The Fate of the Republic<\/p>\n
James Madison and the other founding fathers were faced with a difficult task. The nation was failing: the debt of the Revolution was in default, the settlers on the frontier were without protection, the multiple currencies in use had fluctuating values, and the states were more like wary opponents than compatriots in a cause. The national government, the Articles of Confederation Congress, was put together under pressure of war and concern for a tyrannical King. It wasn\u2019t working.<\/p>\n
Madison knew that for a Nation to function there had to be an Executive who could make decisions and enforce the laws, something that the Confederation Congress was unable to do. Madison also knew that for a Nation to work there had to be a means of financing that allowed the National government to act. And Madison knew that a Nation required a National currency.<\/p>\n
Madison also recognized the danger of singular power, entrusted into a single person. He, and his fellow authors in the hot Philadelphia summer of 1786, developed a governmental structure balanced between three branches of government, the power to create laws in the legislative, the power to enforce those laws in the executive, and the power to determine the legality of laws in the judiciary. In this complex system, where the legislative branch had the most power, they believed that no one branch would gain supremacy.<\/p>\n
Enter the era of the Trump Presidency, when many fear for the fate of our Republic. Their fear has some basis in fact: one branch, the legislative, is acting (according to them) as subordinate to the Executive. Congress is failing to \u201ccheck\u201d or \u201cbalance\u201d the actions of the President, and therefore some see the dark shadow of a more autocratic form of government on the horizon. They add that the Trump habit of constantly degrading those that hold office in the institutions of all the branches of government, and demanding those in the executive branch owe personal loyalty to him; demonstrate a real risk to Madison\u2019s plan.<\/p>\n
While factually what the doomsayers are saying is correct \u2013 they site examples of other nations that have slipped into autocracies – I still believe in the ultimate success of the Republic. As we struggle with a political fight that has drawn in our structural institutions: the courts, the intelligence agencies, and even Congressional Committees; we can fall back on the structure of the Constitutional Convention to ultimately \u201cright the ship.\u201d<\/p>\n
How will this occur? It\u2019s happening already. First, while all of the noise about memos and warrants is going on, the Congress continues to exercise its authority with bipartisan cooperation in the Senate Intelligence Committee. They are still investigating, and they will reach conclusions about what occurred in 2016 and what can be done about it.<\/p>\n
Second, the Mueller investigation continues, and will continue even without Mueller himself (if necessary.) The key is the information that Mueller gains, if he is prevented from using it, then the FBI, or US Attorneys, or at the worst, state Attorney Generals will be able to take that information and prosecute in the Courts.\u00a0\u00a0 Mueller won\u2019t be able to indict the sitting President anyway; as far as Donald Trump is concerned, it isn\u2019t Mueller, but Congress that holds his fate.<\/p>\n
Third, there are folks from both political parties who are working to reveal the truth. Senators Burr (R \u2013 North Carolina) and Warner (D \u2013 Virginia) are the most obvious example, but the Republicans who run the Justice Department: Wray, Rosenstein, and perhaps Mueller himself, are moving forward towards the truth.<\/p>\n
It is a matter of time. My associates in the \u201cResistance\u201d will say that it is taking far too long, that too much damage is being done, that each day of a Trump administration is another day of illegitimacy. And while I agree with them, I also know that the crisis we are now in has precedence in history. The Presidencies of Andrew Johnson and Richard Nixon each went on far longer than they should have, but each was resolved: and the Republic moved on.<\/p>\n
Will Congress follow the lead of the Reconstruction Congress of 1868 and exercise their power of impeachment against President Trump? Will they make the ultimate choice of country over party that the Republicans made in 1974 and ask the President to resign? We don\u2019t yet know those answers. Whatever they do, it will take more time; impeachment is an excruciatingly slow process, with the President in full authority until the end.<\/p>\n
And what if Congress does not? What if the fears of the \u201cResistance\u201d are realized, and the Republican led Congress chooses to back this President, regardless of his actions?<\/p>\n
Madison and the other founders had a further fall back position for the Republic: elections. This November the nation will have a referendum on the Republican conduct of the Congress. Every member of the House of Representatives and thirty-four members of the Senate are up for re-election. If the nation so desires, change can occur. Ask the people of Alabama.<\/p>\n
From the perspective of the \u201cResistance,\u201d any action that takes time takes too long. It will take years to undo the perceived damage done by the Trump Presidency (especially in the Courts.) What seemed unimaginable on election night of 2016 may well be what the nation is stuck with; four years of Donald Trump. Damage will be done, but the Constitution was not written for the \u201ctwenty-four hour news cycle.\u201d It was written for a much longer term, and in that longer time, the system will work. The Republic will survive.<\/p>\n
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