It's been 46 years since I walked across the stage of my university graduation and received a Bachelor's Degree with a major in American History, minors in English and Biblical Studies, and went by the education college office the following morning to pick up a teacher's certificate. I had already been hired by the school district where I did my student teaching and was anxiously awaiting, maybe for the first time I can remember, the first day of school.
The next 25 years or so, spent in a classroom with high school students, and with college students when I taught as an adjunct at a junior college, were learning experiences. I've approached and learned about American history, and taught it, along with 8th grade Constitution classes and 12th grade Civics classes, to an uncountable number of students at this point. I can count, among my former students, three district attorneys, about a dozen municipal department managers, two members of the House, three members of the state legislature, one federal appeals court justice and more than a dozen who are also teaching middle or high school social studies.
I've studied and taught the subject from every angle. I've collected, from students, as part of their daily class work, thousands of newspaper and media articles and posts about current events, with their evaluation and interpretation of how they see things. When the opportunity presented itself, about eight years into my career, I went back to graduate school and earned a Master's degree. It's not bragging for me to say I'm an expert in the subject.
I can also say that I've seen an awful lot. I'm old fashioned enough to have spent my mornings at the kitchen table with a light breakfast, a cup of coffee and the daily newspaper. And as the internet has become more prominent, that morning news feed includes reading from the New York Times and The Washington Post. Sure, there are people who have seen and studied and observed more than me, but not very many. And I make this point to put what I'm going to say in context.
The Dignity of the Presidency is Gone
We are facing a real critical crisis with a President of the United States who is not only completely unqualified to serve in office, but whose behavior indicates that it is a real danger to this country for him to be in such a position of power.
Regardless of the politics, and I find it difficult to characterize how Trump handles the Presidency as "political" in nature. the chief executive of the United States of America is our representative face to the world. And occupying it, allegedly elected by the people, is a man whose pettiness, vengefullness and whose airing of personal grievances in a regular stream of social media posts on a daily basis is a colossal embarassment to the country.
I cannot recall a President who acts like a fifth grader with vengeful, hateful, name-calling, threats and insults hurled at people who make him angry because his ego cannot handle opposition. This, in and of itself, is personally and emotionally disqualifying. His words and the manner in which he treats anyone who gets his negative attention is a sign of a level of immaturity and emotional instability which goes beyond simply making him look foolish. It makes questioning his sanity legitimate. His crude and disrespectful behavior is a sign of a high level of personal loathing and lack of self-respect, along with ignorance of the kind of manners expected of someone holding such high office.
It's a sign that he lacks any leadership quality whatsoever, something I don't believe we have ever seen in anyone who has served as President of the United States, at least not recently.
The fact that an individual who lacks any sort of self-respect could get elected President of the United States is a sign of a serious problem we have among the American people. It means we have an unacceptably high level of ignorance among our population, not only when it comes to personal decorum, protocol, and simple manners, but it is also a sign that the level of ignorance and apathy that exists when it comes to understanding, appreciating and paying the kind of respect to our government and its principles is also unacceptably and dangerously high.
His open mockery of a disabled reporter during his first run for the White House should have been enough to cost him the Presidency. That moment should have been the point at which a mature, well educated, democratic-appreciating population should have said "No! We won't have that kind of crude disrespect and bigotry in our White House!"
Mounting Disrespect and Disdain For American Values Characterizes Trump's Presidency
No one who assaults the Constitution and its principles like Trump has done should be handed any kind of leadership role in the government. There were plenty of atttempts, during Trump's first term, to circumvent Constitutional authority, bypass the rule of law and turn the Presidency into a dictatorship. But there was also resistance to it. Still, we saw a President break the law in ways that we've never seen before in our history. Stolen classified documents. Giving legitimacy and credibility to murderous dictators who oppress and starve their own people.
What he did with regard to the early aid we were giving to Ukraine was, of course, one of the reasons he was impeached. That's just pure corruption, using appropriated tax dollars like it was his own personal bank account. But no American who participates in an insurrection against their own government can call themselves a patriot, and frankly, I call them traitors. We've speculated for years about the possibility of a worst case scenario occurring with a power hungry President using the powers of the office for personal gain, but we have never seen it before now.
The use of the Presidency to get personal revenge against perceived enemies is an absolutely unacceptable practice which should also lead to impeachment and removal. We have had former Presidents play political games, and attempt to use the power of the office for their own political advantage, but we have never seen anything like this. This is the worst case scenario ever imagined by George Washington when he warned Americans about the dangers of partisanship in his Farewell Address.
