The Grand Illusion
The United States is historically based on both laws and shared accepted customs. Not every aspect of its operation and governance is laid out in the Constitution.
For example, George Washington set the custom that a President should only serve two terms. That precedent lasted roughly a hundred and fifty years, until Franklin Roosevelt ran for and won third and fourth terms, which led to the adoption of the Twenty-Second Amendment.
Then there was the understanding that the sitting President could nominate Supreme Court Justices, until Senate majority leader McConnell decided that the Senate didn’t have to accept and vote on nominees until after the next election.
Bit by bit, parts of the U.S. political structure that were taken for granted from past experience are being challenged or rejected simply because various politicians have, in effect, said, “There’s no law forbidding this; so I’ll do it.”
More often than not, when politicians and businesspeople do something unfair or biased or grossly advantageous to a significant group of people, public pressure increases for a law to forbid that practice.
The United States already has too many laws and regulations. At least, the Republicans think so, as do at least some Democrats, but in a democracy abuse of position and power creates more pressure for laws to restrict that abuse.
Bias and civil rights abuse continued despite the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, and reaction to that abuse finally led to the Civil Rights Act and federal supervision of the acts of certain states.
Failure of corporations and businesses to clean up after themselves led to Superfund and hazardous waste laws, and cost the EPA Administrator her job, and sent the Assistant Administrator for Solid and Hazardous Waste to prison.
Abuse of market power by large corporations in consumer goods led to increasing federal intervention, and the creation of the Consumer Protection Agency.
As for Trump’s abuse of power based on doing things no other President has tried (except Andrew Jackson and Richard Nixon), and that of the Republican majority in the Texas legislature in trying to turn state representatives into instant convicts, there are two possible outcomes – more legislation or dictatorship (also supported by more legislation).
Either way, we’ll have less freedom because too many people are willing to do anything that’s not expressly forbidden by law, either for power or profit, or out of fear of those in power.
And from what I see, few see the danger, and even fewer speak out.
When a law or regulation is created to close a loophole, it’s often locking the barn door after the horse is stolen. The bad actor goes on to the next barn, but everyone that’s law-abiding has to deal with the obstacle of the new law.
This eventually works to the advantage of the bad actors, because the law-abiding people are naturally frustrated by the repeated need to prove that they’re not criminals. The system of laws falls into disrepute because the bad actors continue their amoral acts, leading to more red tape.
You make a good point, but the problem is that, in a democratic society, you can’t punish the bad actors except by the law, and if you don’t close the loophole, copycat bad actors follow the example of the first bad actor, which is what we’re seeing with too many Republicans today.
We aren’t even punishing the bad actors who are convicted of crimes. It is more and more the case that the wealthy don’t pay any significant penalties for their crimes. There are some cases where the crimes are so terrible that the bad actor finally pays a penalty but how many unindicted co-conspirators can there be?
All good points, including the comments so far; but what frightens me as much as anything is, Trump just goes ahead and violates laws, the Constitution, and anything else that gets in his way…and the mechanisms in place to rein him back in are being ignored.
The Supreme Court has turned into a rubber stamp, the Republicans in Congress would rather keep their jobs and avoid being primaried instead of keeping the Republic through impeachment…
Too often when democracies have gone autocratic (e.g. Weimar Republic -> Third Reich), it’s taken a horrendous event to fix it (WWII). (And even then Germany remained divided for decades.)
I don’t like what I see ahead. The amount of pain, whichever way things go, is likely to be terrifying.
Kevin, also insightful perspective on your part.
Now add to that and the original post the administration’s moves to gaslight the public by first decrying official data reporting as rigged. This will be followed by actual manipulation of government statistics. We already have official websights scrubbing information that the administration doesn’t like and when caught blaming ridiculous causes. At some point they won’t even care to respond. Health data is already under attack.
Contrary to popular belief the country has been enjoying decreasing violent crime for a number of years. I expect these data to eventually be manipulated in favor of the White House in some shape or manner. In the end, control of information (in part by cowing the press) will insulate and protect this administration from criticism.
Further information is being created to serve as a basis of attacking the administration’s enemies. And yes, you are right. There doesn’t seem to be any way to stop it. I’m actually surprised the White House PR staff even bothers to defend any of the actions initiated from there. They might as well get a bunch of jackets like Melania wore – “I don’t care…”
Consistent with this post is an article in Foreign Affairs Magazine:
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/new-american-hustle
First article is usually free.