Which History Shall Repeat?

This election year, history is certain to repeat itself. Both leading candidates for President have been elected to the office before. Trump is looking to repeat his 2016 victory, in which he came from behind to snatch victory from a highly favored Democratic candidate. Biden is looking to repeat his 2020 victory, in which he defeated Trump and denied the former President a second term. This year is a hotly contested rematch, even it if it is one which nearly no one really wanted.

Election day 2024 is November 5th. That date is now less than six months away, with early voting starting even sooner. While the Presidential election will not be decided until November, the election results in most states are already foregone conclusions. Most voters live in states, which are consistently and decidedly “Red” or “Blue.” Individual votes in those states are unlikely to alter historical trends or demographic realities.

The election will hinge upon the results of seven states. These are the so-called Toss-Up, Battleground, Purple, or Swing States. North Carolina is among these states, and others include: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Recent polling in these states shows Trump with leads in six of them. The lone exception is Michigan, where Biden leads Trump by a small margin.

Earlier today, a friend sent an online message asking the question, “If Trump is elected, do you think that democracy will end?”

I know him to be a knowledgeable individual. We attended college together. He is a practicing physician in a deeply blue state within the Democratic enclave of New England. I knew the question to be genuine and sincere. Therefore, I took some time to compose the following reply:

First, democracy is overrated. Democracy is merely a form of government, and government in any form or incarnation is at best a necessary evil. Any form of government can work so long as the people are content to be subservient to the state and content with government being administered through self-serving political minions and technocrats. [See Fredrich Hayek’s “Road to Serfdom.”]

Contrary to popular belief, the federal government of the United States, is NOT a “democracy.” It is a Constitutional Republic, and the difference is more than mere semantics. While there are democratic elements, there are also decidedly and necessarily undemocratic and antimajoritarian provisions (e.g. Electoral College, Senate, Constitutional Amendments, etc.).

The architects of the Constitution never intended to install a government to operate with industrial efficiency. Instead, they provided a blueprint for a government of limited and specifically enumerated powers, and they further limited and restricted those powers in deference to individual liberties and personal freedoms via the Bill of Rights.

Having just won independence from a monarchy, they were of course wary of implementing the same; however, they were similarly wary of an unrestrained Democracy. Former President John Adams wrote in 1814:

Remember Democracy 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 no where 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 Phylosophers and the most conscientious Moralists to resist the temptation. Individuals have conquered themselves, Nations and large Bodies of Men, never.

Regardless of the form or fashion, government can be made constructive rather than destructive only if it is actively restrained and tightly fettered. Government should be sufficiently impotent that the average person would not care who occupies a given office at a particular point in time. As power trends toward absolute, so does the certainty for corruption, and with corruption come abuse, oppression, and tyranny.

Should one find himself the target of tyranny, that individual is likely to take little comfort that his harms and losses occur at the behest of a self-serving electoral majority, as opposed to the hands of a single deranged despot. In fact, democracy may be the most dangerous of all possible forms of government, because proponents of government action and would-be beneficiaries act with a perverse moral certitude, which they mistakenly believe can be derived solely from their number.

Wanting to make government “work” (to advance one’s personal interests) and the desire to “fix” societal ills (which are attributed almost invariably upon disfavored “others”) have led to government being unleashed from its necessary constitutional restraints. Despite lip service to “limited government,” few persons actually want government to “do less.” Instead, they want an omnipotent state to do MORE for them personally — to advance THEIR interests (to the exclusion of all others). Obviously, this is a practical impossibility.

The issue is not in having the wrong person in a particular office, but in commanding of government things, for which the institution is ill suited and which are inconsistent with the inherent nature of the beast. Government is not a tool, which engenders cooperation, collaboration, compromise, or consensus. At its most basic, 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 individuals and groups). There is seldom, if ever, anything more moral or noble in the machinations of the state.

As the office of President of the United States of America was originally created and envisioned, a single rogue executive (e.g. Trump) should not present a material threat to constitutional power and legitimate authority. The Constitution and the tripartite federal government (as originally conceived) contains ample checks and balances. That venerable instrument is sturdy enough to withstand an assault by any single individual.

Any current threat posed by Trump or any other would-be President is due to the fact that the legacy parties — both Democratic and Republican — have been complicit in usurping power from the people. For political expediency, they created an Imperial Presidency, as well as a burgeoning and out-of-control bureaucratic state.

The legacy parties present themselves as noble combatants, which are constantly engaged in an incessant battle of inherent “Good” versus “Evil” incarnate; however, there is no universal agreement as to which is which. They are best described as opposite sides of the same coin. No matter which party comes out “on top” in a given election, it is America and her people, who are the certain losers.

While I am confident that the Constitution can withstand a Trump reelection, I am exceedingly less confident that the Constitution can withstand an orchestrated and concerted attack by devout statists. Therefore, Biden scares me more than Trump, in that he is a lackey and mouthpiece for hordes of neo-socialists.

A leftward lurching Democratic Party seeks to recycle, rebrand, and regurgitate failed socio-political philosophies from the past. Collectivism and its denominational offshoots of Marxism, Socialism, and Communism have failed routinely and oftentimes spectacularly. Most who embrace these concepts act in fits of hubris and in demonstrations of arrogance. They are woefully ignorant of histories — both near-term and ancient.

Proponents, who are knowledgeable of prior failures, assure us that this time will be different. We are told that they — and only they — can do things “right,” and that all prior efforts were flawed. Given the existence of our singular but imperfect reality, it is almost certain that the “imperfect” implementation of these philosophies represent the most likely scenarios. These are the only versions, which are consistent with our reality. They are the only versions consistent with a collective of flawed individuals. They are the only incarnations, which are consistent with the inherent traits of our bestial species. Like nearly all organisms, human beings are motivated by self-protection, self-advancement, and self-propagation.

Neo-Socialists are would-be rebels and revolutionaries. They promise to “Build Back Better.” They promote a “Great Reset.” Revolution requires the destruction of all that is on the hope of replacing existing societal infrastructure and institutions with something “better.” However, they possess no unique insight or singular enlightenment. Therefore, there will be no Utopia rising like a phoenix from the ashes. Instead, the crumbling rubble will stand as a monument to the past, and the smoldering ashes will provide a lasting testament to all that was lost.

The promise of Utopia will go unfulfilled, as it always has. On the present course, the future that we might anticipate is decidedly dystopian. Not being willing to learn from institutional knowledge and by refusing to embrace the collective wisdom of the ages, they commit themselves and condemn all others to repeating those difficult and destructive histories.