This moment is too big for any one man, or woman, to handle. The truth is, as Barack Obama has said, paraphrasing a poem and a song, “We are the people we have been waiting for.”
We always have been. That is the point of democracy. If sovereignty rests with the people, rather than the leaders, then the people must take responsibility for protecting that sovereignty.
Barack Obama came too soon. He could have led us through this moment. He was a Churchillian leader, calm, composed, and a great writer. But we spent that cartridge on the economic crisis.
Now instead of having Churchill, we have Mussolini. Trump knows he’s inadequate but, like the mob boss he has always been, he also knows that falling out of power means losing everything. He will be killed, his children will be killed, everything he has now will be seized. That’s why he will hang on desperately and is willing to American democracy down with him.
What his actions make clear is that the U.S. Constitution is not up to the task of Trump. Everything James Madison feared in Federalist 10, everything Alexander Hamilton warned about in Federalist 65, has come to pass. The Senate has failed in its obligations by becoming as partisan as the House. We have become riven by faction, as Washington feared in his Farewell Address, also drafted by Hamilton.
In order to create the power to act, a President must be minimally constrained. But a President who breaks those constraints can destroy the whole system. This leaves it to the people “to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government.”
It’s up to us.
This is not something one man can do alone. It requires a consensus, an overwhelming demand such as America has had just once before in its history, at the depths of the Great Depression. That’s why the crisis overthrowing the current politics must be so enormous, the threat so real, before the people are moved to act decisively.
There is no politician today with the gravitas to create the new safeguards we need. We do have a clear new economic direction, toward technology. This dominant industry requires a new political direction. The safeguards needed could not have been created in 1788, because we didn’t have today’s technology. We can make them now.
We also have the benefit of time in which to lay out that new direction.
The most important change we must make is to enable an executive to be replaced long before he has gone so far as Trump has to undermine the system. I’m thinking of something akin to the British parliamentary system, before the idiotic Fixed Term Parliaments Act broke it.
In other words the U.S. House should have it within its power to call for a new general election, one in which all its members as well as the President would be up for election, when our parties reach an impasse as they have now. Such an extreme measure should be allowed just once in a President’s term, and the clock for holding such an election set at 30 days.
This would make it impossible to stop a dictatorial President until the end of his term, should he or she also control the House and maintain it in an off-year election. But it does create a popular veto.
We also need quick judicial review of especially obnoxious actions. I would suggest such a review could initiate within the court itself. Four justices could demand a hearing, just as four as needed to even hear a case. A hearing, a decision within 30 days, done. Finally, we need a Constitutional end to “signing statements” meant to reject the intent of legislation, in effect to veto what’s being signed. Any such statement should also be placed under Supreme Court review.
The Constitution, as written, wasn’t designed to remain unchanged for as long as it has. It was always subject to Amendment. More amendments have been added on expanding voting rights than any other subject, yet this Administration has been able to impose Jim Crow law, through its supporters, in many states. It is clear the document is inadequate against a President determined to rule as a dictator.
Action must be taken, not just against Trump but against any Trump wannabe. It is up to the people to take it. We need to demand it. The Democratic Party has six months to propose something, and to make this the centerpiece of its platform.
We should take the opportunity of time, come to consensus, and demand it.
