Ron Chernow, author of Hamilton, wrote in the Washington Post that Trump is the populist demagogue that Alexander Hamilton feared and warned about in The Federalist Papers.
He wrote:
There seems little doubt, given his writings on the presidency, that Hamilton would have been aghast at Trump’s behavior and appalled by his invitation to foreign actors to meddle in our elections. As a result, he would most certainly have endorsed the current impeachment inquiry. It’s not an exaggeration to say that Trump embodies Hamilton’s worst fears about the kind of person who might someday head the government.
Among our founders, Hamilton’s views count heavily because he was the foremost proponent of a robust presidency, yet he also harbored an abiding fear that a brazen demagogue could seize the office. That worry helps to explain why he analyzed impeachment in such detail: He viewed it as a crucial instrument to curb possible abuses arising from the enlarged powers he otherwise championed.
Unlike Thomas Jefferson, with his sunny faith in the common sense of the people, Hamilton emphasized their “turbulent and changing”nature and worried about a “restless” and “daring usurper” who would excite the “jealousies and apprehensions” of his followers. He thought the country should be governed by wise and illustrious figures who would counter the fickle views of the electorate with reasoned judgments. He hoped that members of the electoral college, then expected to exercise independent judgment, would select “characters preeminent for ability and virtue.”
From the outset, Hamilton feared an unholy trinity of traits in a future president — ambition, avarice and vanity. “When avarice takes the lead in a State, it is commonly the forerunner of its fall,” he wrote as early as the Revolutionary War. He dreaded most the advent of a populist demagogue who would profess friendship for the people and pander to their prejudices while secretly betraying them. Such a false prophet would foment political frenzy and try to feed off the confusion.
So haunted was Hamilton by this specter that he conjured it up in “The Federalist” No. 1, warning that “a dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people than under the forbidden appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government. History will teach us that . . . of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants.”
Throughout history, despots have tended to be silent, crafty and secretive. Hamilton was more concerned with noisy, flamboyant figures, who would throw dust in voters’ eyes and veil their sinister designs behind it. These connoisseurs of chaos would employ a constant barrage of verbiage to cloud issues and blur moral lines. Such hobgoblins of Hamilton’s imagination bear an eerie resemblance to the current occupant of the White House, with his tweets, double talk and inflammatory rhetoric at rallies.
While under siege from opponents as treasury secretary, Hamilton sketched out the type of charlatan who would most threaten the republic: “When a man unprincipled in private life[,] desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper . . . despotic in his ordinary demeanour — known to have scoffed in private at the principles of liberty — when such a man is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity — to join in the cry of danger to liberty — to take every opportunity of embarrassing the General Government & bringing it under suspicion — to flatter and fall in with all the non sense of the zealots of the day — It may justly be suspected that his object is to throw things into confusion that he may ‘ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.’ ” Given the way Trump has broadcast suspicions about the CIA, the FBI, the diplomatic corps, senior civil servants and the “deep state,” Hamilton’s warning about those who would seek to discredit the government as prelude to a possible autocracy seems prophetic.
At the time of the Constitutional Convention, foreign powers, notably Britain and Spain, still hovered on America’s borders, generating fear of foreign interventions in our elections. Hamilton supported the electoral college as a way to forestall these nations from seeking “to gain an improper ascendant in our councils. How could they better gratify this, than by raising a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the Union?” He prophesied that competing countries would try to clip the wings by which America “might soar to a dangerous greatness.” That Trump was so cavalier about Russian meddling in the 2016 election and then invited Ukraine to furnish defamatory material about his political rival Joe Biden would have shocked Hamilton and the other founders, all of whom were wary of “the insidious wiles of foreign influence,” as George Washington phrased it in his farewell address.
In defending impeachment in two “Federalist” essays, one might have expected Hamilton to engage in close textual analysis, parsing the exact meaning of “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” Instead he couched his defense in broad political language, stating that impeachment should “proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust.” In short, the president didn’t need to commit a crime per se. “If the federal government should overpass the just bounds of its authority and make a tyrannical use of its powers,” the people must “take such measures to redress the injury done to the Constitution as the exigency may suggest and prudence justify.” Trump’s telephone call with the Ukrainian president would seem to suggest a clear abuse of power and possibly a campaign finance violation, although we will need a fair and impartial inquiry to confirm this. As Hamilton wrote, “Caution and investigation are a necessary armor against error and imposition.”
Knowing that impeachment would be divisive, arousing violent party agitation, Hamilton never wanted it used lightly or capriciously, but neither did he want it relegated to mere window-dressing. It was a tool intended for use as conditions warranted. “If there be no penalty annexed to disobedience, the resolutions or commands which pretend to be laws will, in fact, amount to nothing more than advice or recommendation,” he wrote. For Hamilton, each branch of government required a mechanism to check encroachment by the others. He discerned a perfect symmetry between the president’s veto over legislation, constraining congressional overreach, and presidential impeachment, curbing executive excess. In his notes for the New York state convention to ratify the Constitution, he jotted down: “Legislative in the Congress, yet checked by negative of the Executive. Executive in the President, yet checked by impeachment of Congress….”
In the last analysis, democracy isn’t just a set of institutions or shared principles, but a culture of mutual respect and civility. People must be willing to play by the rules or the best-crafted system becomes null and void, a travesty of its former self. We are now seeing on a daily basis presidential behavior that would have been unimaginable during more than two centuries of the American experiment. Not only is Trump himself on trial, but he is also testing our constitutional system to the breaking point. In his worst imaginings, however, Hamilton anticipated — at least in its general outline — the chaos and demagoguery now on display in Washington. He also helped design and defend the remedy: impeachment.
