Artwork By Michael DiMilo
Last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that the House of Representatives would be commencing an impeachment inquiry against President Trump based on whistleblower evidence alleging the president had pressured Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate his political opponent, Joe Biden.
After speaking to the urgency of the situation and the pressing need to protect the Constitution, Pelosi quoted Benjamin Franklin. Upon leaving the Constitutional Convention in 1787, Franklin was asked what kind of government was being produced, a republic or a monarchy. He replied, “A republic, madam, if you can keep it,” revealing just how fragile Franklin thought the new democracy might be. Having witnessed, and dealt with, absolute monarchies and their attendant abuses of power in Europe, the Founding Fathers were well aware of the extremes those in power would go to in order to retain their kingdoms, and how much of a longshot the new American democracy, a government by the people, was going to be. But the Great American Experiment—up to this point—against the odds, has succeeded; we have managed to keep the republic secure.
And this was not just because of the mechanisms set out in the Constitution to maintain the necessary checks and balances, but was also because of the people who have served in the nation’s highest office. George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, FDR, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Barack Obama are just a sampling of the brilliance, integrity, elegance, and decency that we have been lucky enough to experience in the leadership of this country.
Of course, we had the less than average presidents, too. For every Teddy Roosevelt, we’ve had a Franklin Pierce, a Millard Fillmore, a John Tyler, or a Zachary Taylor. Or a Donald Trump. But the ineptitude of this latter group did not—usually—reflect a deliberate contempt for the government or an active disdain for the people it represented. To varying degrees, nearly all these leaders had at least one thing in common: a knowledge of and respect for the rule of law. They understood the separation of powers, checks and balances, and the democratic principles set forth in the Declaration of Independence. They also understood that the stability of our republic is rooted in this belief system. The maintenance of our fragile institutions have rested on the shoulders of leaders like these, not only presidents, but senators, representatives, justices, and more, men and women who stalwartly defended the principles set forth by our founding fathers.
Of course, during the days of Sen. Joseph McCarthy, Watergate, and the internment of Japanese-Americans, some Americans willfully turned their backs on the principles on which this country was based, but were always reminded of their digressions through the rule of law, applied through either one of the checking branches of government or the revelations of the free press. This is no accident; he law is the spine of our government.
Now we are faced with a president who is the antithesis of everything a good leader, and a decent man, should be. He is using the office of the presidency to augment his own personal fortune and further his political ambitions with no regard to the public welfare. He has no knowledge of the law or of history, there is minimal evidence of even rudimentary decency in his behavior, and he seems to have no empathy towards anyone but himself or—on a good day—his family. He has cheated, swindled, lied, and repeatedly been accused of sexual assault. Members of his own political party have hesitated to try to rein him in, fearing for their own job security, placing their own welfare over that of their constituents. Never mind following the rule of law.
Over the first three years of his term, Donald Trump has evaded every kind of retribution, any kind of justice. He’s gotten away with paying off consorts like Stormy Daniels, sidestepping numerous sexual assault charges, breaking campaign funding laws, and violating the emoluments clause of the Constitution. He has also torn families apart, driven farmers and small businesses to bankruptcy, and embarrassed our once-proud nation with his stupidity and arrogance. How? He has gotten away this precisely because he is the President of the United States. Never before in our history have we dealt this level of criminality, buffoonery, and stupidity from a president. From others of our national leaders, yes—McCarthy comes to mind—but never the president.
Trump’s reckless behavior is sometimes reminiscent of the mad king, George III. At times he seems dangerously close to thinking of himself as an all-powerful monarch, the first American despot. In his world, he is all and others are nothing. Our system of checks and balances has never had to deal with such an obvious—and crass—threat, and we seem singularly unequipped to handle it. There is no expeditious mechanism for forcibly removing a madman from America’s highest office; there is no rule of law to deal with the tantrums of an unruly child. Even members of the Republican Party stand by uselessly, unwilling to put their own interests aside for their party, their constituents, and their own dignity. This is not good government, as they claim. It is simply politics, and politics without courage is simply self-interest.
Trump will probably be impeached; hopefully, he will leave office peacefully, without a fuss. When—or if—we survive his presidency, it will be time for us to examine and reexamine the factors which allowed him to gain power, and which have allowed him to keep it for as along as he has. Trump is a menace that has caused immeasurable suffering here and across the world, suffering which, in his narrow little world of “me”, he cannot begin to fathom—even if he would want to.
Apparently, we can no longer rely on ourselves to elect the most-qualified person. We are too easily fooled, too easily blinded, too easily bought. Ben Franklin was right.
“A republic, if you can keep it.”
That’s a big if.