There were some things which they saw as the responsibility of a central, national government which they intended to establish, while allowing their fears to build in provisions which would prevent the government from becoming too powerful over people, because they did not want another king, nor did they want the kind of demagogue we seem to be stuck with now. They saw the job of government as having five primary responsibilities:
- Establish Justice
- Insure domestic tranquility
- Provide for the common defense
- Promote the general welfare
- Secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity
And from the start, they disagreed over the power of government, and the size of government. But they recognized some facts about human nature, so they devised a Constitution which protected the individual liberties they valued, and defined the limits and boundaries of government authority in interfering with those individual liberties. This was the rule of law, built on trust, but also with a healthy dose of fear that an imbalance of power anywhere in the system could become an enabler for the kind of demagogue they feared the most, embodied in the image of a King.
The Nation's Enemies Versus the Enemy Within
I have yet to meet and engage in discussion with a Trump supporter who can factually articulate exactly what it is that Trump has done for this country, and specifically for themselves, that merits their support. Maybe there is someone out there who can say, truthfully, "He cut my taxes, he made the economy better, he made the nation safer, both from foreign threats and from crime, and insofar as it was his responsibility to do the things the Constitution demands of its government, he did so."
But that would be a rare individual, indeed. That's because Trump did none of those things.
There are plenty of people who believe this, but what they might believe and what is actually true are two different things. That's been part of the problem with Trump all along, his political success rest on falsehoods, invented statistics and outright lies. For one thing, people are generally not educated enough to understand the way government is supposed to work. They've bought into this "winner take all" mentality, not understanding that this is a democracy, and its government is a republic. That does not mean that a candidate who wins an election by a razor thin plurality does not have any mandate to claim that their agenda is "what the American people voted for."
Those who put the emphasis on the "Republic" part of American democracy don't understand that in a Republic, the rights of the minority are equally protected under the law. So to simply start "cutting" government budgets, under the false pretense that there is massive fraud and that spending is "out of control," both very nebulous and undefined arguments, is in direct conflict with the rule of law.
So to immediately begin dismantling and slashing "government spending" out from underneath a social structure that previous governments have researched, and given consideration to establishing based on their responsibility to promote the general welfare, and seek the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity, all of which collectively represent the "will of the people," is to be an enemy of the American Republic, the democracy that undergirds and supports it, and of the American people themselves.
What is interesting involves political conversations I have with some of my neighbors. About half of the people who live in my building are immigrants who came here as refugees, many of them from Communism in Eastern Europe, from Poland, Bulgaria, Latvia, Ukraine. They see what is happening very clearly, detect the presence of foreign interference, know exactly what it looks like and who it is, and are baffled at the amount of time it has taken for the political leaders on the left to react and respond.
The Disintegration of American Values
There are social institutions which have developed over the course of American history that have contributed to the stability and security that we have enjoyed for most of our existence as a nation. Some people, by personal conviction or experience, might disagree, but I think the evidence supports the argument.
The system of compulsory, public supported education that developed over the course of the early years of American history was a powerful stabilizing force that has contributed to the success of democracy and the security of the nation. Education preserves and protects democracy and contributes to its smooth function by providing an educated electorate that has the ability to be informed and aware of issues which affect the function of a democratic Republic. But this system has fallen victim to Republican destruction, tax and funding cuts, at least two GOP Departments of Education messing with graduation requirements and achievement standards, dumbing down the curriculum and removing much of the social studies requirement, claiming that the schools were "hotbeds of liberalism."
The conservative, Evangelical branch of American Protestantism has opened the door to the intrusion of blatant, anti-Christian right wing extremism. It has shifted its loyalty from God to money, and has changed its salvation from faith in Jesus Christ to faith in Trump. It has fallen victim to the same kind of heretical intrusion the Apostle Jude warned about 2000 years ago and in so doing, it has completely undermined values like integrity, investing its support in a compulsive, pathological liar, misogynistic adulterer and rapist, while abandoning its own values.
While it is true that the founders intentionally separated church and state institutionally, there is no question that Christianity, as the predominantly practiced religion in the United States, has had a profound effect on supporting, undergirding and sustaining a values system that contributed significantly to the preservation of Democracy. But now that one of the larger branches of Protestant Christianity in America has been corrupted by greed and the intrusion of right wing extremism, it has become the means by which to undermine democracy and usher in white Christian nationalism.
Our system of justice itself has become corrupted, weighed down and pre-occupied with money issues and has turned itself into a money-making, profiteering tool. Those with the greater wealth in this country can access a level of justice that the majority of Americans can't even imagine exists. It can be bought, it can ignore the rule of law, or even defeat it, depending on the corruption level of the judges charged with its stewardship.
And in spite of one of the highest values of American idealism claiming to be the fact that no one is above the law, the fact of the matter is that Trump has demonstrated that to be a complete fallacy. Judges he appointed in the federal system took their oath with the full intention of remaining loyal to him rather than upholding the law. And he prevailed in calling in favors from those he appointed to avoid being prosecuted and held accountable for heinous crimes he committed against the American people.
Are We at the Point of Resistance and Opposition, or a Correct Response to Tyranny?
We saw this coming. Whether it was that Democrats thought Trump was finished when he lost in 2020, or that he would never have the power to get back in, the steps that could have been taken to prevent this were not taken and when Trump won again in 2024, nothing was being done or had been done to stop it. What we now have is a well planned takedown of Constitutional Democracy in favor of a white supremacist, Christian nationalistic oligarchy originating through executive orders from the White House, something as equally illegal as everything else he does.
People are finally waking up to this nightmare, taking steps to protest and resist it, and poking their moribund legislators to some kind of action. They are, finally, taking to the streets. Those in position to do so are using the courts, filing lawsuits and getting injunctions to stop the worst abuses. Now that everyone as caught their breath, some of the worst abuses are at least being slowed down by the judicial branch. And it's not an impossible leap, at this point, from GOP control of the legislative branch to putting enough pressure on a few members of the House and Senate to prevent a complete collapse into Christian Nationalist oligarchy.
What's happening is not just partisan political battling over how much or how little government should do for its people. That ended when the GOP decided they were going to adopt the Rush Limbaugh methods of "our way or the highway" and started their attempt to turn the United States from a constitutional democracy into a white, Christian nationalist oligarchy. Resistance and opposition only work when all three branches of government are committed to democracy, which guarantees the protection of the rights of the minority. What's happening now is that people's guaranteed rights are being taken away from them.
That's tyranny. And the American people have, in their history, demonstrated an ability not only to recognize it when they see it, but they know how to fight it and defeat it. And that must happen, once again, in order for American Democracy to prevail and survive the tyranny that is attacking the United States now.
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