Yet another lesson about the importance of history.
Nadir of Western Civilization reached on Tuesday, October 29th, 2019. Nation’s college professors and teachers give up and go home. “It’s hopeless,” they say. “First Cheese Whiz and ‘Toddlers with Tiaras.’ Now this. The devolution is complete. Perhaps there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe.”
“The Catholic Church at a Crossroads”, The Nation, 10-8-2019, “Harvard’s Vermeule, a Catholic intellectual, appears willing to forgive the dismantling of rule of law…as long as the professed ‘illiberalism’ of the ruling government means strict enforcement of traditional Catholic precepts”. And, elsewhere in the article referencing related views by others, “…deliver what Catholics wanted in matters of family and SCHOOLING (my caps)”.
Bob, you could have posted a photo of a Trump rally where Montana priests, in clergy attire stood in the front row behind Trump. Subsequent criticism of the photo op from a bishop appeared focused on the wearing of the attire rather than the support. Both Catholic and evangelical leaders welcomed Trump’s order that churches not be reviewed by the IRS for partisan activities.
Evangelicals lack the teflon coating from blog commenters and msm?
If the Electoral College was intended to be some kind of speed bump preventing demagogues from ascending to the presidency, it was and is a flop. Impeaching the demagogue-in-chief is still doable, needed, necessary and worth the effort. One political party, which has gone off the rails into an abyss of toxic wing nuttery is the party which vomited up Trump. Not that the Democrats are any kind of angels or are without corruption but the GOP has become an enabler of a vicious demagogue.
I was going to say that.
And Jefferson said we must inform the judgement of the masses through education. Have we done that well enough? I fear not.
People forget that only about a third of American adults have college educations. Then, they get Trump to remind them of this.
Clinton won the highly educated US counties. Trump won the least educated ones. Big surprise, huh? https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/education-not-income-predicted-who-would-vote-for-trump/
But K-12 schooling should be sufficient, don’t you think? The problem is we’re teaching too much of the wrong stuff and too little of the right stuff. Curriculum matters. Just one example: we should teach the federal bureaucracy well (EPA, FDA, etc.). This alone would undercut the Deep State conspiracy thinking.
I was reflecting while I read the Chernow essay above that expecting high school students to read and appreciate this essay was a lot to expect from one year of US History in grade 8, the requirement in Tennessee. Even if the kids got to encounter this type of writing in govt classes or some current events format, I cannot think of many of them who would be capable of understanding Chernow.
I’ve taught the Declaration and the Constitution to high-school students. These might as well be written in Greek or Navajo or the Australian Aboriginal language Nyulnyul. The vocabulary is challenging for them, but more than this, the syntax is, to them, impenetrable. So, these documents require a lot of unpacking, and they have to be treated in bits and pieces. The Chernow piece would also be extremely challenging for most high-school kids and, indeed, for most adult readers. I just ran a Lexile readability analysis on the first few paragraphs of the Chernow: 1400L-1500L. In other words, higher than the highest Common [sic] Core [sic] reading level, for grades 11 and 12. In comparison, I’ve run Lexiles on several Trump speeches: Grade 3, usually. Sometimes Grade 4 or 5.
Bob Shepherd : “I’ve run Lexiles on several Trump speeches: Grade 3, usually. Sometimes Grade 4 or 5.”
Have you checked some of his U-tube speeches when he was in his late 30’s-40’s? I believe he is suffering from dementia or Alzheimers.
I’d be interested in a comparison.
Bob, one of the best graduate classes I ever took was about the teaching of reading in the content areas. A wonderful professor at City College taught the course back in mid-1980s, Cindy Onore. Your comment took me back there.
Just a thought I had right now, amidst the ‘gained’ hour that we are living through this morning: what if every school turned off all the computers for one week, and just thought (and talked and debated) about reading?* And, read. Actual books. Then, did some fun stuff each day, too. Like go outdoors…and play.
I suppose someone might say, well, why can’t you do all that with the computers ON?
Well, to use an analogy…. once in a while I do turn all the machines off. And, I reach for one of the many old photo albums we have of us and the kids. And, I just sit there and page through the analog versions of my memories. The actual photos, taped onto pages or slid into plastic sleeves, are just different from what I can try (emphasize TRY) to find on the computer -the digital equivalents. Last week I was looking at an album from 2005 and some very old photos from my wife’s family in the 1800s just fell out onto my lap. I guess she’d tucked them in there for some reason. Life….and what we really leave behind us when we are gone.
I find looking at the actual, hard copy photos to be not just relaxing. It somehow re-centers my brain -if that makes sense.
And, the nice thing is, I can flip back and forth between the digital and analog worlds quite easily because I spent so much time in the latter.** But I wonder how students who have grown up (from soon after birth) staring into and immersed within digital computer screens experience all this change? It’s not a change for them, of course. I suppose if I could talk to someone older than me about life before TV that might help a bit? I knew nothing but Captain Kangaroo etc…from the get-go. And, people who experienced life before photography existed…they’re gone long ago.
Now, the school I am in is making a big push to do almost everything on computers. Because, if I hear the argument right, ‘that’s where the kids are’. So, it’s Twitter, Schoology, no more paper copies of the school newsletter etc..etc… Learn by making lots of videos.
