Editor’s note: This commentary is by Peter Berger, who has taught English and history for 30 years, writes “Poor Elijah’s Almanack.” The column appears in several publications including the Times Argus, the Rutland Herald and the Stowe Reporter.
Our Constitution established a durable republic, strong enough in Mr. Madison’s words to govern effectively but constructed carefully enough to oblige it to govern itself without descending into tyranny. Over the 232 years since its ratification and the nearly immediate addition of the Bill of Rights, excluding Prohibition and its repeal, our Constitution – the Constitution Mr. Madison created in 1787 – has been amended just 15 times.
France, in contrast, is certainly a respectable, serious nation that’s long stood among the first tier of world powers. But in the same span of time since our contemporaneous 18th century revolutions, France has been governed as a republic, an empire, a restored monarchy, another monarchy, a second republic, a second empire, and three additional distinct republics, France’s present government being the French Fifth Republic.
Dicing up French history even finer, France has adopted 17 different constitutions since 1791. In short, not counting the Bill of Rights, France has had more constitutions than our single Constitution has amendments.
Part of the key to our Constitution’s stability lies in its original design. Having apportioned government power between the states and a federal government, the Constitution divides the federal share of power among three separate coequal branches. The legislative branch, which is Congress, makes the laws. The executive branch, headed by the president, carries out the laws enacted by Congress. The judicial branch, consisting of a Supreme Court and lower courts, interprets the laws and determines how they apply in particular situations.
As a further safeguard against the abuse of federal power, a system of checks and balances enables each branch to limit the power of the other branches. The president, for example, can veto a law passed by Congress. Congress can override a president’s veto by passing the law with a two-thirds majority. The power to impeach and remove is another of Congress’ checks on the other two branches.
But Mr. Madison’s design is only part of the key. The Constitution is impotent if we aren’t faithful to it. Faithfulness requires knowing the Constitution and meeting our obligations under it, its spirit and its letter, as citizens and as officeholders.
Too many of us are currently failing to meet our responsibilities.
President Trump has reduced the Mueller report to eight words: “No collusion, no obstruction, complete and total exoneration.” Inconveniently, despite the constant chanting repetition, that’s not what the report says and not what the facts are. The report aside, in terms of accepting Russian help, or help from any foreign power, in an interview broadcast from the Oval Office, the president has already solicited campaign dirt on his Democratic opponents from foreign governments and said he’d accept it in 2020.
It’s been pointed out that the president’s eight false words have the advantage of fitting on a bumper sticker while the Democrats’ more nuanced, legalistic, and sometimes admittedly hedged statements of the case are too complicated. Is this what we’ve come to? George Washington had the Declaration of Independence read to the Continental Army, but we can’t deal with messages that extend beyond slogans.
The nation’s intelligence chiefs, appointed by President Trump, agree unanimously that Russia interfered in our 2016 election to benefit candidate Trump. The Mueller report concurs, and Robert Mueller testified last week that the Russians are already at it again. The following day the Senate Intelligence Committee issued its own bipartisan report, which drew the same conclusion regarding “extensive” Russian interference and recommended that the government take specific protective steps, including paper ballot back-ups, to defend our election system against attacks in 2020.
Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell promptly blocked legislation to take those steps and protect our upcoming election. Is that what “All’s fair in politics” means? Do Republicans so covet installing a Republican president and Republican judges that they’ll employ any means necessary. Are tax policies and deregulation worth dropping our defenses against Russian subversion. We can’t sustain a representative democracy if we can’t trust the elections that choose our representatives.
Democrats aren’t blameless. They bicker about each other’s past civil rights policies when even Congressman Emanuel Cleaver opposed and opposes busing, and he chaired the Congressional Black Caucus for 10 years. Some candidates seem more engaged in promoting Medicare for All over enhanced Obamacare than they are in saving the country.
Too many progressives assail and disdain moderates who have the effrontery to disagree with them on selected issues. Their intolerance suggests that Trump isn’t the only candidate uninterested in uniting the country. If things don’t change, progressives will be left to cuddle with their doctrinal purity while Trump puts an end to the republic.
I’m not exaggerating.
The president lies and then threatens the free press that documents and contests his lies. He bullies our allies and cozies up to autocrats. He purges anyone who dares to disagree with him. He targets enemies that don’t exist and stokes our racial divisions. He offends for sport and advantage. He “jokes” about being president for life, and then shrugs about joking. He basks like Mussolini while his crowd chants, “Send her back.”
And now he’s staked his definitive claim, that the Constitution gives Donald Trump “the right to do whatever I want as president.” Of course, that’s not true. The thought itself was anathema to the founders.
But it is what a fascist would say.
During the Civil War, Congress passed the Homestead Act to address future westward expansion. It was a significant law. But no one mistook that the truly vital question at the time was whether the union and government by the people would perish from the earth.
Today’s political wisdom says Democrats should focus on significant kitchen table issues, and we need to address health care, race, taxes, and the ever vaster disparities in wealth that press on us all. But our vital national peril is just as real as in Mr. Lincoln’s day.
Donald Trump’s daily antics are variations on the same un-American themes. His words and deeds pose an acute, mortal threat to our republic. It’s therefore up to us to preserve, protect, and defend its Constitution.
No republic, even ours, can endure without its people’s faithfulness.
Our duty and our choice are that stark.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Peter Berger: American first — and only — republic.