger of radically altering the Constitution at a time when the country is incredibly polarized, Chemerinsky said he argues in his new book “No Democracy Lasts Forever” that many needed changes can be effected via statute.
While also noting that constitutional amendments obviously can be added, Chemerinsky said “Isn’t it time to start thinking of a new constitution? Isn’t it absurd that we’re governed in 2024 by a constitution written in 1787 for a small, agrarian slave-owning society?”
The dean warned that if needed changes aren’t made, we could see states seceding from the Union.
Dean Chemerinsky additionally warned that if such an overhaul fails to occur, states might be tempted to leave the union: “It’s certainly a path that could happen if we don’t repair what’s wrong with the American government.” pic.twitter.com/lmJHXaqZiU
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) August 30, 2024
MORE: Pro-Palestinian Berkeley law student argues she had right to crash Dean Chemerinsky’s backyard party
IMAGES: Shutterstock.com; Myrna/X
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