The Latest Evidence of a Crisis in Reading Comprehension

Assisted by GPTo3, Perplexity, Claude 3.7, ChatBox Visualizer, Google, an ink pen, paper, a large screen TV, plenty of coffee, a patient wife, and my own brain

“Recommending that satire present ‘balanced viewpoints’ is like suggesting Jonathan Swift should have included the benefits of not eating children in ‘A Modest Proposal.’ That would defeat the entire purpose of the satirical form.” (Underwood, 2025, responding to Claude’s inane suggestion)

High atop Mount Olympus, Zeus might decree whatever chaos he wished, but even his divine powers are bound by Themis's scales of justice and the immutable cosmic laws that govern both gods and mortals. Zeus may be King, but he’s not omnipotent. Similarly, our constitutional framework binds presidential power—regardless of who wields it—that is, so long as people know how to read.

The Abrego Garcia case arose from a massive failure to apply the three-cueing system to simple texts. America's growing reading comprehension problem requires remediation, and even phonics might help? Where is Sigfried Englemann when we need him?

If MAGA were to put on a pair of dime store reading glasses and carefully read the documented facts, if they activated their metacognitive system to distinguish fact from opinion, it would become clear: Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia was legally protected from deportation by a 2019 court order, had no criminal record in six years of regular check-ins with immigration officials, and was mistakenly deported in what the Justice Department itself acknowledged as an "administrative error."

A visual miscue perhaps? Too many letters and syllables in “administrative”?

An immigration judge had explicitly ruled that Abrego Garcia "could not be deported to El Salvador because there was 'a clear probability of future persecution.'" The constitutional text is equally clear: habeas corpus protections exist precisely to prevent arbitrary detention and ensure due process before liberty is revoked.

/ˈha.be.as ˈkor.pʊs/

A significant portion of MAG-Americans apparently cannot comprehend these words even though they apparently know all the phonemes, even the dialectic allophones characteristic of the charming variants of the Southern drawl, one of which I struggle with when I’m tired. In the MAG-American dictionary “habeus corpus” is defined as “a snarky Latin summons shouting, “Yo, jailer! Bring that body back ‘round so we can all boo the captive in court!”

When El Salvador's President Bukele labeled Abrego "a terrorist" despite the absence of evidence, another hard word (it’s so dence), MAG-Americans made margaritas. When the Attorney General’s office claimed courts lack authority to order a wrongfully deported person's return—despite the Supreme Court's ruling to the contrary—they topped off their drinks with more tequila. Authors drink, right?

They read “evidence” as “proof,” and checked the label of their bottle of tequila:

We aren’t seeing simple spartisan disagreement; we are witnessing a national breakdown in reading comprehension like nothing in the history of the world, I’m telling you, nothing else like it in the entire history. The words of court orders, judicial findings, and constitutional provisions have jabberwocky meanings that MAG-Americans wishy washy through rhetorical flourishes—or more margaritas.

When Johnny Reb cannot sound out the plain meaning of text—whether it's a 2019 deportation protection order or Article I of the Constitution—we lose what little capacity for self-governance we had.

The Founders understood that constitutional democracy requires reading comprehension, for heaven’s sakes. They would be freaked out to see how MAG-Americans can’t read the words "administrative error” and miscue by reading "protected from deportation" as "subject to immediate removal." Let me count the ways this reading violates the syntactic, semantic, and phonetic cueing systems. These miscues shatter the guidelines of Reading Recovery’s running records. Recovery in this case means Alcoholics Anonymous.

At the center of the miscomprehension stands the "Great Writ.” The Great Writ may have all the ink, but without the Great Read to decode it, it's just a fancy doodle—the law needs a good read to be more than "writ" off. This legal principle, with origins dating back to the 1215 Magna Carta, compels the government to bring a detained person before a judge and show cause for their arrest or detention. It protects MAG-Americans and plain vanilla Americans alike against arbitrary imprisonment and stands as one of the cornerstones of liberty in the American constitutional system.

Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution states that "the Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it." This provision recognizes that while habeas corpus is essential to liberty, there may be extreme circumstances when temporary suspension becomes necessary.

Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during an actual Civil War, when Confederate forces had already fired upon Fort Sumter and real, armed rebellion threatened Washington D.C. itself. The Maryland legislature was considering secession, and Confederate sympathizers were destroying bridges and telegraph lines to isolate the capital. The danger Zeus, er, Lincoln responded to was tangible, immediate, and verified—an existential threat to the continued existence of the United States.

In stark contrast, the Trump administration's invocation of the Alien Enemies Act responds to a claimed threat without—say it with me, class, clap out its syllables—evidence. While the administration has characterized certain groups as engaged in "invasion" or "predatory incursion," the factual basis for these characterizations has been disputed by respected legal experts, one allegedly named “Themis,” and challenged in court.

Trump’s “invasion” is nothing more than legal melodrama—a hyperbolic headline for a bureaucratic soap opera MAG-Americans watch as a documentary. While the administration paints a picture of a predatory horde storming the gate, the reality is far less cinematic: Garcia simply took the legal route into America. In legal terms, Garcia’s arrival is a case of proper immigration, not a hostile takeover.

So, as the Alien Enemies Act gets recited without the evidence to back its dire claims, 100% proof, we’re left with one side playing courtroom drama and the other practicing due process—all good and fine on Mount Olympus, truly terrorizing for Americans who know how to read, including self-correction of miscues.

The case of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia highlights the despair that reading comprehension failure can evoke. The U.S. government acknowledged deporting him to El Salvador as an "administrative error" after claiming he belonged to a dangerous gang. The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the Trump administration should facilitate his return to the United States.

