Trump’s Thoroughly Modern Views on the Rule of Law

Trump University is accused of fraud. Hearing the case is U.S. district Judge Curiel, an American born in Indiana. Trump objects because Curiel’s parents were Mexican immigrants. But does it matter who his parents were?

Of course not: this is the only possible American response. The whole point of America is supposed to be the individual’s freedom from inherited classifications or identities. Americans hold that all human beings are created equal and should be treated equally under fair and equal laws. Americans expect the fair rule of law in a republic, or liberal democracy, that is, a system of majority rule tempered by respect for individual rights. We expect American Republicans and American Democrats alike to be loyal to the democratic rule of law…

[Unfortunately,] American “fairness” is…now defined, at least in the academic and media mainstream, not by the ideal of the impartial rule of law, but by the clamor for representation by an ever-longer list of particular identities, racial, ethnic, and sexual. On this new “liberal” view, the original sin of American racism requires counter-racism, apparently forever.

To read the whole Deseret News article, click here: “Ralph Hancock: Trump and the crisis of conservative liberalism”