The problem facing America today isn’t Trump.
Trump is a symptom. The real problem facing us is the steady turn toward authoritarianism/fascism. This seems OK for many calling themselves conservatives. We have been sliding toward this situation for years. The mistaken notion that government should be run like a business touted by Republican leaders, many business leaders, most billionaires, and believed by many voters on the right of the political spectrum has created this situation. This is a stupid and self-serving notion. Businesses exist to make profit for the owners. Everything they do is bent toward that goal. Businesses and corporations are by their nature authoritarian. The owner or CEO has the final word. Government, on the other hand, exists to establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for common defense, promote the general welfare and secure liberty for the people. Accomplishing these things requires cooperative work toward shared goals.
Congress has been relinquishing most of its power and responsibility to the executive branch for several decades. They have done this because legislating is hard. Most Presidents, regardless of party, have happily taken that relinquished power. That is deadly to a representative democracy. Additionally, six Republican justices at the U.S. Supreme Court have piled on with rulings that allow the executive branch to ignore the Constitution and gain even more power. The court routinely ignores past precedents and thus destroys the rule of law. By using emergency rulings, they have routinely ruled in Trump’s favor. Twenty of 23 rulings have overturned well-reasoned lower court rulings against the executive in the last year. This is a first-year record for any President. It is called the “shadow docket” because of the secrecy and unaccountability. They have not shared their legal reasoning in any of these cases.
Fixing all this will be very, very difficult. It will call for an opposition with a clear vision of what needs to be done and the will to do it. Chipping around the edges will not be enough. Turning back the clock to pre-Trump conditions will not be enough. Those conditions led us to today. If we want a better world, it will be up to citizens to define it and vote for those who will speak truth to power and work for that change. Winning the House and Senate majorities will not be enough unless that majority is large enough to really have the power to make change. That means a veto-proof-plus majority in the Senate and enough freeboard in the House to overcome distractors. A small majority is not enough. It leads to too many compromises or total inaction.
Tim Wallace
Zim