Video,video, video…. I’m starting to wonder, in our world, does a news story really exist as much anymore if there isn’t video proof to go with it? Like, if only we had a video of Donald Trump accepting a bag full of illegal campaign contributions, only THEN would more people accept that he actually has done something wrong? (Maybe that’s why impeachment has finally gotten some traction lately? At least there’s a lowly audio copy of his phone call to Ukraine….or, at least, the ‘transcript’ we’ve been able to put our hands on.)
*A footnote: If schools today turned off all the computers could they even find the students in the buildings? The attendance and the schedules are so often in the ‘cloud’ now. This ‘turn-off the computers scenario’ might become a safety and security issue.
**Also, I’ve been lucky to be around some VERY smart and wise people during my years on this planet. I took a science course at Vassar and an IBM Fellow came to talk with us a few times. This was all pre-internet. (Well, before almost all of us were on the internet.) This old guy from IBM spent A LOT of time emphasizing the distinction between the digital and analog. Explaining the differences in depth. I was interested, but I remember thinking, hmmm, so…? Ha, ha. Yeah, well, NOW I know. We’re living it. For more on IBM Fellows: https://www.ibm.com/ibm/ideasfromibm/us/ibm_fellows/
Well, back to the very physical world…coffee. Have a great Sunday. Enjoy the extra hour.
I have had a very difficult time, myself, pinning down my marked preference for reading physical books. I do know that I get a heck of a lot more out of them and enjoy the experience a lot more. One reason is that when a book is really good, I often find myself flipping back in it, something that I find harder to do with ebooks, where I cannot rely on eidetic memory for the rough location of the passage I’m looking for, and I hate using electronic indexes. I tend to read ebooks only when I have to, when the work is too obscure to be readily available in print, or when the book is light, trashy reading that I expect to gobble up in an hour or two and then not think much about ever again. If there’s any substance to the thing, I want a paper book, though, again, I’m not quite sure WHY.
John: nice essay. I am struggling to learn the Microsoft learning platforms so I can use them. There is something comfortable about old media. Reading a letter written to a passed relative has a feeling I would find it difficult to describe.
RT: I agree with you. I have a birthday card that a very good girlfriend gave me many years ago. She wrote, “We are friends forever.” inside. She died while I was working overseas in Malaysia.
I also have a number of photo albums. Some are so old the photos are in black and white. I love the one photo of my father standing behind me when I was in a stroller. I must have been around 2 years old. [Gad, was I really ever that young?]
There is something about having paper copies. I see the bunch of photos on my computer and know that when I’m gone, so will all of those photos disappear. Nobody is going to look at what is stored in my computer.
John O: When my kids were growing up, screen-viewing (hand-held & PC video-gaming, CDroms) was exploding, and many parents we knew responded (as many parents did in decades prior, when some kids watched TV 6hrs/day).
We had friends whose family went electronics-free every other weekend. We ourselves forbade handhelds until 11 or 12y.o., and any games we deemed violent; hubby installed a PC w/ed games. If I were parenting young kids today they would not have smartphone until teens, & only if they had jobs contributing to the expense.
How do ed admins justify going in the opposite direction, were they never parents? I can’t tell you how discouraged and cynical it makes me that the nation’s schools put kids behind screens for hrs of classtime/day without the least concern for their neuro/ sensory/ motor/ artistic development, let alone the complete disregard for writing ability, which only develops with non-machine-correctable practice from an early age.
Almost forgot: another way our kids got a non-tech breather was annual summer travel (in our case always to same bay spot). Even when cottages eventually provided TV it was our habit never to use them. Vacation was about sunning, swimming, books, drawing/ painting, hiking, biking. Can still be very cheaply done via family camping, tho I expect there are tussles about cellphone use. Parents really have to set the tone on these issues, & make their druthers loud & clear at Bd of Ed mtgs – & if no local control [ = democracy], become politically active to get it back. That’s the real issue behind spread of low-qual/ harmful tech substitutes for teaching: govt capture by big$-clout (MS, Google, Apple & running dogs like Pearson).
Bethree, Carol and RT… there’s A LOT in here. For example, I wish I could take off a day or two and read that book, “Daughter of Time”, which comes highly recommended on this post. As for now I’m going to go to town for the Sunday Times and then check out my circa 1986 couch. Take care.
This week, I was discussing with my government class that famous case of the woman and the spilled coffee at a McDonald’s. It’s fascinating how misunderstood that case is and how the corporation really was at fault in many ways.
Anyway, the jury in that case came up with proportions, you know, what percentages each party was responsible for….their share of the blame, as it goes.
As a thought experiment I wonder how some distant, future jury made up of historians and other informed citizens would apportion blame for this ongoing national tragedy known as the Trump administration? Who shares the blame for this disgrace?
Public schools have been so savagely attacked by all sides of the political spectrum in recent years that it’s difficult for me to lay blame at the feet of my fellow educators. Like, that absolutely wonderful kindergarten teacher I know who was so busy being forced to give common core “pre-tests” to bewildered kindergarteners on their first-ever day of school. Craziness! I guess we could have all done more to protest…or even just plain quit.
But high school social studies teachers, of which I am one…hmmmm. What happened? I mean, most of my students passed New York’s standardized Regents Exams. Wasn’t everything hunky-dory for all those years? So how did our country get to this point?
And, do secondary social studies teachers in particular bear a special responsibility to do something now that our Constitution is in peril? Because that is our specific charge: to teach millions of citizens every day about our government? What lessons should we be creating right now?
