The Disingenuous Defense of President Trump

Republicans on the Capitol Hill would have you believe that President Trump was merely expressing a wish when he told the President of Ukraine he’d like him to investigate Joe Biden:  “do us a favor”.

The backdrop of the conversation was that military aid had been authorized but not yet released.

The immediate response of Congressional Democrats to the request was to cry “quid pro quo” and seize upon it as their best basis for impeachment.

Leave aside whether the purported exchange – even if true – is a sufficient reason for President Trump’s removal.  (The Sensible Conservative says no.)

The high probability remains, though, that an implicit quid pro quo was precisely what Trump meant to convey.

Republicans, and the “Sean Hannitys” of the right, dispute this characterization, citing the fact that the actual language used by the President was not a demand or a formal offer.

Get real.  Put yourself in a business setting.  You’re a subordinate who has asked for a raise from your boss. You haven’t received a response yet when he says he’d “like” you to do something.  Do you think the soft phrasing means that your business superior is giving you an option?  You’ve just received a directive couched politely.  (If you don’t understand that you won’t be long with that company!)

And so the President’s backers taking that line are either fools or insincere.  I will give them credit for being the latter.  That approach from a political perspective has short term advantages in that it confuses many as to what exactly was President Trump’s motivation during the subject telephone call.  But it’s not honest.  Long-term, however, that posture undercuts  Republican attacks that Democrats are deceiving the American public on what they say and promise regarding their true left-wing agenda.  Is the GOP lying about that, too?

The Naivete of (Most of) Our Founding Fathers

The United States Constitution, in essence, was deslgned to restrain the exercise of power.

Yet prominent Founders such as Alexander Hamilton and James Madison made naïve assumptions about the willingness of their fellow-Americans to feel so bound.

They argued that because the Constitution enumerated certain powers possessed by the Federal government (set forth primarily in Section 8 of Article I) those powers not recited were not available to the Federal government.

[But only ten years later, in 1798, Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Acts authorizing the President to expel any foreigners deemed dangerous.]

In Federalist Paper No. 84, Alexander Hamilton wrote:

          “Why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do?  Why, for instance should it be said that the liberty of the press should not be restrained when as power is given by which restrictions may be imposed?”

Hamilton, in effect, was assuming that since the text did not authorize the suppression of liberty, such would not lawfully occur.  And implicit in that assumption was the expectation that America’s future lawmakers would abide by his interpretation.  That was a doomed – naïve - hope.

James Madison joined in that expectation.

          “I go on this great Republican principle that the people will have virtue and intelligence to select men of virtue and wisdom [to make our laws].”

The Congressional approval of the Alien and Sedition Acts vindicated the need for a bill of rights which had been championed by anti-Federalists such as Virginia’s George Mason.  Implicit rights may be deduced but are also subject to varied seemingly legitimate interpretations.  Explicit statements of rights, too, can be challenged and modified, but the foundation is certainly more substantial and resistant to assaults against what were considered to be inalienable rights.

As events have demonstrated in the following two centuries, not only were efforts frequently made to undermine the rights of Americans by ignoring Constitutional restraints but many court-sanctioned interpretations of seemingly clear and unambiguous language made a mockery of the concept of limited government the U.S. Constitution was intended to embody.

For instance, Section Eight of Article One authorizes Congress to regulate trade and business activities that are interstate as well as “commerce with foreign nations… and with the Indian tribes.”

But contrary to the expectations of Hamilton, et.al., the restriction of Federal power to interstate commerce was made a nullity by a 1930’s Supreme Court decision allowing Congress to control intrastate activities as well.  (The rationale?  Even if commerce is confined within a state, there is always the possibility that such might have an impact elsewhere).  And what in life isn’t possible?  Does that mean that the Constitution only limits the “impossible”?  That renders the Constitution nonsense.

A simple fact of human nature is that those who possess power not only are inclined to exercise it but are often driven to expand its reach.

This is a truth which, in some respects, the Founders readily understood.  Madison’s balance of powers proposals were incorporated into the Constitution as a check on such propensities.

Of course, our Founders were great men.  They did extraordinary things and they were human.  Wishful thinking is a human trait for us all.

The Political and Historical Ignorance of the American People

It’s often joked that Americans are generally ignorant of both our history and government.

And it’s true.

Recent polling revealed that only twenty-five percent of us can name all three branches of the Federal government  -   one-third cannot name even one.

Nearly forty percent don’t know what is in the 1^st Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

A decade or so ago  -  a Congresswoman, a lawyer, a Presidential candidate  (and a Republican, I might add)  didn’t know that Lexington and Concord, the sites for the revolutionary shots heard around the world, were  in Massachusetts  - not New Hampshire.

More than thirty percent of the public doesn’t know that the War of 1812 came after the American Revolution.

These facts are not amusing  -  they are disturbing and alarming.

How can we expect our fellow Americans to value and support our nation when they don’t understand how it’s governed or its history?

Many of us view our land as “a shining city on a hill”  --  as a beacon of hope for the rest of the world.  We stand for democracy and freedom.

But, given the paucity of knowledge in the general public, we should not be surprised when even policy leaders fail to recognize our exceptional nature.  Thus, President Obama tells a European audience that other countries think they are exceptional, too.  And New York’s governor recently said he doesn’t see what’s so great about America.

What’s happened?  Civics instruction used to be a backbone of public education.  It was seen as vital for the task of instructing young people in American values of respect and appreciation for freedom, independence and self-government.

As a matter of fact, civics instruction  -  generally speaking  -  still exists in most of America’s public schools.  But it’s no longer considered as important as it once was. 

Our nation’s long-term health and even its survival may depend on reordering our educational priorities.