There had already been examples of regional prejudices and protection of special interests had led to violence. This was one of the dangers of the formation of political parties Washington warned about, along with the fact that partisan interests, in a representative government, could lead to the election of representatives of the people who represented only their own special interests, leaving opposition groups without a voice in government. He saw factional strife as potential development of despotism.
"Natural to party dissention, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism," he wrote. "But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual."
His warning was based on his observation of the factionalism that had already developed in Congress, starting around 1793, between "Federalists," an informal group who supported the ratification of the Constitution, and the "anti-Federalists," who opposed it. Two men who served in Washington's cabinet, including Alexander Hamilton as Secretary of the Treasury and Thomas Jefferson as Secretary of State, along with James Madison, an ally of Washington and member of Congress, are the main players in the development of political factions in American government.
Washington's warnings came from experience. During his presidency, he actually led federal troops to put down what was known as the "Whiskey Rebellion" over a tax placed on the sale of whiskey. Federal officals attempting to collect the tax were intimidated and attacked, and at one point, an organized mob was formed in Western Pennsylvania, though it dissipated before the federal troops arrived.
Unfortunately, this was a lesson that has been left unlearned from history.
Who Could Ever Have Imagined?
But who could have imagined that a criminal, a man who has been a business fraud, pathological liar, and sexual deviant and rapist, for most of his adult life, could ascend to the Presidency on the votes of the people, though it was the irregularity and undemocratic Electoral College that got him there? The founders didn't have any forethought of that happening. But here we are. The predictions prior to his election to office, that he would become a corrupt despot, and use the power of the Presidency for his own self-serving benefit came true in his first few months in office.
In fact, he was already deeply engaged in corruption, according to the Mueller Report, prior to his election, as he surrounded himself with criminals who had no respect for the law, and who had, because of their power and influence, evaded arrest and conviction. One is in prison now, because he couldn't help himself from committing crimes even after he was pardoned. The others are out, only because Trump pardoned them.
Up until the latter half of this century, government in America worked largely because even though there was a partisan and regional divide created as a result of multiple social, economic and political fault lines, in order to accomplish things on behalf of the people, compromise and working out differences was a requirement. That's gone now, thanks to the influence of extremists in the media, such as Rush Limbaugh, who advocated for killing compromise in order to rig the system so that one side always gets its way, and the other side, which is accorded no respect because it thinks differently, is denied the benefit of government of, by and for the people.
What's Really Wrong with This Country?
What's really wrong is that we have two Americas. The system that has produced the current crisis we are facing, one which could open the door to a true despot ending our freedoms and taking over as dictator, deals with people on different levels.
If you are a regular, wage-earning, working American, with no appreciable wealth or the influence that comes with it, you are subject to the law. If you are arrested and indicted for a crime, you do not have the means to access legal services which can maniulate the loopholes in the system, or gain the favor of judges, that will allow you to put off, delay, obfuscate, have charges reduced or eliminated, or appeal a case where the trial was a mess of incompetent bungling by attorneys interested only in their paycheck.
If you are wealthy, you already have law enforcement and officials in the justice system who will defer to your requests and needs. You can afford competent attorneys whose specialty is subverting and cheating the law, making deals, using insider information and playing on a system of mutual back-scratching that will lead to reduced charges and sentences, or to buying juries to get acquittals.
We saw what happened to mountains of evidence, published in a volume over 500 pages in length, of collusion and cheating done in order to win the 2016 election by Trump and his cronies. He appointed one attorney general who was a little too old fashioned and thought the justice department was to serve the American people, not the President, so he fired him and hired Bill Barr, known for his ability to be corrupted, to bury the cases and never let them see the light of day. He had a complicit Congress at the time, which is another thing desperately wrong with this country, and so high crimes and misdemeanors among the worst ever committed by a sitting president were ignored.
We are also now seeing what happens when the same influences are brought to bear on a justice department controlled by Democrats. A full congressional investigation, mountains of evidence presented, making the case for an easy and swift DOJ prosecution, took more than a year to get moving, have a special counsel appointed, launch an investigation impeded by slow moving action from the department, and stalled long enough to give our corrupt Supreme Court a chance to kill it altogether by a ruling on immunity that has Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, Hamilton and the rest of the founders rolling over in their graves.
Our justice and legal systems run on money, not justice. And that's one thing that's wrong with this country. Values have changed. The difference between "wrong" and "right" is no longer discernable.
What Else is Wrong? We're Ignorant and Uneducated
A strong public education system, providing an educated electorate, was supposed to be one of the keys to preserving a Constitutional democracy. That's what those who founded American public education believed. In fact, one of those founders, John Dewey, actually believed that education done right could actually be an agent for positive social change, raising the educational level of the population, helping them have the tools necessary to get better jobs with better pay, and have the critical thinking skills and discernment necessary to make good decisions that have a positive effect on their future.
But public education has also been one of those things that, because of economic and social inequity, has become beneficial only to those who have the wealth and the ability to access the better schools, while those who live in more impoverished communities have difficulty finding the funds to provide quality education, can't keep good teachers, or administrators, and do not share in the benefits of public education. In the years since the 1980's, since education is a business that does not provide a profit motive, but costs taxpayer dollars, even the good schools have seen the quality of education decline and fall rapidly, as budget cuts, low teacher pay and lack of resources, thanks to Republican budget cuts.
It is no coincidence that the states with the most abysmal public school perforamce are in red states. ALL of them.
And because of these GOP budget cuts, schools have had to focus on a more technical, skills based education than on one rich in history, sociology, civics and government. The minimum standards to pass courses in Constitution and history, which some states actually do enforce, have declined significantly since the Reagan administration. So we have a lot of people out there who are prone to join cults like MAGA, because they don't know any better and have no ability to discern the information that gets thrown at them on social media or from more extremist media outlets.
Here's Where we Are
On one side, we have a current sitting President whose accomplishments in his first term have included economic policy that has not only prevented recession, but increased the GNP, dropped unemployment to its lowest level since the 60's. His policy mediated the recovery from the COVID epidemic that was grossly mishandled by his predecessor, and his legislative initiatives have kept inflation from being much worse than it could have been, and have brought it back to reasonable levels. However, on the economic prosperity we have experienced, average wages have increased in amounts exceeding inflation rates. And that's a fact that can't be denied.
The sitting President restored the world's confidence in the United States as its leading democratic military and economic power. He brought NATO back together and strengthened it in the teeth of Russian opposition. He successfully got the United States out of one of its costliest wars ever, in Afghanistan, rescuing over 100,000 Americans and Afghans in a matter of a few days through an airlift while his predecessor seemed content to continue spending billions on futility and undermined the democratically elected government by dealing directly with the Taliban.
There's no comparison in terms of the character and morality required to be a leader, something that Evangelicals once claimed was more important that the issues, between Joe Biden and his opponent, a multiple-bankrupted, adulterous womanizer, a convicted rapist and fraudulent business operator, an election cheat and a pathological liar. And on top of that, an opponent whose term in office was rated as the worst in all of American history by a group of respected, non-partisan Presidential scholars.
His opponent has been convicted of rape in a civil court, and convicted on 34 counts of felony fraud in a scheme to cover up his affair with a porn star while his wife was pregnant and raising an infant son. He has also been indicted on multiple other felonies related to inciting insurrection against the United States and to the theft of classified documents related directly to national security, including the unauthorized showing of the documents to people without security clearance. He sold the country's diplomacy out with his cowering to Putin and to Kim Jong Un, so he can get advantages in business deals in their countries.
This shouldn't be close. It is, because we are educationally, economically and spiritually incapable of dealing with it. And the real question is, can it ever be fixed?
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