BTW here’s an interesting piece that explains, “Why the Impeachment Fight is Even Scarier Than You Think.” Many of us have lived through two previous examples of presidents facing impeachment. But this one now could be different as this article explains. “Regime Cleavage”…it does sound ominous.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/10/31/regime-cleavage-229895?fbclid=IwAR26LoYR9patfGCodioebz36-gnj39WxOPvgEZiLmJjq2olN_ywcFH-C3S8
John,
I had already read the Politico article earlier this morning. Regime cleavage is happening. Trump has been undertaking a slow-motion coup since before he was elected (his accusing Dems of a coup is projection, as usual). And he’s taking his followers along with him down the road to dictatorship. Red flags should be going up in the heads of his followers, but they’re not. The schools are partly to blame, I think. Civics must start strong in elementary school, the soul-forming years. It must be repeated over and over to make it stick. Instead multiculturalism threw social studies into confusion in the 90’s and we were kind of relieved when NCLB said, “Just teach reading and math” because it spared us having to invent a new patriotism. On top of this, the vogue of group work and inquiry-learning weakens content-delivery generally so even when civics does get taught, it does not get taught very effectively.
Not to say there was ever a Golden Age of civics. Clearly older Trump supporters should know more than they do.
What bothers me most is that I don’t see social studies organizations even tackling these questions. They’re mired in PC claptrap, as if ultra-refinement of out-group sensitivity will avail us anything under Tucker Carlson’s dictatorship.
ponderosa,
I think it is a mistake to try to blame education and schools for what has happened with Trump. It simply normalizes what isn’t normal.
Trump has the most support from white non-college educated Americans. He is not popular among the young, who are the ones who supposedly lack the “civics education” of their elders who are rabid Trump supporters.
Trump appeals to white racists who are college educated and not college educated. Trump appeals to greedy billionaires who think they own him (that happened in Nazi Germany with Hitler, too) and learned too late that Trump owned them.
Trump appeals to white people who need scapegoats. That is why you see self-described “leftists” who insist Trump isn’t nearly as evil as the entire Democratic Party. Those white leftists (they are always white because they blow off concerns about racism or police brutality as “identity politics”) believe the same false narrative that the right wing racist Trump voters believe — it is all the fault of the elite Democrats. It’s the Democrats who are out to get them and lying to them. Keep the focus on the evil Democrats always. Shout down any criticism of Trump by insisting that he is no different than the evil Democrats.
That has nothing to do with civics education. It is about people wanting to find scapegoats more than they care about the horrifying things Trump has done because they are white and those horrible things aren’t directed at them. We saw that in Nazi Germany, too.
I don’t know much about current social studies organizations. I haven’t been to one of the conventions in many years. Mixed feelings I guess. I met some truly great social studies teachers over the years, people who put in long hours of work. But things in the alleged “common core” became so rotten that at some point the words that kept coming to mind were “preposterous” and “tragic”.
I haven’t had an issue with multiculturalism as I think you describe it. For example, I taught Global Studies in New York State for many years. The problem isn’t the curriculum…it’s the standardized test that goes along with it-as time has surely demonstrated. if the testing-industrial complex and the destroy-all-public schools contingent just let social studies teachers and their students alone, I’m sure most of us would find some sort of workable balance in our classrooms.
Good point about the “Golden Age of Civics”..as in when was THAT?
John, your thoughtfulness and deliberation with words always impresses me. I understand how you might question the role of social studies teaching in the rise of a government that seems fearsome. I would suggest, however, that to lay anything at the historical feet of one group or one influence is to deny the complexity that is history. I think it is a bad idea to deny the complexity of a situation.
NYC:
I view civics education broadly. In a way, the whole liberal arts curriculum is a civics curriculum. Literature teaches what humans really are, inoculating against demonization or angel-ization. History shows the bad old days as they really are and inoculates against false nostalgia, etc. A good liberal arts curriculum (as opposed to the myopic gender/race-obsessive curriculum) –by revealing a realistic and comprehensive portrait of what the world really is –could prevent the distorted vision of the anti-Dem Party Lefties that dismay you.
Teaching only math and “literacy skills” K-8 does nothing to create believers in democracy and sensible citizens. There is some good liberal arts education going on in some high schools and some colleges, but I fear it’s not enough.
Roy T. You are absolutely right….it is complex. I just wonder how this mess happened. I’d like to find an easy formula of someone to blame…but then I find myself talking to a very likable, decent, hardworking Trump voter. After that I go stare at a blank wall…..
BTW thanks.
NYCPSP, I agree w/your first three paragraphs. But… “White leftists… blow off concerns about racism or police brutality as “identity politics””? Maybe you didn’t mean that but that’s how it came out. Not a white leftist position I’ve heard, in fact it’s a Foxdittohead position.
Sadly, scapegoating does replace thinking through complex issues for many regardless of education. However I think you go over the top on vilifying those who lay equal blame at Dem Party’s doorstep by accusing them of scapegoating. It doesn’t necessarily mean they defend Trump, or the Rep party, or would sit out an election between Trump and any Democrat. Speaking for myself & I think many thinking leftists, it means they take a historical view of how we got here, & still resent/ are infuriated by the Dem Party’s abandonment of unions/ the common man/ the public good [circa immediately after McGovern’s humiliating defeat] to join hands w/alt-right neoliberal theory/ policy. It pushed centrists Reps way right, caused joe working guy to switch Dem to Rep, & set the table for a Trump presidency.
bethree5,
The Democrats are far from perfect. But they have often been far from perfect. In fact, I challenge you to name a time when the Democrats were led by someone who wasn’t an imperfect, flawed person who wasn’t making compromises. Most of the good things that happened were done with very flawed people — FDR, LBJ. And it was Jimmy Carter — a very good man — who did the very bad thing of turning the Democrats considerably to the right. And a not very good man — Ted Kennedy — who tried hard to bring the Democrats back to left. Were people like me right when we decided Jimmy Carter was so horrible that even Reagan was better? We got played by the right wing propaganda. And the outcome of those of us believing that defeating Jimmy Carter was the way to turn this country left just gave us Reagan and a huge turn right. We didn’t prove anything by making sure Reagan was elected. We just made it much, much harder for a progressive Democrat to win.
