If I Win, You Lose… Big

   

If I Win, You Lose… Big

If You Win, There Must Be Limits

“It’s not a living document… It’s dead, dead, dead.” 

 Associate Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, describing the US Constitution at Dallas-based Southern Methodist University in 2013

Increasingly, voters from both sides of aisle are coming to the conclusion that the nation cannot be governed through Congress, an unproductive, gridlocked body too often defined by inane conspiracy theories, extremism and false but strongly felt religiosity. They believe that power to govern, to fix and solve, is by default or design, must now be relegated to the President as the unitary executive. To MAGAns, that naturally leads to an autocracy led by cult-meister, Donald Trump, who can seal the deal with even more judicial appointments who hold the Bible as trumping the Constitution and insist that even when the Constitution might apply, it is severely limited to the historical context that existed when the constitutional provision was passed, that it cannot take into consideration social, political or technological changes since (“textualism” and “originalism”).

To Progressives, personal freedom – from control over your own body or ethnic/gender choices – should be restored, that the Department of Justice needs to purge rightwing extremism, and that everything from student loans to a more humane approach to immigration and incarceration must be implemented by the President alone. Both sides of aisle rail at the First Amendment and are heavily focused on expression on social media. The Dems want to stop destructive dis- and mis-information ranging from medical realities to elections. MAGAns want to allow their “alternative facts” and conspiracy theories to be given free and correction-free status as a matter of right. Nicholas Riccardi and Linley Sanders, writing for the April 8th Associated Press, put it this way: “Americans back limits on authority — unless their party wins the presidency, poll finds.”

The undercurrent in all of this seems to suggest that democracy no longer works. Even as China’s economy unravels and she bullies regional nations over sea lanes, a majority of Asians seems to think that the centralized control model from China is more effective today than the obviously messy American democracy. El Salvador gave up on trying to control rampant gangs and cartels through normal judicial authority… with some success. The rising rightwing is appearing in former bastions of liberalism, even in Sweden and the Netherlands.

But for those who still believe that democracy is the path, perhaps with a constitutional basis that accepts social change, there is a movement “in the middle,” reflected here in the United States, that “the U.S. government ‘go back to its original design’ — a system of checks and balances developed nearly 240 years ago to prevent any branch, especially the presidency, from becoming too powerful.” AP.

Indeed, the swinging contextual pendulum suggests that each party wants a powerful president when they win and a severely limited leader if their candidate loses. “A new poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Opinion Research finds that … view is common. Though Americans say they don’t want a president to have too much power, that view shifts if the candidate of their party wins the presidency. It’s a view held by members of both parties, though it’s especially common among Republicans.

“Overall, only about 2 in 10 Americans say it would be ‘a good thing’ for the next president to be able to change policy without waiting on Congress or the courts. But nearly 6 in 10 Republicans say it would be good for a future President Trump to take unilateral action, while about 4 in 10 Democrats say the same if Biden is reelected.

“The sentiment comes amid escalating polarization and is a sign of the public’s willingness to push the boundaries of the political framework that has kept the U.S. a stable democracy for more than two centuries. In the poll, only 9% of Americans say the nation’s system of checks and balances is working extremely or very well. It also follows promises by Trump to ‘act as a dictator’ on Day 1 of a new administration to secure the border and expand oil and gas drilling.

“Bob Connor, a former carpenter now on disability in Versailles, Mo., wants that type of decisive action on the border. He’s given up hope on Congress taking action… ‘From what I’ve seen, the Republicans are trying to get some stuff done, the Democrats are trying to get some other stuff done — they’re not mixing in the middle,’ said Connor, 56. ‘We’re not getting anywhere.’” AP

Indeed, the US Constitution is old; the original version passed in 1787, and the amendatory Bill of Rights in 1789. It is a document that, by its own terms, has become the least amendable constitution in the democratic world. Our last amendment – the 27th, which required an intervening election before Congress could give itself a raise – was passed in 1992 but was introduced in 1789.

The Constitution’s greatest flaw, perhaps, is that it assumed the president, Congress and our judges would act honorably, placing their country before themselves and their individual religious beliefs, acting wisely for the benefit of all Americans. It never envisioned social media, nuclear destruction or even AR-15s. Moral qualifications were never codified. But the Constitution can work, if approached with a mixture of common sense, honor and a realization that it was enacted to endure through changing times. If only we could elect honorable candidates.

I’m Peter Dekom, and as the United States unravels the very democratic principles that made it great, powerful and economically successful, it is indeed bizarre that the unravelers somehow think they will make the nation greater and more successful.