All Hail the Imperial President
After the announcement that Chris Christie was once again leaving a presidential campaign, a friend inquired whether that development might allow one of the remaining GOP candidates to effectively challenge Trump. He asked for my evaluation of the other candidates, as alternatives to Trump.
I replied that the remaining GOP candidates were primarily vying for a VP slot. Admittedly, Haley would be the leading contender to be Trumps’ running mate between the remaining pair. DeSantis checks all the wrong boxes, when checking boxes, as opposed to qualification, experience, and aptitude, is key to acceptable candidate pairings.
In response to my friend’s inquiry about the favorability of non-Trump candidates, I offered:
Anyone who WANTS to be President SCARES me. The desire to BE President is the most certain of all disqualifying factors. NO ONE is qualified for the role as an Imperial President. Power corrupts even the most saintly among us … and none of those folks started out as saints.
He offered that some Presidents and presidential hopefuls, were/are actually “good people.” (Or, they at least have positive qualities, which should be considered in conjunction or contrast with their more obvious foibles, faults, and shortcomings.) I am sure that (a younger) Bill Clinton would be fun at a cocktail party, as would George W. Bush, and God forbid, the messianic Obama. However, I do not care for any of the three — or anyone else — to rule over me!
I am no fan of Trump. I have never voted for Trump, and I do not anticipate that I ever will. However, that reality does not make me a Biden supporter. I refuse to embrace the false dichotomy. I refuse to accept a choice among perceived lesser evils. The legacy political parties are content to present unpalatable choices, but in doing so, the perception of potential “evils” among the electorate is not certain. In comparison, to HRC, as the Democratic heir apparent in 2016, Trump was deemed the lesser evil.
If Trump is not in the race, the impact will be felt beyond the Oval Office. I do not think that Trump, or any Republican, can beat an incumbent Biden. However, Republican turnout will tank without Trump at the head of the ticket, and the likely result would be a Democratic rout throughout Congress. (Of course, dyed-in-the-wool Democrats see no problem with that.) Trump as a candidate for President might allow Republicans to hold onto the House, and perhaps even take the Senate. While this may not be “ideal,” I am a huge fan of divided government of nearly any incarnation.
My friend acknowledged that divided government was a good thing. Although he fancies himself “liberal,” he has come to appreciate more “conservative” socio-economic and political positions in recent years. Like many traditional Democrats, he has grown less comfortable with what some have described as the lunatic fringe of a leftward-lurching Democratic Party.
There is an unfounded belief among statists (from both legacy parties) that the right persons in the right offices can make government “work” efficiently and effectively. However, government is at best a necessary evil. Government is an instrument of brute force whereby an electoral majority (or controlling voting bloc) seeks to impose its self-serving will upon a reluctant minority (or other disfavored individual or group). There is rarely, if ever, anything more moral or noble in the machinations of the state.
The only way to make government less abusive, oppressive, and tyrannical is to limit the power afforded to the state. Nearly everyone is familiar with the truncated quote from Lord Acton, but the quote is even more telling in expanded form:
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority, still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority.
While many see an unrestrained democracy as an “ideal,” the Founding Fathers held no favor for democracy. In fact, the word “democracy” does not appear a single time in the Constitution in any form or derivation. An unfettered democracy is barely distinguishable from mob rule.
Democracy is perhaps the most dangerous of all forms of government in that its proponents act with a perverse moral certitude, which they mistakenly believe can be derived solely from their number. No collection of immutably flawed human beings achieves omniscience, perfect wisdom, and unflinching altruism, should its constituents choose to act in unison. In fact, collective action often results in groupthink, and such actions tend to magnify and exacerbate the baser traits of our bestial species.
Nevertheless, proponents of an unbounded democracy believe that a self-serving majority should be privileged to run roughshod over a minority, including one of nearly equal size and power. They believe that those in the minority should capitulate and subjugate themselves to the will of the majority (or suffer the consequences). However, there is absolutely nothing in the make-up of a numerical majority, which implies, much less assures, that its preferred course of action is in the long-term best interests of that majority or of the collective as a whole, and that desired course is almost certainly disadvantageous to a disfavored minority.
The legitimate authority of the state does not extend to commanding persons to act contrary to their (perceived) self-interests, in the absence of affirmative harm to another person or party (or to the property of another). In order to be actionable, the alleged harm must be more than theoretical and more than an offense against another’s delicate sensibilities. The harm should be demonstrable, material, and proximate to the act to be remedied or proscribed.
Many Democrats unabashedly embrace a Socialist agenda. We have the likes of Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, AOC, and the rest of the Congressional “Squad.” They actively seek to expand a Nanny State government well beyond the necessary limitations and confines of the Constitution. They seek to use the compulsory authority of the state and the coercive powers of government to force individuals to contribute to or to act for the benefit of the collective — or some favored segment thereof (even if the commanded actions are adverse and detrimental to one’s personal interests). These forced takings are tantamount to institutional theft, and the abuses of power result in involuntary servitude.
My friend responded that their proposed policies were “no big deal.” Being a New England resident, he is used to overactive and intrusive government. The liberal in him wants to believe that government can work, but he is quick to decry the relatively high taxes, which are required in order to maintain big government. With regard to the federal government, an expanding Nanny State is a “Big Deal.” Even without all of the “freebies,” which have been proposed and promised, the federal government is running trillion-dollar deficits annually. The accumulated National Debt exceeds $33 Trillion. More than a decade ago, Erskine Bowles, Co-Chair of the Obama-era Deficit Reduction Commission, described out-of-control deficit spending as giving rise to the “most predictable economic crisis in history.”
During the intervening years, the National Debt has more than doubled. However, that impending economic crisis is not sincerely mentioned, much less adequately addressed, by any among the presidential candidates. Campaigns, which promote prudence, austerity, and personal responsibility, do not win elections from an increasingly dependent (and complicit) populace. In an effort to buy support, political minions tend to promise everything to everyone, without serious consideration of the costs, efficacy, or (unintended) consequences. It is a relationship which is both symbiotic and parasitic. Their promises of free stuff distort reality and create irrational and unsustainable expectations
The following quote is often misattributed, but it is disturbingly prescient:
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy….
The second President of the United States, John Adams, speaking of Democracy said:
[D]emocracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy. It is not true, in fact, and nowhere appears in history. Those passions are the same in all men, under all forms of simple government, and when unchecked, produce the same effects of fraud, violence, and cruelty. When clear prospects are opened before vanity, pride, avarice, or ambition, for their easy gratification, it is hard for the most considerate philosophers and the most conscientious moralists to resist the temptation. Individuals have conquered themselves. Nations and large bodies of men, never.
In short, I favor none of the candidates for President. I prefer the Office of President to be so relatively impotent that most persons would have no care or concern as to who holds the office at any given time. I prefer that the President, as head of the Executive Branch, be part of a tripartite federal government, which rests well inside the confines of the Constitution. I prefer that we, the People, enjoy individual liberties and personal freedoms, which are enshrined in and guaranteed by that venerable instrument, without unreasonable interference from government. I do not expect the legendary Cincinnatus to rise from the dead, but there are none among the current slate, who are worthy to hold the office formerly occupied by the likes of Washington and Lincoln.