I grew up in the midwest and what I saw is that those people who turned to the Republicans did so out of racism and wanting a return to the “family values” (i.e. women should be in the home obeying their man). It had nothing to do with the democrats abandoning them because the Republicans were offering them much, much less. Except scapegoats and white supremacy. Were those workers flourishing under Republicans?
When people are voting for Ron Johnson (after his 6 years of anti-worker votes in the Senate) over Russ Feingold, then the turning away from the Democrat party has very little to do with feeling the Democrats abandoned workers. It has to do with them believing right wing propaganda.
If you looked at the reasons voters gave, they mentioned “corruption” over and over again about why they abandoned the Democrats. Because they believed the Republicans were honest and upright and the Democrats were the corrupt party. And that’s the kind of rhetoric that was thrown out by both the left and the right.
And Jimmy Carter was not “corrupt” just because he started the move toward abandoning the more liberal policies of his predecessors. He was wrong, but he was not corrupt. And the way that Democrats eat their own is that they insist that if their candidate isn’t correct on an issue they believe in (even if he or she is correct on other issues), it is because he just a lying, corrupt corporate shill. Character attacks instead of policy attacks. That leads to Republican victories over and over again. Because voters would rather have an “honest” guy spouting right wing anti-worker values than a corrupt Democrat who they are told is secretly planning to be even more anti-worker than the Republican and you shouldn’t trust them.
I believed those character attacks on Jimmy Carter. They work. Especially when I heard them from so many self-described progressive Democrats. I would not have believed those attacks if I only heard them from Republicans.
John Ogozalek : Thanks for the article. It is quite frightening. One of the questions that is asked is the following:
What if Trump refuses to acknowledge defeat by a Democratic opponent in 2020? What would happen in that case? Might the president’s supporters resort to violence? Might broad segments of the GOP simply refuse to recognize an elected Democratic executive as well?
John: thanks for beginning a string of comments. If you evoke that sort of discussion in class, I want to go there.
Your article from Politico about “regime cleavage” was very thougt provoking. I found it interesting, especially in light of the reference to Chilean opposition to Allende. Democracy in Chains, a really interesting read, points out that much of the regime cleavage that led to the Pinochet regime was orchestrated by those who wanted to profit. This is particularly frightening since our own division benefits those who want to profit in an unbridled sort of way, punishing even those who support the move in this direction.
Impeachment is a divisive exercise. To a great extent, Fox News was produced by Roger Ailes’ view of the impeachment of his guy, Richard Nixon. His followers have continued to sing the refrain that Nixon did not do anything all politicians were not involved in doing. I do not think we should be any more surprised that Trump’s base rejects the idea that his actions were across a line than we should be at Clinton’s democrats who voted not to remove him for obstruction because the original crime was personal and disgusting rather than constitutionally threatening. To the trump base, nothing he does threatens the constitution. They will circle the wagons.
I return to the statement made in the article about the growing power of the presidency. Ever since the Second World War was followed by the Cold War, the power of the presidency has been growing. Congress is split, so inactivity makes the president look bad if he does not do something with executive order. So the power of the president grows even more. When they achieve power, democrats will do the same thing, for who ever gives up power?
Where does this end except in impeachment?
We’ve been played by right wing propaganda for decades. We need to turn off that narrative and move forward to a better future for all.
“it was Jimmy Carter — a very good man — who did the very bad thing of turning the Democrats considerably to the right.” You must be younger than I am 😉 Perhaps you’ve read Carter was a neoliberal etc. I was over 30 then, a new by-the-skin-of-teeth [9+% adjustable mtg] homeowner in a frightful economy which was the product of a decade of upsets & bad decisions (not “Jimmy Carter”). And please let’s not forget the 11th-hr hostage kabuki manipulated by Iran leadership. Tho personally I wouldn’t have been caught dead voting for Reagan, those two factors alone caused many Democrats to hold their noses/ drink the koolaid & do it. The Dem party deliberately moved to the right after the fiasco of McGovern race; Clinton was the neoliberal who dragged voters with it.
bethree5,
Don’t you recall Ted Kennedy’s moving speech at the 1980 convention? The Dream Shall Never Die?
To a young progressive voter like me (we called ourselves “liberals” before that got a bad name), Ted Kennedy was talking about all the ideals that the evil Jimmy Carter had abandoned.
I’m not saying that was correct. I’m saying that I perceived Jimmy Carter’s compromises — and he DID compromise — as just as evil as what I heard certain posters here describing today’s Democratic Party. I was bashing it and insisting that voting for anyone but the Dems (in my case it was John Anderson). was going to bring in a new era of progressive legislation.
Instead it brought in many decades of reactionary policies.
And yes, Carter was as neo-liberal as Clinton. That’s why Ted Kennedy was so angry at him. I don’t get why anyone would put blame on Clinton but give Jimmy Carter a pass.
At least Clinton – as one of his first actions – tried very hard to get universal healthcare. He was up against a now incredibly strong right wing propaganda effort — after 12 years of Republican rule — that mischaracterized and destroyed it. Carter didn’t even try.
