Summary: Inadvertently, Trump has begun a challenge to our political system. Powerful forces seek to change our government, much as happened during the Civil War, the Great Depression – WWII era, and the 1965 – 1975 period. This tension has been building for decades and will be resolved – one way or another. Every transition is an opportunity for our regime to fail. We might be unlucky with the fourth one.

In the Trump years, the Democratic Party has sought allies with whom to overturn the 2016 election, cripple President Trump, or weaken his 2020 run. They have been highly successful at the first, less so at the second and third (per Gallup, Trump’s job approval has been almost the same as Obama’s). Being a clown, Trump has been unable to effectively fight back – relying mostly on silly tweets. Many have explained the why the various rationales for impeachment – each following the popping of the previous one – are bogus (the latest being Victor Davis Hanson’s definitive “Ten Reasons Impeachment Is Illegitimate“). But before looking at the Dems and their new friends, let’s ask the more important question. Why have so many powerful groups so openly grabed for power beyond America’s political norms?

UkraineGate, like RussiaGate before it, is the inevitable culmination of long powerful trends in American politics. The daily bickering, mostly froth, in the media disguises this (every week Slate declares that Trump is finished – and has done so for three years). We might come through this without a radical change to our political regime, but the Trump years show the senescence of our regime. It is old, having lost its ability to regenerate and adapt to changes. Like the Roman Republic in its last few generations, the struggle has begun to replace it.

When I speak of our political regime, the Second Republic (under the Constitution, which replaced the Articles of Incorporation), I refer to us. The Constitution is a piece of parchment. It has form only to the degree that it lives in our hearts and minds. More bluntly, only to the degree that we will fight to defend it with “our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.” There are always elements of our society who believe themselves better fit to rule than the American people. Powerful groups, waiting for us to grow weak so they can assume power.

As I have written so often during the past 13 years, we appear to have grown weary of carrying the burden of self-government. Now they move against us.

The Democrats and the Deep State

As has slowly become obvious, RussiaGate was to a large extent an operation by US intelligence agencies to prevent Trump’s election and, failing that, to cripple him or remove him from office. It appears to have been begun by the CIA, and later run by the FBI with the assistance of the CIA (see this about the CIA’s role). Britain’s MI6 also had some role.

At every step, people associated with our intel agencies were either agents provocateur or bureaucratically pushing the investigation (and hiding exculpatory evidence). Former leaders of these agencies have not only spoken out against Trump, but repeatedly lied when doing so. For a summary, see Ryan McMaken’s “It’s Trump vs. the Deep State vs. the Rest of Us.” For the heavily documented full version, see Andrew McCarthy’s Ball of Collusion: The Plot to Rig an Election and Destroy a Presidency (or read these posts about it).

To exercise such influence, they had to leave the shadows. See The Deep State emerges. This will change America forever. Now that they are on stage, expect them to become even more active.

These agencies have been long-time foes of the Left. That the Democrats allied with them shows their lust for power and willingness to abandon their principles.

The Democrats and the Bureaucracy

The Federal government’s bureaucracy metastasized and grew during in spurts during the Great Depression, WWII, the Cold War, and the Great Society. Trump made a few attempts to assert himself over it. UkraineGate shows how they struck back, hard. Peter van Buren, 24-year vet in the State Department, explains.

“The popular impression is that men like the whistleblower, Bill Taylor, and Alex Vindman are non-partisan, and there is some truth to that. They came up through a system that strongly emphasized service to the president, whomever that is. But it would be equally wrong to claim that they are policy agnostic; in fact, they are quite the opposite. They see themselves as experts who know better. That’s why they were hired, and under Obama their advice (for better or worse, they wanted to bring us to war with Russia) was generally followed.

“They knew the Orange Clown was wrong, and they talked and texted about it among themselves. That’s okay, normal even. But it appears they came to see Trump as not just wrong but dangerous. Add in some taint of self-interest on Trump’s part, and he became evil. They convinced themselves it was a matter of conscience, and wrapped their opposition in the flagged courage of a (created?) whistleblower. Certainly if one hadn’t existed, it would have been necessary to invent him.

“With their televised testimony focused mostly on their disagreements with Trump’s Ukraine policy, and their own intellectual superiority, it seems such proclamations of conscience have more to do with what outcomes and policies the witnesses support and less to do with understanding that without an orderly system of government with a functioning chain of command, all is chaos.

“The Trump-deranged public sector is overlooking the dark significance of serving officials undermining the elected president. They hate Trump so much that they are tolerating insubordination, even cheering it. That’ll bite America back soon enough. You don’t join government to do whatever you think is right; you serve under a chain of command. There is no Article 8 in the Constitution saying ‘but if you really disagree with the president it’s okay to just do what you want.’”

This is also a potentially transformative event. The bureaucracy is challenging the President’s right to set policy, and even to fire them if they ignore his directives. Their victory would be a big step away from democracy.

The Democrats and Congress.

The power of impeachment could be used to make the President a tool of Congress, as the Prime Minister is to a greater degree in parliamentary systems. That requires impeachment for policy differences. If that is normalized, the President could be removed if he fails to have a majority in the House and a supermajority in the Senate. The Republican Party tried this grab for power, unsuccessfully, during the presidency of Andrew Johnson. Now they are trying again.

This would boost the power of Congress, which has slowly been going dormant since WWII. In Federalist Paper 51, James Madison warned that Congress was potentially the strongest branch of government. While unlikely, successful removal of Trump might revitalize Congress. For more about this momentous step, to be taken thoughtlessly and without public consent, see this post.

Conclusion

The fantastic concentration of wealth and income since 1970 in the top 1% has given them the belief that they are best fit to rule. I know a few in that class (as a financial advisor, I was a servant), and they were open about this. Neither I nor my fellow servants contradicted them.

The middle classes have retreated from public service. Voting in the main election is the outer boundary of our political involvement. Voting in primaries, where candidates are chosen, is rare. Contributing time and money is rarer. The giant organizations that mobilized people in the past – unions, political machines, social clubs – are dead or dying.

A sense of responsibility makes people interested in accurate news. Since we no longer feel that, quite logically we see political news as entertainment, booing the bad guys and cheering the good guys. Our elites see our fecklessness, which reinforces their sense of superiority. Hence our new politics: one does not bother with facts and logic when playing with dogs.

America will be ruled. If not by us, then by others. They will fight amongst themselves for seats at the rulers’ table. They will rule in their self-interest, not ours. If we won’t fight, let’s not whine about the result.

“{Liberty} must altogether depend on public opinion, and on the general spirit of the people and of the government. And here, after all, as intimated upon another occasion, must we seek for the only solid basis of all our rights.”

— Alexander Hamilton in #84 of The Federalist Papers .

For More Information

Ideas! See my recommended books and films at Amazon. Also, see Chapter One of a story about our future: “Ultra Violence: Tales from Venus.”

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Rome’s history shows us what lies ahead

The Founders looked to the Roman Republic for ideas and inspiration. In this time of peril, we too can do so. See two books about the people who were the poles of the forces that could have saved the Republic, but instead destroyed it.

Caesar – a biography by Christian Meier . Rome’s greatest citizen wanted to reform the Republic, but instead he destroyed it.

Rome’s Last Citizen by Rob Goodman and Jimmy Soni – The life and legacy of Cato, the mortal enemy of Caesar. He loved the Republic, but his greater loyalty was to the 1%.