SCOTUS v. POTUS
There is a great deal of dust in the air right now around Donald Trump and his efforts to run for President for a third time. We all recognize how divided our country is at this moment in history. I wish I could understand why we are so galvanized in our respective positions because it is very hard to find an easy basis for the divide. Historically, I would argue that politics were mostly defined as the haves versus the have-nots. The haves wanted autocratic rule to reinforce and lock in the status quo. That made sense regardless of whether or not you agreed it was a deserving objective. Meanwhile the have-nots generally wanted a playing field leveling governance process like socialism to better share the rewards and resources of the world which would upend the status quo. That too makes sense if you believe that nature forces us to compete for all resources and furthermore that all resources have insufficient supply to satisfy all wants. It is that delicate balancing act that defines human history and even the history of all species of life. But what supposedly differentiates humankind is our ability to reason beyond the immediacy of the moment or issue and think about what is collectively best for the world and in so doing, seeing that that greater good is ultimately in our own best self interest.
People have given up their lives for the greater good since man has walked the earth. Even those species who have some semblance of socialized behavior bow to the greater good because it is programmed in their DNA to do so. We protect our young at all costs for the same reason. Its just that other species do it automatically from the equivalent of their brain stem and we as humans have the benefit of cognitive ability to supplement our brain stem primordial messaging. Unlike the other species, we have used that cognitive ability to formulate governance approaches that have grown increasingly complex as the sheer size of the human populace has grown and rendered a simplistic form of governance unworkable. In some ways, governance is the ultimate evidence of cognitive ability because we recognize that a pure Darwinian survival of the fittest approach eventually leaves us or those we care about at the short end of the stick and that is a suboptimal outcome. We seek a kinder and gentler governance process because harshness has proven and is anticipated to be unfavorable to our interests either now, in the future or both.
Our country, established two hundred fifty years ago, was one of the few true new worlds. The other expansion places like Africa, Asia and Latin America were less “new” for questionable reasons. We in America managed to more effectively push aside the native populations, to some degree due to the less dense population, but also because of a historic harshness in our manifest destiny. The other areas of the world seemed more willing and able to share the lands with natives, but we did not and that reflects that most of our ancestors were true immigrants who were using the opportunity to improve their lot both absolutely and relatively. That seemed to make us avid in our quest for a pseudo egalitarian approach with our equality really just an opportunity to elevate ourselves against our historic superiors in the old world. We all understand that we wanted equality for ourselves, defined as white males of certain means, and less so for women, other races and those of more limited means (defined most easily as those without property). As for religious creed, there were enough religiously persecuted amongst the early inhabitants that we did manage to state a broader sense of equality among religions though its questionable whether over time we really believed this or practiced this in its broadest sense.
All of this caused our forefathers to be well-educated pseudo egalitarians who had the backdrop of the recent popular revolution of their biggest ally in France as a role model. This all caused us to pick and choose the best of governance practice known at the time and that yielded a bi-cameral legislative structure with the balancing weights of an executive branch to provide leadership (understanding that legislature is less action oriented than debate and consensus compromise oriented) and the judiciary branch to provide an adjudication function in a objective and non-partisan basis. No one branch would be dominant and all three had their province. Collective governance is never an easy feat, but it is fair to say that the proof of the success of the American system as designed is in the overwhelming success of the nation over its two hundred fifty year history. The executive branch strength was in its ability to act in the best interest of the nation. The legislative branch strength was in its ability to find consensus for action among the diverse people of what is now fifty very different states. And the Judicial branch strength was in its non-partisan judgement to interpret the sanctity of our rule of law. The different branches ebbed and flowed in terms of the faith and respect garnered by the population, the partisan nature of the executive and the muddled compromise nature of the legislature gave rise to most of the volatility in perspective. The judiciary was generally better at being trusted as fair and unbiased.
That is now all changed. I think it is fair to say that all three branches have found themselves in a severely degraded position with regard to trust and respect. The tension began in the executive with the 2000 election crisis with its razor-thin margins and ballot crisis that needed resolution by the Supreme Court. Since then, the swings from Bush to Obama to Trump and now Biden has created a disconnect between results and popular support. Bush was not personally high in. Terms of respect, but his term, while controversial, was reasonably effective. Obama was high on respect for the most part but relatively low on effectiveness. Trump has almost no respect from any quarter, but remains far more popular than can be justified by his tenure or record. And then there is Biden, who’s term has been highly effective in an empirical sense and yet his popularity is amazingly low. The Congress is at an all-time low in terms of effectiveness with the current Congress passing fewer bills than any other for eighty years, thanks mostly to the divide in the Republican caucus, though even the Democratic caucus has its own moderate/progressive rift. Corruption is rampant in both houses and lack of consensus building is the order of the day. And last, but not at all least is the judiciary branch, which through a partisan stacking problem begun by Republicans very shrewdly almost forty years ago, has rendered decisions that are hugely unpopular and controversial, are stonewalling cries for more ethical behavior (based on several reported influence peddling accusations), and have a current slate of democracy-defining decisions to consider.
Our friend Donald Trump, who appointed three of the nine justices now serving life terms, and his clear insurrectionists antics, have given rise to no less than three docket cases surrounding his activities that SCOTUS must opine on in the coming months. Never before in our nations history has there been more focus on the SCOTUS v. POTUS balance of power, and never before has democracy been so much on the line based on the outcome of these decisions. To be continued.