In my lifetime, democracy has been heralded as the premier form of governance. The will of the individual in concert with others legislates their prerogatives. Historically, democracy has manifested in three separate but equal branches of government where power is distributed amongst the three. Almost all democracies ascribe a singular representative to govern over the executive functions of the country. Like a monarch, chief executives enact policy for the executive branch without any tedious committee hearings, votes, or politicking. Thankfully, the other branches of government provide a check and balance to overzealous chief executives who enact policies outside the boundaries of the executive branch. However, key institutional precepts such as checks and balance, and separation of powers are diminishing in power, while the chief executive’s powers are aggrandizing and subsequently going beyond the call of the constitution. As a result, singular rulers are supplanting democracy.
Around the world, strong democratic countries have been electing chief executives who have steered their government into authoritarian-Esque regimes (e.g., Bolsonaro in Brazil, Maduro in Venezuela, or Erdogan in Turkey.) Primarily, the inability of the electorate to discern the honorable politicians from entrenched bureaucrats in elections result in democracies reverting into tyranny. At home, President Donald Trump is considered a fascist, an invader of tradition, and everything wrong with politics. In contrast, others think of him as a messiah, the panacea to the Washington establishment, and the voice of the common man. Is President Donald Trump the shepherd or destroyer of democracy – a hero or a nero?
Shepherds of democracy navigate among the confines of constitutions, ensure the mandate of the people, and follow the rule of law. In the US, President Calvin Coolidge is synonymous with staying within the boundaries of democracy. During his Presidency, Coolidge did not use the executive branch to grow the size of government, nor undermine the powers of other federal branches of government. Coolidge followed what powers were explicitly delegated to him: appoint judges, set the budget, and (if needed) defend the sovereign. As a result, in the 1920s, the executive branch was seen as insignificant and the least consequential of the three federal branches. However, staying within the confines of the constitution does pose challenges for the chief executive.
President Jimmy Carter is often characterized as a good and honest man who always acquiesced to constitutional constraints. As a result, Carter’s presidency is thought of as inept, ineffectual, and a steward of economic and geo-political erosion for the US. The fast-changing climate of the world where oil prices, terrorism abroad, and run-away inflation overwhelmed the milquetoast Carter. Instead of taking an active role in shaping policy and ensuring US reverence on the world stage via executive order, bully pulpit, or just bending the rules, Carter bowed to Congress – the repository of squabbles and inaction. As a result, President Carter got lost reelection.
Conversely, destroyers of democracy scoff at tradition, desecrate norms, and abuse power. These transgressors use false pretexts to justify illegitimate actions. Without question, Donald Trump fits a destroyer of democracy more than a shepherd. Donald Trump has engaged in quid pro quos with foreign powers, has influenced judicial outcomes, and has negated the ability of legislative oversight. In a vacuum, President Donald Trump’s conduct spells out the end of democracy. However, Donald Trump is following the precedent of his predecessor.
Whether it is Obama or Bush, Clinton or Reagan, US Presidents have routinely violated the constitution. For example, President Obama launched a drone war in the Middle East, where American sympathizers of ISIS were killed. These citizens did not get a trial, jury, or any of the constitutional rights of the accused. President Bush signed campaign finance reform in 2002, even though he believed it violated the 1st amendment free speech right. President Clinton committed perjury. And President Reagan funneled hidden money to the Contras in Nicaragua, a power exclusively vested in the purse of the legislative branch. In short, history is replete with Presidents bending the rules to respond to the everchanging geo-socio-political environment of the world.
Therefore, Donald Trump is not the death knell to democracy. Donald Trump has acted in the same gradation as wrong as his predecessors. The sentiments by the media, the left, and political elites, which are fueled by a growing number of backsliding democracies worldwide, are not ill-founded but, under my estimation, are incorrect. Likewise, Kurt Weyland also finds the same conclusion in Populism’s Threat to Democracy: Trump’s behavior will not erode the constitution into an authoritarian regime.
Now, I am not excusing any of Donald Trump’s harmful behavior to the republic. But to suggest that Donald Trump is what Putin is to Russia is not true. Our bedrock constitution, which has survived the Civil War, pandemics, and financial crisis, will undoubtedly be able to survive an at-most two termed presidents.
I agree that most previous presidents have violated the constitution in one way or another in order to react to the modern world circumstances. However, while the constitution may still hold power and stop presidencies from descending into an authoritarian regime, to take your bedrock metaphor further, bedrock can be eroded especially when it is exposed to the elements. By continuing the precedent of breaking the constitutional bounds each president that does so exposes the “bedrock” to increased erosion. At some point, that bedrock won’t be there anymore. I think that your blog was really well written and researched but I think it’s dangerous to put too much faith in the unbreakable nature of the constitution.
