Millions of Americans have known for decades that our government was broken, but I don’t think any of us realized just how badly is was broken. The Trump infestation of the WH has exposed the manifest weaknesses in our system of government which cynical career politicians have exploited for personal and ideological gain. When the Framers established our Constitution and supporting laws, the assumption was that that those who governed would uphold the public trust; if an elected official betrayed that trust, they provided a provision for impeachment and removal from office. They didn’t envision a time that the majority of representatives would be abjectly corrupt. We’re there.
The most shocking feature of the Trump regime is the amount of damage one president can inflict with virtually zero accountability. In three short years, Trump took over the Republican party, the Congress, the courts, and even the Justice Department. He has pardoned criminals, unilaterally withdrawn from longstanding treaties, started trade wars, attacked countries, disbanded entire agencies that blinded us to massive threats like the Coronavirus pandemic, has undone decades of environmental, education, employment, and safety regulations, wrecked dozens of alliances, sidled up to murderous dictators, and ceased funding global efforts that support healthcare, security, and human rights. He illegally extorted a foreign leader for to damage a political opponent. He is actively trying to whip up a scandal in the Obama administration which is invented from whole cloth with zero basis in fact. He personally profits from his presidency on a daily basis, and makes public policy to advantage himself and his family.
Worse, anyone who gets in his way is either fired, slandered, or both. He’s now fired an FBI director, two Attorneys General, and five Inspectors General. He continues attempts to illegally out the whistleblower in the Ukrainian extortion effort. His current AG is violating the public trust and the law by covering up major crimes and participating in smearing Trump’s political opponents by initiating “investigations” of non-existent crime. As he does this, he willfully ignores the tsunami of actual crimes being committed by Trump and his cronies.
How did we get here? In a word, corruption. The US is no longer a functioning democracy and the majority of our elected representatives no longer actually represent Americans. Over the last 4 decades the money has gotten so big for congressmen and senators that making money has taken over from representation. To avoid responsibility, congress has steadily ceded authority to the president. For example, Article 1 of the Constitution specifically authorizes the CONGRESS to determine international trade policy, but for years that authority has been delegated to the president under “expedited” rules. Trump has run wild with that authority, starting and inflaming global trade wars while the Congress (especially the Senate) just sits there doing nothing. The Constitution also assigns authority to declare wars on other nations, but through legislation has also delegated that to the president, leading to never ending war and deadly attacks on other countries without so much as a “Go to hell” to the Congress. It goes on and on, from selling off federal land to private interests to unwinding decades of environmental protections to shutting down agencies and engaging in abject corruption which lines the president’s and his children’s pockets with zero oversight. Add all that to a now hands-off anything political judiciary and we don’t even remotely resemble the federal structure envisioned by the Framers.
The Framers designed a system of checks and balances to prevent rule by one branch and corruption. Over the years all three branches have altered that design and what we now have is a zombie version of the federal system. Add a profoundly corrupt president with evil enablers and you get what we see today, a president unilaterally wrecking the US government, the economy, the healthcare system, the federal safety net, anti-corruption legislation, international treaties, global alliances, and even the rule of law.
The system is broken. Even when we rid ourselves of the Trump infestation, massive damage will have been done chances are remote that anyone left in authority will have incentive to fix it. Yeah, it ain’t pretty.