But Jimmy Carter was no better than Bill Clinton in terms of his policies. But I don’t mean that as an insult. Jimmy Carter did some wonderful things and his federal judicial appointments (including Ruth Bader Ginsburg) were vital in diversifying the judiciary. Can you imagine if he had 4 more years of appointments instead of Reagan?
Actually, Reagan’s Supreme Court Justices were Sandra Day O’Connor, Scalia, and Anthony Kennedy. Compared to the far right horrors that Trump has already appointed, Reagan was a moderate. But of course, compared to the “neoliberal” Bill Clinton who was appointing justices like Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Reagan was STILL a conservative. Just that compared to today’s John Birch neo-fascist Republican Party, Reagan doesn’t seem quite as bad.
And yet there are still those on the left (thankfully not too many of them) who would rather normalize Trump and insist that entire impeachment effort is based on false accusation drummed up by those evil and corrupt Democrats. I am sure I sounded just as ridiculous as they do when I insisted Jimmy Carter was evil and even Reagan wasn’t so bad.
But the difference is that I looked at reality and by 1984 I understood and admitted I was wrong. What is sad is when people refuse to admit that their vote for a third party candidate in 2016 and their efforts to destroy the Democrat by repeating dishonest right wing propaganda to smear their character was a mistake. What is sad is when those people are still normalizing Trump and repeating right wing propaganda that the Russia investigation is a fraud and it’s the Democrats who are corrupt and evil.
My guess is that any Democratic candidate from a southern state, like Carter and Clinton, will be very sensitive to the deep conservatism of their state and try to strike a middle ground.
I concluded my goodreads review of Josephine Tey’s “The Daughter of Time” (recent re-read for book club) with this para:
“The Daughter of Time should be required reading for every high school student. Would that it had been, here in the US, since baby-boom high school days, by which time Tey’s novel had sparked general interest in research aimed at uncovering truths obscured by political propaganda of their time. With that kind of background—buttressed of course by civics ed, and research projects of their own—today’s grown-up high-school alums might not be so easily swayed by “fake news.””
Tey’s “The Daughter of Time” is one of my favorite books.
Wow. What an article.
And who do we elect as our Senators and Congress people? We elect lawyers and business folks. Whatever happened to Political Science majors? It used to be that Poli Sci students with a deep understanding of history, government and finance/economics were the ones aspiring to hold elected office. Where are these people?….oh….I forgot…..poli-sci is one of “those” majors that isn’t worth the paper it’s written on so it has been woefully neglected in the pursuit of the free market ideologies loved by lawyers and business folks. Greed is the downfall of our society.
Jefferson may have had “sunny faith in the people’s common sense”, but, he also said, “In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot…”
America is so lucky that support for Trump is limited to evangelicals. We don’t have to be concerned that the misnamed, Alliance Defending Freedom with its Blackstone Legal Fellowship program includes another major religion. The U.S. is fortunate that the same person, Robert George, isn’t on the boards of both Blackstone and the Catholic League. The Catholic League has 350,000 members, 15,000 in just two counties in New York. If the evangelicals weren’t acting alone, the Catholic League and Napa Institute might warrant wariness. “The Catholic League is regarded by many as the preeminent organization representing the views of American lay Catholics. It is the largest Catholic advocacy organization in America.” If the Catholic League supported school choice, disparaged Warren’s education plan saying it harmed the poor and, if they rejected the opinions of the NAACP, BLM, ACLU and SPLC about privatization, it’d be very problematic for the common good in the United States.
Conventional wisdom for more the 170 years has claimed that religious disputes distract the attention of people from the class struggle and religious wars lead only to victory for the church.
The church wasn’t opposed in Ireland. 1,000,000 died of starvation while the church discouraged rebellion and the church grew its membership. Today is different? The church is unopposed and Russians and evangelicals (fortunately no other major faith leadership is right wing) are winning with Trump. Concentration of wealth worldwide is at the highest levels possible. Projections show the rich will have all of U.S. national wealth in 33 years.
The leaders of the congregations of the religious right (solely evangelicals- a group that is less than 1/4 of the population) provide for women as God wants- 186 GOP male representatives and 11 GOP women projected for the U.S. House in 2020. I shudder to think how much greater the imbalance would be if evangelicals were joined in a voting bloc with other religions that have large numbers.
Not envisioning distinct possibilities or simply assuming they will never arise is not a good way to go about designing a robust Constitution AND government.
I can only reiterate my opinion that your characterization of US Roman Catholics as politically parallel to Christian Evangelists just doesn’t hold water. Whereas some 85++% of the latter vote Rep & follow Trump around w/adoring eyes as God’s appointed vessel to quicken the Last Days, Catholics vote sometimes Dem sometimes Rep, in numbers generally reflecting the average voter. An extra %age of RC’s jumped onboard the Trump ship in 2016; analysts pegged them as white Rust-Belt wkg-class party-switchers– who were accompanied by plenty of white Rust-Belt wkg-class Protestant party-switchers.
Your alarm bells about the Catholic League– founded by Jesuits, but politically rightwing since 1993 under Bill Donahue– are unwarranted. Its 1993 claim of 350k membership [as of 2003 15k in Nassau/Suffolk counties alone, oh horrors!] is laughable, even if they’ve doubled or tripled membership since then, in the context of 70million US Catholics– 1.5million in Nassau and Suffolk Counties alone. Come on. They’re a politicized lay group. Don’t care how chummy they were [are still?] w/NY Archdiocese.