The abuse of political power, permitted by the slimmest of Republican congressional majorities, is also unprecedented. We tend to think that those who reach the White House have done so with a combination of political experience, astute observation of the world, with a measure of discernment and consideration that is an asset to a job that has public service as its main objective, a reasonable educational background along with some personal and professional expertise and success in the private sector. The complicated nature of the job requires the ability to listen to advice, recognize specific talents and qualities in individuals who are chosen to be advisors, and the humility to recognize the fact that the success or failure of a Presidency depends on the quality and integrity of those advisors, because no one person can have the expertise in every area necessary to manage the nation.
Trump has none of that. He seems to conduct his policy off the top of his head as he goes, citing populist mythology and conspiracy theories as fact, and then blaming everyone else when what he does naturally fails because he is basing his actions on false information. His "shoot from the hip" approach, leaving the Constitution and its separation of powers in the dust, has cost the taxpayers of this country trillions, yes, trillions of dollars.
Are We Looking at an Unforseen Constitutional Flaw?
The Constitution is based on popular sovereignty, so the failure to hold this man accountable rests with we, the people. But we are putting up with it. At least, no one seems to be putting the kind of pressure necessary to get Congress to act anywhere that it has been effective. I think we are well inside the danger zone at this point, and we need to get him out of the White House now. The balance of powers, so carefully constructed by the founders, did not forsee a corrupt Supreme Court, or a political party so bent on control that it would fail beyond capacity to protect the Constitution and the American Republic.
And that means that the cleanup of this mess is left to we, the people.
Frankly, the manner in which partisan politics operates means that essentially, there is really no effective opposition party in elected office. Sorry, that's a hard reality for some people to swallow, but it is the truth. The kind of courage, boldness and risk that will be necessary to save this country from being stymied in some kind of paralysis that lets this travesty go on and on has not yet showed itself among any of the elected members of Congress. There have been some, in the federal judiciary, who have moved ahead with some measure of boldness, and maybe there might be just enough of that to keep the creeping ignorance at bay, I don't know.
If the Constitution were being followed and, in fact, had worked the way it should, then there would have been several relatively easy avenues to rid ourselves of what is not only a completely inept, incompetent, failed President, who is mentally unbalanced and emotionally crippled, but who is a danger to the country because of the nuclear capability and the kind of power that goes with it. The impeachment and removal route would be one way, though Republicans are part of the attac on American values, and I don't know if the political pressure on them could ever be intense enough to get them to do the right thing. Having him declared mentally incompetent would be another, but they have control of that, too.
This Will Take Long Term Solutions
I sincerely hope we have not lost our last opportunities to stop this slide toward fascist dictatorship. Yeah, I know, those are becoming meaningless, overused words. But we keep talking about the upcoming midterm elections as perhaps the last chance to save our democracy. We had control of Congress for two years, along with a Democratic President in the White House from 2021 to 2023, and the party that is supposed to be the opposition did virtually nothing to put any measure in place that showed they believed Trump was indeed a threat to democracy. And I mean nothing.
A couple of weeks ago, I heard James Carville--and I'm not necessarily a fan of his--talk about what Democrats must do if and when we get back into the White House with a Congressional majority. He is advocating for packing the Supreme Court to neutralize the conservative majority in order to get court rulings that protect the Constitution from exactly the kind of stuff they've been doing.
Great idea, James. Where were you when the progressive Democrats were pushing this very risky, but bold idea back in 2021? If we'd done that then, requiring the breaking of the ridiculously undemocratic Senate Filibuster, we would not be here now. We could have put a court majority in place that would have overturned their ridiculous Presidential immunity rulings, that would have overturned Citizens United, which has allowed elections to be flooded with corporate money and no accountability. A side benefit would have been to save Roe. And any one of the justices had the authority to overtule the stonewalling going on which prevented the Justice Department from prosecuting crimes Trump committed that would have disqualified him from running again, and if they did what they should have done, sent him to prison..
And that would just be a starting point, if we ever get that chance again. America is becoming a third world country when it comes to the security of our elections. Are we going to require UN investigation and supervision in order to conduct free and fair elections? Because Trump's faction of the Republican party is laying plans to make sure Democrats don't get a house majority in the midterms, and I, once again, do not see any Democrat doong anything except whine about it.
Who's minding the store? Once again, it will have to be we, the people.
This November's elections just gave us a taste of what political victory can look like with some fresh ideas, fresh faces and a little boldness and initiative. We need leaders who are willing to stand up for Constitutional Democracy, even if it is at the expense of their political job. So let's start vetting our candidates and finding, and electing, those who are not status quo game players, but patriotic Americans committed to public service.
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