From the start, Obama was up to his old tricks. Even while he wanted to use the Constitution to challenge Trump, he couldn't praise it. Instead, he opened by describing it as an imperfect document that "allowed for the inhumanity of slavery and failed to guarantee women — and even men who didn't own property — the right to participate in the political process."

Democrats aren't progressive; they're regressive. They draw power by telling the public that Democrats are the only thing standing between Americans and the Constitution as ratified in 1791 as if nothing has changed since then.

Still, Obama conceded that the Constitution has some virtue. That's why, said President Obama, who once boasted that "I've got a pen, and I've got a phone," was shocked that Trump has never shown "some interest in taking the job seriously, that he might come to feel the weight of the office and discover some reverence for the democracy that had been placed in his care."