Claims of routine unconstitutional overreach convert normal contestation into delegitimation.

Evidence

One claim is that the opposition party acts unconstitutionally: it abuses authority and passes illegal legislation or executive orders—for example, the charge that Obama is a “lawless president” who, with the acquiescence of partisans in Congress, repeatedly took unilateral and unconstitutional action on gun control, gay rights, the minimum wage, contraception, and climate change. His administration amounted to, it was said, an “eight-year constitutional crisis.” To be sure, disagreements about the boundaries of presidential power have fueled partisan contestation from the 1790s to the present. George W. Bush, for example, was said to abuse his authority by appending to legislation signing statements that sometimes contradicted Congress’s intent for the law he was reluctantly signing. Questioning the bounds of presidential authority is part of normal politics. But when it extends to saying that virtually everything a president and his party does in office is a willful violation of constitutional constraints, then political contestation slides into delegitimation. — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying, 205

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘lawless president’ delegitimation move parallels the absolutist ‘everything is a plot’ logic of conspiracism Rosenblum describes elsewhere in the book. — connects to: Delegitimation turns mistrusted opponents into public enemies, unlike ordinary mistrust. — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying: The New…, 86; Legal-but-unacceptable conversion pressure can trigger rebellion by delegitimizing a regime; Voter suppression becomes delegitimation when fused to fraud conspiracy claims — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying: The New…, 209 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Legal-but-unacceptable conversion pressure can trigger rebellion by delegitimizing a regime #expands (0.85)
• Voter suppression becomes delegitimation when fused to fraud conspiracy claims #exemplifies (0.78) — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying, 209
• Delegitimation strips institutions of standing to persuade or govern #expands (0.78) — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying, 26
• Coupling legitimate critiques with offensive traits can delegitimize an entire ideology. #expands (0.75) — Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media, 1000
• Massive resistance ironically aided desegregation by threatening federal judicial supremacy #exemplifies (0.75) — Derrick A. Bell, Jr., Brown v. Board of Education and the…, 115
• Conspiracist delegitimation rejects the normal cycle of alternating party power #expands (0.72) — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying, 208
• Contesting exceptions legitimates the very rule being fought #contradicts (0.72) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 370
• Perceived betrayal of fundamental authorities justifies rejection of normal ones. #expands (0.70) — Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarian Specter, 134