On the same page-
Betsy and her band of evangelicals drive the Federalist Society and Femm App Clinics -$2.5 mil. from the national preachers’ council (with, hopes of future federal dollars for a a religion-favored birth control method that has a 25% failure rate).
I join the call out of evangelicals who have government funded religious school chains which are expanding with locations in about one/half the states. I join the call out of evangelical Attorney General William Barr who thinks religion should be introduced at every opportunity.
The religion of school privatizing billionaires who cite it as the reason for their efforts are all evangelical. If there happens to be a small number who are Catholic, their impact is negligible and peripheral to the church as a whole, which is convenient because the faithful can rest easy. Oh, and the privatizers from hedge funds who claim they base their actions on their Catholic faith don’t look adoringly at Trump for photo ops.
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Hamilton is full of contradictions.
The electoral college which Hamilton argued for is the very reason Trump is in office.
A minor detail.
Other than that, Hamilton is a great one to quote on impeachment of Trump.
Hamilton also called for a strong executive (in Federalist 70)
It is essential to the protection of the community against foreign attacks…to the steady administration of the laws, to the protection of property…to justice; [and] to the security of liberty….”
It also happens to be the Achiles heel if said strong executive chooses to do the opposite
Hamilton didn’t envision the axis of Trump, the NRA, Russians and the Koch’s religious right.
In fact, impeachment would probably not even be necessary — at least not as necessary — if there were no strong executive.
I really don’t understand what any of this has to do with “executive powers” and whether they are weak or strong.
Trump is empowered because the Republicans in Congress — especially in the Senate — WANT him to be empowered.
Obama had little power because the Republicans in the Senate denied him his power.
Seems like everything else is just noise. If the Democrats ran the Senate, Trump’s power would be as weak as Obama’s. Which perhaps people believe was “too strong” but there were certainly breaks on it.
What Hamilton did not foresee is when the Congress itself was owned and operated by the same right wing billionaires who owned the President.
I would disagree, suggesting indstead that Chernow is correct. Hamilton would have expected the electoral college to overturn a plebiscite in the last election. I think he would have opposed the electoral college in its modern morph due to its lack of courage.
Hamilton’s vision of the electoral College was very different from the one that exists today. He 8magined that it would be made up of the wisest men from each state, who would be able to prevent the election of a charlatan. Elitist, to be sure. But he saw the EC as a check against demagoguery.
Read Chernow’s Washington! Fantastic!
For all the eulogiums on the Constitution, all the exhortations, and all the expenditures of money and blood…
For all the phenomena of clairvoyance (the founders knew, they thought, so and so thinks)…
For all the gold medalist words, uttered in the universe of semantic gymnastics…
For all the cult-tribes claiming access to the “truth” that “others” fail to discern…
For all the doctrines of faith, as a cognitive source (unless ye believe, ye shall not understand)…
The proof is still in the pudding.
You seem to be bashing Christians and claiming that they should shut up, and I don’t agree with you about that. Why are you bashing Christians so strongly?
One thing that I don’t believe the founders realized:
The educated young people from the states with disproportionate electoral power are flocking to cities on the coasts. Many of those states in the middle of the country have been losing populations or the average age of their residents is high.
I have always thought that the easiest way to get Republicans to change the electoral college is to simply have some liberal billionaires establish huge low-cost communities in South Dakota that would appeal to traditional Democratic voters.
Remember, Trump’s “sweeping” victory in South Dakota was by 120,000 votes, while Clinton’s sweeping victory in California was by 4 MILLION votes.
There needs to be a movement to move young people to new communities in North and South Dakota, Wyoming and other small population states.
Republicans would not be able to compete with that since the big states in which they have “sweeping” victories don’t have nearly as many Republican voters to spare. Even in Texas, Trump’s “massive” victory was only 800,000 votes. In Georgia it was 200,000. Not 4 million as in California. A movement of young, traditionally Democratic voter groups into those sparsely populated states would be a disaster for the Republicans.
The reason we have seen three impeachment movements in our generation is that the presidency has become too powerful. Since World War II, the executive has come to dominate the legislative due to the lack of legislative leadership.
In a minimum of the last 40 years, the rich have won with any party combination in the House, Senate and Presidency. The Federalist Society has now assured the rich will win by delivering the courts to the rich.
If Jefferson had had his way, the executive branch would be far less powerful than the people’s House of Representatives. I personally don’t call that a sunny faith in the people, but instead a pragmatic belief in equality. Hamilton, who had a sunny faith in Wall Street, big banks, big militaries, and monarchical executives, however, had a much bigger hand in crafting the Constitution than did Jefferson. So it’s a powerful truth that even Alexander Hamilton supported the checks and balances involved in impeachment.
“EVEN Alexander Hamilton supported the checks and balances involved in impeachment.”
Amen
“Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.”
–Richard (“Not a Crook”) Nixon
“A president can run the country. . . . And that’s what happened, George [Stephanopoulos]. I run the country. . . . Then I have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president. But I don’t even talk about that.”
–Constitutional Scholar Donald (J for Jabba) the Trump, aka Vlad’s Asset Orange, IQ45
Looking for that right to do whatever [he] wants” in Article II. Difficult to find. Perhaps that great legal scholar William Barr can explain to us all that this is what the Article means.It certainly seems that he would be happy to oblige.
Bob,
The Constitution works — there ARE checks and balances.
The problem is not that Trump claims he has powers he does not, it is that the Republicans who control the Senate and the Supreme Court are giving him those powers by giving their blessing to Trump.