And what might that mean? Pick the answer that best corresponds to your understanding of the term:

A. To look into

B. To ignore

C. To order more tequila

D. A "facility" is a designated space or resource equipped to support specific activities or functions, whether it's a physical building or an organizational structure. A "facilitator" is someone who guides and streamlines processes, helping groups or individuals work together effectively by ensuring clear communication, structured engagement, and smooth progress toward their objectives.

This fundamental difference in reading comprehension performance transforms the constitutional analysis. Lincoln's actions, while controversial, responded to bullets that had actually been fired, soldiers who had actually died, and states that had actually declared secession. The emergency was not theoretical but demonstrated through objective evidence visible to all Americans regardless of political affiliation. There was nothing Lincoln could do except suspend the Great Writ, a classic example of an existential crisis threatening to topple Olympus.

Lincoln could point to fiery bridges and marching Confederate soldiers—a tangible, undeniable threat. In contrast, what’s termed Garcia’s “alien incursion” is really just a case of a legal immigrant arriving through proper channels. Instead of storming the gates, Garcia followed the procedure, making this “invasion” little more than dramatized rhetoric without the physical evidence that Lincoln had at his back.

Historians and constitutional scholars—who by the way are often assessed with higher than 12th grade reading comprehension—overwhelmingly emphasize the stark contrast between Abraham Lincoln and Donald Trump in their approaches to presidential power and constitutional norms.

Lincoln's controversial measures were taken in response to a real, existential threat, while Trump's expansions of power have often been justified by manufactured crises. The prevailing historical view is that Lincoln's legacy is defined by his defense of constitutional principles under dire necessity, whereas Trump's legacy is marked by two impeachment trials, a physical incursion of Congress on January 6, more illegal coverups than Carter has liver pills, and the seduction of MAG-Americans with a reading comprehension problem.

As constitutional law professor Michael Gerhardt notes: "Donald Trump is a different story. During his four years as President, he proclaimed that he had 'total authority' to do whatever he wanted to do... Perhaps most egregiously, he declared that he was exercising his official powers as President when he urged a mob 'to take back their country' on Jan. 6, culminating in unprecedented violence and damage at the Capitol."

Meanwhile, Harvard's Michael Klarman observes that "during wartime, people expect the commander in chief to win the war. They don't care that much about constitutional niceties"—a sentiment that helps explain why Lincoln's more extreme measures were ultimately accepted in the context of saving the Union itself. If Garcia were truly burning bridges, as it were, Trump would be Lincoln.

Garcia was raising his family in Maryland, peacefully living a quiet life.

This distinction matters profoundly for constitutional analysis. The Constitution's provisions for emergency powers—including the suspension of habeas corpus during rebellion or invasion—presume genuine emergencies based on demonstrable facts. When presidents become the boy who cries wolf in the age of nuclear weapons and invokes emergency powers in response to manufactured or exaggerated threats, that President fails his oath of office.

That’s “oath,” a strong long vowel followed by sticking your tongue between your teeth and blowing, trying not to spit.

Lincoln's controversial actions were vindicated not just by congressional approval, but by the objective reality of the Civil War itself. His suspension of habeas corpus, while constitutionally questionable, addressed an undeniable national emergency that threatened the nation's very existence

The current situation raises more troubling questions about executive power. If presidents can invoke emergency authorities without demonstrable emergencies, the constitutional limitations on executive power become meaningless. The judicial branch's role in evaluating the factual basis for claimed emergencies becomes not just important but essential to preserving constitutional governance.

In our Olympian allegory, Themis wasn't questioning Zeus's authority to act, but his factual claims about the threats facing Olympus. When gods—or presidents—claim special powers to address special dangers, the reality of those dangers cannot be taken based on phony balogna.

[bah low knee]—Balogna—often used to call out nonsense—is the perfect word when Grand Claims start looking like sliced deli meat. It’s a reminder that sometimes, what’s being served up is less about substance and more about a processed presentation with pickles and mustard often served with a margarita.

From whence comes Trump’s power to distort the fabric of America? Check out reading comprehension scores in the states dominated by MAG-Americans.

Phonics isn’t going to change a thing.

References

1. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24a931_2c83.pdf

2. https://www.npr.org/2025/02/12/nx-s1-5293132/trump-vance-constitutional-crisis-court-rulings

3. https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/03/trump-asks-justices-to-intervene-on-alien-enemies-act-removals/

4. https://www.npr.org/2025/04/07/nx-s1-5345601/supreme-court-alien-enemies-act

5. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/4/18/trump-faces-contempt-risk-what-happens-if-president-violates-court-orders

6. https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2017/02/17/president-challenge-judiciary-trump

7. https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/lincoln-and-taneys-great-writ-showdown

8. https://newrepublic.com/article/148108/president-defies-supreme-court

9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habeas_corpus_in_the_United_States

10. https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/jurisdiction-and-remedy-in-j.g.g.-v.-trump

11. https://time.com/6693684/donald-trump-constitutional-bullying-democracy-threat-president-lawsuit/

12. https://hls.harvard.edu/today/presidential-power-surges/

13. https://theconversation.com/trumps-claims-of-vast-presidential-powers-run-up-against-article-2-of-the-constitution-and-exceed-previous-presidents-power-grabs-249662

14. https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/10/politics/supreme-court-abrego-garcia/index.html

15. https://www.npr.org/2025/04/10/nx-s1-5358421/supreme-court-abrego-garcia-deportation-decision

16. https://www.npr.org/2025/04/12/nx-s1-5363234/trump-administration-judge-update-on-kilmar-armando-abrego-garcia

17. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-trump-admin-must-facilitate-release-kilmar-abrego-garcia-rcna200284

18. https://apnews.com/article/kilmar-abrego-garcia-el-salvador-trump-deported-e537cfb69a9840046b5d3e512509e9a8​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​