Caleb, thanks for the comments and compliments. However, I do want to note that the foundation of our country does go through maintenance to ensure that our bedrock does not wither and can support our magnificent country. Therefore, my unbreakable faith in our institutions is not ill-founded or naive.
Yes, as my paper posits, presidents do bend the rules and occasionally go beyond the call of the constitution. Unquestionably, these actions do produce cracks and splinters to the bedrock. However, if the government overstep is accompanied by a sunset provision, then the cracks and splinter will receive a new layer of concrete to buttress our nation. In other words, if the presidential act is done as a response to a clear and present danger, once the danger is eliminated, then that said power devolves to its rightful holder and subsequently, a new layer of concrete is applied to the country’s foundation. For example, the patriot act undoubtedly infringed on our right to privacy. But, due to the nature of the unknown and possibility of future attacks, the common man, representatives, and the president almost unanimously agreed that the right to privacy should recede in times of terrorism. As a result, countless attacks were prevented, saving perhaps thousands of innocent lives. Once the clear and present danger of terrorism was resolved, Congress returned the right to privacy to the people by curtailing several provisions of the patriot act.
Also, it is important to note that presidential or government aggrandizement is not inherently bad (contrary to much of the current literature over what democratic erosion assumes). Government’s first duty is to protect the safety and well-being of the sovereign; therefore, if danger appears then, I want my government to grow and break the constitution to keep my community and my family safe from the clutches of evil. Presently, Donald Trump has grown the size and the scope of government to unprecedented levels. He has undoubtedly infringed on many of our most sacrosanct rights and liberties. However, given the danger, Covid-19 poses to the American people, nobody on the political spectrum, (not even libertarians) would argue that his government policies (although a far cry from what the constitution enumerates) are misguided. As a result, democratic erosion in the US is a small threat because our constitution receives several touch-ups of concrete, making the constitution an unbreakable bedrock.
Your post is very articulate, well-written, and engaging. Overall, I really enjoyed reading it. In essence, I understand you’re suggesting that many of the world’s democracies are now moving towards an authoritarian-type democracy rather and away from the liberal democracy many of us are used to, in part due to necessity. Additionally, you’re stating that while the U.S. is seeing elements of authoritarian leadership, we are unlikely to experience an authoritarian takeover due to the resilience of our Constitution. I find it difficult to disagree with you, as you make some extremely valid points that mirror many of my own views. That being said, I feel that your argument could be strengthened by defending the two stipulations mentioned in Weyland’s Populism’s Threat to Democracy that would allow for authoritarian takeover: (1) institutional weakness and (2) populist success at overcoming (or in our case, coping with) severe crises. Arguably, we are currently seeing moderate levels of both.
Hello Lucas,
I would like to start off by saying that your post is incredibly well written and thought out. Your discretion of our current president is incredibly accurate. On one side he is seen as essentially someone who is unfit to take over the role of president of the United States of America; on the other hand, some citizens view him as the ideal depiction of a leader. There is a clear inconsistency between how the citizens of the United States of America view him and the accurate description of who he really is as a leader.
I would agree that some of your points are very well stated and do have a kernel of truth to them. However, we cannot evaluate President Trump solely on his response to coronavirus. Before the pandemic arrived in American cities, President Trump normalized undemocratic practices. He has undermined the system of checks and balances by punishing any subordinate that disagreed with him by removing them from office–former Attorney General Jeff Sessions and National Security Advisor John Bolton. He has castigated federal judges, couching his aspersions in racialized language, in an attempt to intimidate them. He has unabashedly employed nepotism in his administration by appointing Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner to advisory roles. He has connived at murder in the Jamal Khashoggi incident with Saudi Arabia. His encroachments upon democracy are many.
So is he the shepherd or the destroyer? You seem to waffle a bit because in the end you justify his authoritarian practices by comparing him to other presidents, which is dangerous. If we are witnessing democratic erosion in the present, why not denounce it and devise ways to counteract it rather than acquiesce to it? Just because our nation was able to overcome executive aggrandizement in the past does not mean we can say with certitude that it will surmount it in the future. Furthermore, those presidents you mentioned who overstepped their constitutional authority were wrong too, as you pointed out. But our civic responsibility demands that we evolve. If America is not to suffer the same fate that Rome did, we must hold our elected officials accountable. Sure he is limited to two terms–eight years–but President Trump could be setting precedents that outlast his administration and catalyze a national regression that might take years to recover from, if at all! The coronavirus pandemic has taught us that tomorrow is unpredictable. Complacency, history informs us, is the undoing of many mighty nations and empires. Therefore, I respectfully disagree with your statement that President Trump’s behavior will not erode the Constitution into an authoritarian regime. You admit that he has eroded the Constitution and thereby weakened our democracy. You assume that the erosion will desist in the future. Your assumption is a psychological manifestation of democratic erosion.
