Hope for Marcus Aurelius — Plan for Nero
I have a friend — Ivy League Law grad, an honest-to-God genius, potential future SCOTUS Justice. This friend has taken to intermittent caterwauling over the prospect of an impending Trump presidency — which, per Nate Silver’s latest, could very much happen — and the subsequent total overthrow of constitutional democracy by a person he believes to be a cross between a deranged clown and Benito Mussolini.
My friend’s not alone. Here’s a smattering of opining from the Left this year about the havoc a President Trump could cause, with or without Congressional cooperation:
- President Trump Could Start a Trade War With Surprising Ease: (Justin Wolfers, NYT)
- What President Trump Could or Couldn’t Do (Eric Posner, NYT)
- How Much Damage Could President Trump Do, After All? (Mark Kleiman, HuffPo)
- The Clear and Present Danger of Donal Trump (WaPo Editorial Board)
- Trump Could Crush Obamacare Without Waiting for Congress (Healthcare IT)
As a libertarian (libertarian-ish, as Rand Paul likes to say), I confess I have to stifle my schadenfreude at the irony of the situation. After all, it’s progressives who have for the last eight years cheered President Obama as he hacked away at the already-minimal limits on executive power. Without President Obama’s interpretation of the powers of his office, Il Duce Trump wouldn’t be possible.
Once upon a time, Democrats stood up for checks and balances and stood against executive excess. When George W. Bush installed a warrantless wiretapping program to monitor Americans’ communication, when he claimed the authority to detain indefinitely anyone he declared an “enemy combatant,” the Left cast itself as the standard bearer of transparency and republicanism. Democrats were paragons of constitutionalism, they claimed, a bulwark against the creeping Caesarism — some even flirted with Nazi comparisons — of a rogue Bush administration feasting on fear, drunk with power. Yes, many Democrats’ complaints smacked of artifice and self-aggrandizement, but these excoriations were nevertheless appropriate opposition to the ever expanding “imperial presidency.”
Here’s then-Senator Barack Obama claiming that he would reverse Bush’s consolidation of executive power when he became president:
Yeah… not so much. When Barack Obama — whose administration was to be “the most transparent in history” — systematically prosecuted whistleblowers, when he unilaterally ordered the Justice department to disregard standing immigration law (a move that the Supreme Court rightly blocked this summer), when he instituted a secret and unaccountable “kill list” of individuals to be targeted with drone strikes, all of a sudden, Democrats forgot their Jeffersonian vigilance and pulled out the presidential power pom-poms.
In many ways, Democrats’ interest in limiting executive authority during the Bush years was an anomaly. As far back as Woodrow Wilson, progressives have argued that Congress’s propensity for partisan gridlock renders the government clunky and maladroit, incapable of reacting with the kind of speed and force demanded by the problems of the modern nation-states. IF ONLY, they lamented, an energetic leader could be empowered with more authority, he could cut through the legislative Gordian knot and simply DO.
Here’s Teddy Roosevelt, one of the first prominent progressives, in 1910, decrying the “sinister influence” of political factions, and calling for the development of an ideology called “New Nationalism”:
“The New Nationalism is… impatient of the impotence which springs from over division of governmental powers, the impotence which makes it possible for local selfishness or for legal cunning, hired by wealthy special interests, to bring national activities to a deadlock. This New Nationalism regards the executive power as the steward of the public welfare.”
Sound familiar?
Er, sorry, wrong video
“With or without congress”
That’s basically been President Obama’s guiding mantra since losing control of the House to the GOP in 2010. And not so much as a peep from Democrats about the importance of the constitutional limits of the presidency.
All of this is just to say that the old adage about people caring far more about ends than means, more about policy than process, more about their political tribe than their political principles, still rings true.
But it’s process — not policy — that protects our rights, secures our liberties, and ensures that no single entity can achieve a monopoly on power. Abandoning process in favor of an executive who can “get stuff done” means that every election becomes Republic roulette, and that’s a deadly game. History shows that for every Marcus Aurelius, there’s a Nero. We would be wise to plan for Nero.
“Is President Trump going to start a war with China over an insult?” Democrats wonder as they wring their hands. The real question they should be asking is this:
How is it that an American president can start a war all by himself in the first place? I suggest they take a long look in the mirror.
