You can learn things in parking lots. The bumper stickers and other messages leftists put on their cars tell us about their thinking and values—or lack thereof.
Shortly after Elon Musk stepped down as director of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), I came across a small truck in a parking lot with two messages on its back bumper. The combined effect was precious.
On the right side was a sticker saying “No Musk.” On the left side was a sticker reading “Contitution is the law.”
Yes, you read that right: “Contitution.”
Another proud product of the government schools!
Of course, the truck owner’s message makes no more sense than its spelling. Does he really think that rooting out government waste violates the Constitution? Does the Constitution protect the “right” to fritter away government money to no purpose? If so, during my 35 years of constitutional research, I must have missed that part.
The truth is that under a fair reading of the Constitution, most of the projects DOGE found were themselves unconstitutional. Even notable defenders of the erroneous notion that Congress can spend anything it wants for “the general Welfare” would have drawn the line at projects like sending condoms to the Taliban and promoting DEI in Serbia.
The Reality
Perhaps you might think the illiterate truck owner simply didn’t know any better. I’d like to think so. But the reality is that the far left has no concern for the Constitution. None, period. It’s all words to them. And for them, in political discourse, words are merely tools.
You can find evidence of their cavalier attitude toward truth in their leading guidebook, Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals. But you can see it in how they use language. For example, when conservatives object to federal education or health care programs that the Constitution doesn’t authorize, leftists claim conservatives are “nullifiers.” (See also here.) During the Biden administration, a leftist professor at one of the country’s leading law schools accused Texas officials of being “nullifiers” because they were enforcing federal law!
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But the same people are fine with nullification when thugs attempt to obstruct federal enforcement of immigration law—an area (unlike education or health care) where the Constitution actually assigns authority to the federal government.
The left’s “No Kings” rallies displayed another irony. This will take some explanation.
A key event in Anglo-American constitutional history was King James II’s attempts to suspend—cease enforcing—laws adopted by Parliament. The ensuing “Glorious Revolution” of 1688-1689 forced the king to abdicate. It also established the principle that English and American chief executives are subject to the law and must enforce it. Accordingly, the U.S. Constitution (Article II, Section 3) explicitly requires the President to enforce the law, whether he likes it or not.
Yet the left’s “No Kings” rallies accused President Trump of acting like a king—not because he was suspending laws, but because he was enforcing them. (Our immigration laws were enacted mostly by Democratic Congresses, I might add.) By contrast, the “progressive” left showed only support when Presidents Obama and Biden actually did act like kings by repeatedly suspending federal laws on subjects such as health care and immigration.
A December 16, 2025, pronouncement from the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University provides a recent example of academic leftist absurdity. It is the latest in a series of leftist attacks on originalism—that is, the practice of reading the Constitution according to the understanding of those who adopted it. Like previous attacks, this one grievously distorts a quotation from Chief Justice John Marshall. It also claims that originalism is an unprecedented “radical approach” designed merely to attain conservative results.
In fact, “originalism” is merely a new name (initially applied by leftists) for a process that has been the standard way of reading most legal documents for centuries. It is how the American Founders themselves expected the Constitution to be read.
Surely an NYU professor should know better. If he did, then he was lying. If he did not bother to learn the truth, then he proceeded with what the Supreme Court calls actual malice: reckless disregard for whether his claim was false or not.
Whether it was a lie or mere malice is not important here. My point is that to those dedicated to far-left ideology, words in political discourse are merely tools. They have no meaning other than as devices for destabilizing civilization and centralizing government power.
H.L. (“Bill”) Richardson, the late political humorist and observer—and longtime California state senator— observed that conservatives are at a disadvantage when dealing with leftist political discourse. Most of us have been raised in religious households, or at least in households that respect traditional values. To us, truth is a supreme value, which is why so many of us have been uncomfortable with some of President Trump’s statements, even when we support his policies.
We find it hard to believe that others do not have this moral compass. So we assume that when leftists say ridiculous or inconsistent things, they are merely ignorant or unconsciously hypocritical.
But in fact, they are being evil. It is our job to respond accordingly, while doing our best to stay out of the muck ourselves. For as the Roman poet Virgil noted, it is very easy to slip into hell, but not nearly so easy to get out: Hoc opus, hic labor est (Aeneid, book 6, verse 129).
Robert G. Natelson, a former constitutional law professor, is Senior Fellow in Constitutional Jurisprudence at the Independence Institute. He authored “ The Original Constitution ” (4th ed., 2025) and is a contributor to the Heritage Foundation’s “ Heritage Guide to the Constitution .”
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