This was a very interesting read. I agree with many of your points, such as the fact that Trump is not the end-all-be-all and nor is he at a level that is equivalent to Putin. Like you said, it is unlikely that Trump’s action can or will erode our democracy into an authoritarian regime, however I think it is still important to note how some of his actions and ideals are very similar of authoritarian leaders. The difference is that because of the checks and balances system in the US along with a strong Constitution, the President simply does not have the enact power in the same way that other authoritarian leaders in the past. Despite this, his pattern of making minorities, especially immigrants into scapegoats for America’s economic issues, his “jokes” about serving more than two terms, and his attitude towards freedom of speech and the role of the media are all still very concerning and reminiscent of the authoritarian leaders you refer to such as Putin.
By reading your blog and some of the replies from others who concur with your assertions, I now have a better understanding of how democratic backsliding takes place over time. In the NPR podcast How Democracies Die we learn that “Electoral authoritarians come to power democratically,” and “…there’s a kind of gradual chipping away at democratic institutions, kind of tilting the playing field to the advantage of the incumbent, so it becomes harder and harder to dislodge the incumbent through democratic means” (Ziblatt). If we view President Trump’s ascendency to power as an anomaly that will correct itself through our infallible system of checks and balances, then that means we don’t fully understand the insidious nature of democratic erosion or how authoritarian tendencies weaken the pillars that underpin those powers of checks and balances.
In your blog, you mention that many presidents throughout history have violated the constitution—Obama, Bush, Clinton, Reagan—and this is true. Presidents overstepping the authority granted to them in Article II of the Constitution are perfect examples of democratic backsliding, authoritarian practices, erosion of the system of checks and balances. We understand that the transition from a liberal government to an authoritarian government does not happen overnight like in a military coup. Instead, it takes years of incremental eroding, like minute grains of sand frittered from a massive boulder over an expanse of time. Eventually, that boulder becomes a small rock, then a pebble. Those infractions you attribute to our former presidents are the grains of sand. The authoritarian practices we witness President Trump exercising today (almost with impunity) are possible because his predecessors got away with it. He [Trump] is emboldened by those unconstitutional acts rather than restrained by them. The unwritten rule of forbearance observed by most statesmen prior to the Trump Administration has been abandoned.
You take solace in the eight-year term limitation set for the executive office in Amendment XXII of the Constitution, yet we see how each president sets precedents for his successors by expanding executive powers through executive orders or outright usurping the powers of the other branches, as when President Ronald Reagan “funneled hidden money to the Iran Contras in Nicaragua” (Perez). By focusing solely on the Trump Administration, you fail to see the overarching democratic backsliding that your blog adduces to justify Trump’s authoritarian tendencies. Although President Trump is (and I think you will agree from what you have stated) by far the more egregious of the presidents you mentioned, he is a manifestation of the gradual regression the executive office has suffered throughout history. You say he cannot be compared to President Putin in Russia but remember our analogy of the boulder as it erodes down to the pebble. Again, we should not restrict our focus to President Trump but rather to our democracy as a whole. Trump could be the intermediate form of an eventual American version of Vladimir Putin if we allow him to silence our independent media, intimidate our judges, alienate whole sectors of the American population, and make unilateral decisions on the international stage. Our next president is studying our current president whether he/she be Democratic or Republican, taking notes on how best to acquit themselves when they are in office.
Therefore, Trump’s behavior can and will erode the Constitution into an authoritarian regime if we let it. Instead of justifying it by pointing out the indiscretions of his predecessors, we must acknowledge it and combat it by upholding those sacred systems of checks and balances by carrying out our civic duty. We must hold our elected officials accountable at the booth lest we be subject to a Vladimir Putin of our very own.
‘How Democracies Die’ Authors Say Trump Is A Symptom Of ‘Deeper Problems’ https://www.npr.org/2018/01/22/579670528/how-democracies-die-authors-say-trump-is-a-symptom-of-deeper-problems?utm_campaign=storyshare&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social
“Trump-Hero or Nero” Lucas Perez, April 29, 2020