If the entire Republican Congress was not completely corrupt, there would be a check on Trump. I don’t think the founders would ever imagine one party being completely run by traitors to the Constitution who demand that every person pledge fealty to the President.
Isn’t there something illegal about this? It is out and out bribery to keep the spineless wimps in line.
………………………………
Trump Is Rewarding His Most Loyal Enablers With a Windfall of Campaign Cash
By Robert Reich, Robert Reich’s Facebook Page
02 November 19
Trump is rewarding his most loyal enablers with a windfall of campaign cash. Senator Cory Gardner of Colorado, Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa, and Senator Thom Thillis of North Carolina are some of the most vulnerable Republican senators up for reelection in 2020, and all posted lackluster fundraising numbers last quarter. All of them signed on to Lindsey Graham’s bogus anti-impeachment resolution, and they were all rewarded with a joint online fundraising push from Trump’s reelection campaign.
This is how Trump is keeping Republican senators in line: if they attack the impeachment inquiry, he’ll line their pockets with campaign cash. As long as they can reap the benefits of Trump’s massive fundraising reach, don’t expect Republican senators to find a conscience anytime soon.
I wish Twitter had a sense of responsibility and would close Trump’s account.
…………..
Trump’s Twitter Presidency: 9 Key Takeaways
A sweeping Times investigation of all President Trump’s tweets and followers shows how he has transformed the platform into a vital, and perilous, instrument of power.
The president’s staff wanted his tweets on a 15-minute delay
Early in Mr. Trump’s presidency, The Times learned, top aides discussed asking Twitter to impose a 15-minute delay on his account, not unlike the five-second naughty-word system used by television networks. But they quickly abandoned the idea after recognizing the political peril if the idea leaked to the press — or to their boss.
Foreign intelligence services try to catch his attention
Twitter accounts tied to state-sponsored propaganda operations in China, Iran and Russia have directed thousands of posts at Mr. Trump. The accounts frequently promoted conspiracy theories or support for Mr. Trump’s policies. One wrote, “We love you Mr. President!” Mr. Trump retweeted it.
Mr. Trump’s retweets have given a boost to extremists
The president has retweeted at least 145 unverified accounts that push conspiracy or extremist content, including more than two dozen that have since been suspended by Twitter. Among them are white nationalists, anti-Muslim bigots and adherents of QAnon, a conspiracy theory involving satanic pedophiles and the “deep state” whose followers have been labeled a potential domestic terror threat by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
He doesn’t follow back
Much of the questionable material Mr. Trump recirculates comes from the steady flow of tweets, about 1,000 per minute, that tag his handle. But it also comes from the tiny number of accounts that Mr. Trump follows and that make up his curated feed — just 47 at present, most of them members of his family, celebrities, Fox News hosts or Republican politicians. Some of those people, in turn, follow Twitter accounts that promote QAnon, express anti-Islam attitudes or espouse white nationalist views.
Attack, attack, attack — with a notable exception
Over half of the president’s more than 11,000 tweets are attacks, aimed at everything and everyone from the Russia investigation and the Federal Reserve to black football players and Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos. But in more than 2,000 tweets, Mr. Trump has cited one person for praise: himself…
https://bobshepherdonline.wordpress.com/2019/05/09/donnie-baby/
Reblogged this on Lloyd Lofthouse.
Trump is a man who is ‘supposed to understand workers’. I don’t know any workers who are surviving on $450,000 a month. This article tells how at one time Trump was at the top but sank.
……………………………………………………..
What I saw as the editor of “The Art of the Deal,” the book that made the future President millions of dollars and turned him into a national figure.
…With “Surviving” now in the past, my regular contacts with Trump came to an end. He continued to flounder in business. In 1990, Trump hired Stephen Bollenbach, who was previously the C.F.O. of the company that owned Holiday Inn, and gave him a mandate to straighten out Trump’s debts. It would be hard to penetrate how Bollenbach undertook this task, but a number of Trump assets, including the Trump Shuttle, the Plaza Hotel, and his yacht were off-loaded. At the time, the word was that Bollenbach put Trump on a four-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar monthly allowance. In two years, Trump was apparently out of the worst trouble. When I asked Trump how he had found Bollenbach and persuaded him to salvage his finances and the standing of the Trump Organization, he said he had read about him in Businessweek. Like that…
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/personal-history/editing-donald-trump
Fascinating article. Just finished reading it.
Could you survive on only $450,000 a month?
And he’s a hero to working people?
This is our ‘Great President’ at work. Why does he work so hard to keep people from testifying if there is nothing to hide? This “witch hunt’ will find something.
……….
Four Trump Officials to Snub Impeachment Inquiry Monday: WSJ
Jamie Ross
Reporter
Published 11.04.19 7:09AM ET
Reuters / Joshua Roberts
Four Trump administration officials who were scheduled to testify in front of the impeachment inquiry Monday will not appear for their depositions, according to the Wall Street Journal. The officials are Robert Blair, a senior adviser to chief of staff Mick Mulvaney; John Eisenberg, deputy counsel to the president for national security affairs; Michael Ellis, Eisenberg’s deputy; and Brian McCormack, a director at the White House budget office. They have all been told by the White House that they cannot testify, according to the report. It is unclear how House Democratic leaders will respond to the block, but a federal judge is already deliberating whether former Deputy National Security Adviser Charles Kupperman can be forced to testify in the inquiry after the White House told him to stay away. The White House has vowed not to cooperate with the inquiry but several current administration officials testified last week after receiving subpoenas.
Read it at Wall Street Journal