Federalism Strikes Back – President Trump and the Road Ahead
Wednesday, January 18, 2017 by Jonathan R. Gibbons in
The 2016 presidential election was historic for a variety of reasons but for students of American Government, it demonstrated the beauty of a well structured Republic that respects a significant division of powers. Crash course in American Government… the people don’t elect the president; the States do. Trump won 30 of 50 States. In a nutshell, this is how the Electoral College works. It is a sound process because the president serves as the leader of the union of all the States and only the people vicariously through such leadership. A popular vote would essentially mean that the president represents only the most populated States, thereby completely alienating 3/4 of the States and making them meaningless.
The genius of the U.S. Constitutional Framers is that they designed America to be a government of balanced powers both within the federal branches of government, and also between the federal and state governments. Specifically, they sought to deter the tyranny of the majority or one dominant community (e.g., liberal Californians) over the rest of the nation. As nearsighted as many of them were when it came to slavery, sexism, and racism, the essence of their statecraft remains forever effervescent. They sought to constrain the power of the majority and, instead, to empower the super-majority by dividing powers and requiring significant consent to alter the fundamental structures of our country. Moreover, Americans have the rare freedom to move from one government to another– Texas to California –while still remaining Americans with all of their individual rights recognized and codified in the Bill of Rights therein.
President Trump – The Good
Your neighbors and friends voted for Trump not because they are racist or sexist or homophobic, but because they made a calculated decision based on a variety of policies and a rejection of the corrupt establishment. Our union is in critical condition. Obama failed to heal it, and Hillary– along with Bush and others –helped create our critical condition. Trump has voiced support for ending entangling foreign alliances, instituting term limits on Congress, balancing the federal budget, constraining the influence of lobbyists, empowering small businesses, reforming the monopolistic-powers of big pharmacy, auditing the Federal Reserve System, and striking the military-industrial complex at its’ core.
Trump also offers us a great deal of hope in that he is a true capitalist and not a member of the political-corporatist elite. There are no puppets pulling Trump’s strings. Trump is a nationalist; not a globalist. American universities, Hollywood, virtually all American presidents for the past seventy-years, and multi-national corporations, were/are globalists. Nationalists are not always right, but at least they seek to put America first. Globalists just want a one-world government that governs according to their particular worldview.
President Trump – The Bad
Some question Trump’s allegiance and his lack of government experience. On allegiance, rather than looking out for the American people, many worry that he seeks to make himself and his rich friends more wealthy and powerful. They worry that he is using the Office of the Presidency as a tool to obtain more power over natural resources and the lives of everyday people. When it comes to governmental experience, it has been shown that excellent business skills do not necessary equate to good governing skills. Public management is not of the same artistry as business management and many business leaders are not only ineffective, but destructive when they attempt to apply their skills to the tasks of public management.
In my analysis, the one criticism of Trump that all watchful patriots should heed is his unbelievable consistency to act like a petulant child when someone insults him. The under-layer of his skin is more easily penetrated than a desperate prostitute. And so… this is where I grow worried. Trump possesses all the characteristics of an alpha-male short of his weak temperament and his inability to harness the largely false insults thrown towards his precious ego into a powerful arsenal of positive influences. However, one may find some comfort in this narcissistic behavior. Much like President Obama and other U.S. President’s, Trump has a massive ego and he wants to be right. Unlike his predecessors, however, Trump is results-driven which is a direct consequence of his failures within the private sector. Politicians, while egocentric to the extreme, rarely deal with the results of their efforts, whereas highly successful businessmen deal with the consequences of their poor decisions everyday. In short, Trump will seek actual results or witness the failure of his legacy.
The Road Ahead
Overall, most of the hatred thrown towards Trump is likely unwarranted. However, his thin-skin and inability to withstand the onslaught of insults thrown at him could be dangerous in the world of diplomacy. We should still be hopeful. Our country is severely crippled in mountains of debt and has been suffocating under the power of a corrupt establishment. President Trump offers us a new direction. The moment he fights for Congressional term limits, auditing the Federal Reserve System, and balancing the federal budget, we’ll know he’s on our side. To my black, liberal, female, and gay friends, you may rest easy and trust in the balance of powers that constrain tyranny and protect our Bill of Rights. Trump has never vehemently expressed a desire to destroy those rights. The moment he does, he’ll lose his support and be gone in 2020 if not earlier through impeachment. More importantly, there’s no candidate more dangerous than the idea that our president is some sort of king who can solve every problem, or the continual inaction of Americans not voting out the scum that occupies Congress in every non-presidential election.
