Madison understood that democracy self destructs.
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| James Madison |
"We the People" are easily spooked. We stampede. We attach to a strong man of ambition who speaks of ends, not process, particularly when there is a war or invasion. A democracy becomes a dictatorship.
The Constitution was supposed to fix that.
The Founders predicted one branch or the other would flout the rules and say, in effect, "I can do what I want."
The Founders predicted one branch or the other would flout the rules and say, in effect, "I can do what I want."
The expected ambition would check ambition. They thought the House of Representatives would jealously protect its power to initiate spending bills and that both House and Senate would jealously protect the power of the purse.
Trump declared a "national emergency" on a border wall. Congress said no, there wasn't one. Trump vetoed their resolutions denying the national emergency declaration. Neither the House nor Senate has the votes to override it. Congressional Republicans let the Trump precedent stand.
Ambition did not check ambition.
The Courts will be reluctant to second guess the political branches on the question of fact--the prima facia observation that it is in fact not an "emergency--when the branch of government entrusted with that job, the Congress, was supine. Congress was expected to defend its own power.
This changes America. This and future US presidents can now ignore the Congressional power of the purse when sufficient members of his Party want the policy result more than they want to defend Congressional power, and when the President is sufficiently popular within the Party.
GOP officeholders do not dare cross Trump on a border wall to keep out migrant invaders from the south. Trump has a message that resonates with a big block of Americans: fear, distaste, and generalized opposition to immigrants across our southern border. He came down the escalator and opened his campaign with words that seemed shockingly blunt and impolitic at the time, that Mexicans arriving here are criminals, rapists, drug abusers, and job stealers.
The words did not destroy his campaign. They elevated it. It turns out that a lot of Americans agree.
The wall became a symbol of resistance to outsiders and an affirmation of a demographic and cultural history, the "good old days," when America was great--and white and Christian and men wore the pants and people didn't have to walk on tenterhooks for fear of someone claiming "offense."
The wall became a symbol of resistance to outsiders and an affirmation of a demographic and cultural history, the "good old days," when America was great--and white and Christian and men wore the pants and people didn't have to walk on tenterhooks for fear of someone claiming "offense."
Thad Guyer wrote a follow-up comment to his Guest Post of yesterday on Trump's potential re-election. I recommend readers who missed it scroll back. American voters see-saw back and forth between parties, and it apparently takes eight years for the sentiments that elected one party to mature and create a reversal. Trump identified something big and real that got him elected in 2016, a fear in the hearts of many Americans of racial suicide, that white Americans are losing their country to dangerous foreigners.
We have been here before because those ideas are deeply rooted in the American psyche.
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| Boston |
In the prelude to the Civil War Millard Fillmore spoke the same message, one of resentments toward elites (via the Anti-Masonic Party) and then the open opposition to immigration by Catholics (via the Know Nothing Party.)
Guyer writes:
"Historians just can't get their message across that in the American experience, Trump is not an aberration.
Apart from TV personality Ronald Reagan in 1980, in Millard Fillmore, the mid 1800s saw a remarkably similar bigoted conspiratorial Trump-like presidency. The good news is Filmore lost reelection. The bad news is behaviorism Rule #2-- he was vice-president in the prior administration and ascended to the presidency on Zachary Taylor's death. See, BBC, "Is this the US president most like Trump?" (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44688337).
Justice Oliver Wendel Homes wrote: "The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience." This observation by Holmes has even stronger application to politics. Voters are driven by emotions, fear, greed, biases, intuition, superstitions, religion and family history. Psychology and sociology track our political history far better than logic and rationality."
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| Boston |
I disagree. This will be a close-run election, and Trump could well win. Trump will demonize the Democrat, whoever it is, and Trump speaks to a deep-set fear among many Americans, that "we" are losing our country to outsider who are infiltrating and corrupting our country. Trump positions himself as the leader of the resistance.
That anti-outider sentiment persists, and not just in the South or among self-identified racists. I was up close to watch ethnic and racial violence in Boston, Massachusetts in the mid 1970s. American blacks were the dangerous interlopers to white ethnic neighborhoods. Meanwhile the neighborhoods were segregated by ethnicity, the Irish, Italians, and others.
Trump sentiments are close under the surface, now and in the past.
4 comments:
Obama's immigration executive orders DACA (for the kids) and DAPA (for their parents) were the most egregious non-war presidential overreaches in my lifetime. Congress said "no", Obama said "stop me if you can". The courts struck down DAPA as lawless overreach, and DACA is still in the courts. Obama literally condoned mass violation of federal civil and criminal statutes, including rampant identity falsification and theft. We democrats still applaud that executive power grab because party members like me elevated that humanitarian result over separation of powers and legislative process. How ironic that we yell democracy is endangered when Trump's overreach is to prevent mass violation of federal laws at the border. Get woke-- each team wants its quarterback to win no matter what. Let's not be such shameless hypocrits about it please.
Like a lot of us who were shocked by the rise of Trumpism, I’ve been personally paying more attention to those who’s lives and perspectives are different from mine. I’ve been spending more time in rural areas with people who have a very different world- view than me and my ‘coastal elite’ neighbors here in Seattle. It seems even their rules of logic are different than mine. Finding common ground seems like it would easy until I discover that reasoning is no match for labels and affiliation. I’ve found that even attempts at respectful reasoning can sometimes Invite contempt from the most ardent T-loyalists But I am not deterred and remain hopeful especially with a new generation of smart, centered, influential rising voices.
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Awesome, John!
Engagement is better than the easier alternative of ridicule.
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