A Day of Infamy

On December 8, 1941, Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “Day of Infamy” speech and concomitant Declaration of War against the Empire of Japan, illustrated the American dynamic of Executive Power!

Yet, I never fully realized the extent of such over-bearing top-heaviness until the advent of Donald J. Trump. He gives new meaning to the concept of executive privilege.

Immunity and the authority to pardon are god-like functions usually confined to either a deity or a dictatorship. I’m sure Hamilton and the boys thought they had a good sense of what they were doing when they invented the idea. They, virtually, inserted a live brain into a dead human corpse, thereby creating a new kind of animal. Mary Shelley named it Frankenstein! Now, it roams the earth, wreaking havoc in every corner, snatching up women at will, beating down the elderly and infirmed, instilling fear and hatred aplenty and, generally, upsetting apple carts the world over.

Still, I could not imagine any President of the United States putting Congress in such a state of uncontrollable anxiety, its members shivering in their boots as they stroll the hallowed halls of the Capitol Building. Not Roosevelt (either one), not Nixon, not LBJ, not Reagan nor the Bushes, ever had our sacred Legislative Branch so in-tow and under thumb as Trump. Truly remarkable… you gotta hand him that!

For the first time in a while, America has an incredibly imbalanced, heavily weighted to one side, ruling majority in government. JFK had it; LBJ, too; Jimmy Carter had it; so did George W. Bush. Now, however, steeped in conservatism, it is a dreadful moment in time for many of us. There exists a potential for undoing certain legislations that were years in the making… even decades, in some instances.
Women’s rights over their own bodies, a.k.a. Choice; Immigration; Healthcare; LGBT rights; Environmental laws; Economic and International Diplomacy–all, seemingly, up for grabs. We, citizens of a nation in possible flux, on the whole, are not too sure of where we stand… in our unprecedented disunity. Diametrically opposed opinions–some with even violent exponents–prevail across the land in staid factions with unswerving positions of unbudgeable immutability. It’s quite a drastic place to be.
Will Consumer Confidence be irreparably destroyed? Will our economy and workforce be dismantled? Will any semblance of civil rights and racial harmony be undone, thereby leading cities across the nation into a state of civic disruption? Will the inherent greed of unbridled Capitalism be forever allowed to disenchant, depress and demoralize the disenfranchised peoples in a social order more and more fragmented by inequal distribution of wealth? These, and many others, are concerns that make-or-break entire civilizations.
Although, Americans are a funny breed, capable of turning on a dime, as it were. We have the capacity to fool the hell out of anyone, as we did Hitler and Tojo eighty years ago! The apparent disparity between factions could suddenly dissolve and leave our nation with a strength of unparalleled unity.
That unified field of force can climb the highest mountains; span great distances over lands; penetrate the depths of the oceans; and explore the inter-galactic, far-reaches of the Universe. And, ultimately, I believe in my heart, we will!
