From the June 16, 2018 Tweet of U.S. President Donald Trump:
“My supporters are the smartest, strongest, most hard working and most loyal that we have seen in our countries [sic] history. It is a beautiful thing to watch as we win elections and gather support from all over the country. As we get stronger, so does our country. Best numbers ever!”
Not, “my fellow Americans” or “Americans,” as other presidents have referred to the nation of people they serve, but “my supporters.”
Stunning, but not surprising from a man who is comfortable with authoritarian impulses and uncomfortable with the democratic principle that no one, not even the president or the makers of laws, is above the law.
As one of American democracy’s Founding Fathers, James Madison, explained in article 51 of the Federalist Papers:
“If men were angels, no government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”
What makes Trump’s remark telling is that, a year-and-a-half into his presidency, having failed to get a majority of Americans to support his agenda, he is trying to use the tyranny of the minority to assume greater powers.
Trump uses them as a bulwark; to try and stop federal investigations into allegations that his 2016 campaign colluded with the Russians to get an electoral advantage over Democrat Hilary Clinton; state and federal investigations into his questionable New York charity and his international business dealings; his alleged violations of the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause (an anti-bribery rule against foreign power influence); the allegations against him for sexual assault; the lawsuits for defamation and for violation of federal campaign finance laws to pay an adult film star money to hush about a liaison.
American suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton said in 1860: “To make laws that man cannot and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt. It is very important in a republic, that the people should respect the laws, for if we throw them to the winds, what becomes of civil government?”
Trump’s devoted supporters, and the Republican leaders who control Congress and who once thought they could control Trump but now fear him, prove helpful in his endeavours to stymie the ongoing investigations of the Justice Department’s Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller. They provide a wall of white noise to defend theirpresident and in the process, endorse the erosion of civil government and national unity.
National Republican Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel recently Tweeted what sounded like an authoritarian’s threat: “Complacency is our enemy. Anyone that does not embrace the @realDonaldTrumpagenda of making America great again will be making a mistake.”
GOP Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, a lawyer who understands criminal and civil investigations are not started or finished at behest of politicians, told the Washington Examiner last week, “What I think about the Mueller investigation is, they ought to wrap it up. It’s gone on seemingly forever and I don’t know how much more they think they can find out.”
As president, Trump possesses immense powers. He made McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao, head of the U.S. Department of Transportation. Is it reasonable to assume McConnell has an ulterior motive to making such comments?
McConnell and McDaniel (niece of Mitt Romney who is running for U.S. Senate in Utah and wants Trump’s help to win) are just two in a Republican Party that erstwhile or expatriate Republicans now consider the “Trump Party”.
Trump accurately assessed the undying loyalty in the core of his supporters during a campaign rally in 2016: “I could stand in the middle of 5thAvenue and shoot somebody and wouldn’t lose any votes, ok? It’s like incredible.”
He’s used their loyalty to effectively diminish the government’s investigations into the allegations against him. An Economist/YouGov survey in early May showed 61 percent of Republicans believe Trump’s claim that Mueller’s investigation is a “witch hunt.”
Trump likes to characterize his base as "the forgotten." They are not. They are angry and afraid of the demographic changes, technological advances, and economic challenges transforming society today. They embrace Trump because he promises to reverse all that, to “make America great again.”
Perhaps they are better characterized as “the unprepared”; they failed, for whatever reason, good or bad, to prepare themselves for the 21stcentury. What they, and the nation, need is a leader, and leaders, with policies that guide them through the transformations.
The president’s appeal to only his “supporters” who join him to tear down the Mueller investigation is dangerous to a democracy where the rule of law is paramount to a just and free society.
As U.S. Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter wrote in 1947: “There can be no free society without law administered through an independent judiciary. If one man can be allowed to determine for himself what is law, every man can. That means first chaos, then tyranny.”
Ironically, the nation’s founders worried the “tyranny of the majority” would elect a demagogue who would harm the minority. They never figured on what happened in the 2016 election. Now it looks like the 2018 mid-term elections could either break or save American democracy.
