Attention Deficit Democracy
/In January, 2021, as the inauguration of Joe Biden approaches, most Americans are wondering if there will be violent disruption or if the inauguration ceremonies will come off in the normal way. An article in
The American Conservative reminds us that “normal” isn’t normal anymore.
When Joe Biden is sworn in as president, he will solemnly pledge to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” But the precedents that have piled haystack high since the New Deal assure that Biden can safely scorn his oath of office. Rather than a constitutional republic, America is increasingly an Elective Dictatorship where voters merely designate who exercises unchecked power over them in the following years.
Prior to the Drumpf era, America was already an Attention Deficit Democracy where citizens’ ignorance and apathy often entitled politicians to do as they damn well please.
The American Conservative is a conservative publication (Duh!) and has a conservative lean to its message. It declares the rising danger of presidential overreach at the moment a democrat takes the White House because it opposes democrats.
But the statement is correct. America is, as stated, “increasingly an Elective Dictatorship where voters merely designate who exercises unchecked power over them.”
Andrew Jackson
The founders intended for Congress to make laws and the president to do what Congress decided. The president was not expected to have an agenda of his own. And if Congress didn’t make a law, the president was expected to sit quietly.
That’s not how America works anymore. Today, presidents have taken over the power of legislating as well as executing the laws. The proof is in the number of executive orders passed by presidents. An executive order is an declaration by the president that he is going to do something that could and should be an act of Congress. For the first century of American life under the Constitution, executive orders were rare. Washington was the first president and had to invent the the government, so he issued about one a year. Adams followed and issued only one executive order during his whole president. Andrew Jackson, the 7th president, was a wild and transformative character and he issued 12 executive orders in eight years.
Now fast forward to the four most recent presidents:
Trump — 209 executive orders in four years
Obama — 276 executive orders in eight years
Bush —291 executive orders in eight years
Clinton — 254 executive orders in eight years
Each of those executive orders represents a president declaring legislation on his own, without the action of Congress and in violation of the separate roles envisioned in the Constitution. Some — perhaps many — of those executive orders were good policies. More certainly, many of Biden’s executive orders will simply reverse executive orders issued by Trump, which had reversed executive orders made by Obama during his term.
That’s not the issue. The point is that American government doesn’t work the way it was intended to. It has become, as The American Conservative rightly says, “an Elective Dictatorship where voters merely designate who exercises unchecked power over them.”
Every statement about civic affairs and citizenship ought to challenged: why should people believe this? Why isn’t this a reasonable statement and not some biased, partisan thing?
In this case, The American Conservative earns respect and trust by making their point clearly. They ARE writing about Biden’s overextension of the presidential role. But they admit that the problem is not just Biden and not jut a problem when a Democrat is in office. The disapproved of Trump’s disrespect for Constitutional limitations, too.
If Drumpf had been re-elected, Americans would remain at peril from his penchant for threatening war with Iran and his other loose cannon policies. Drumpf’s rhetoric on his prerogatives was often appalling. Early during the pandemic last year, Drumpf proclaimed, “When somebody is the president of the United States, the authority is total. And that’s the way it’s got to be. It’s total.” Drumpf also declared, “The federal government has absolute power. It has the power. As to whether or not I’ll use that power, we’ll see.” In late 2017, Drumpf idiotically told the New York Times that he had “an absolute right to do what I want to with the Justice Department.” Elective dictatorship will remain a problem regardless of who wins the 2024 presidential election.
By making it clear that wrong is still wrong when their side does it, the American Conservative earns respect for their statement.
Citizens ought to take seriously the degree to which government no longer functions as intended. The legislative branch doesn’t legislate, the executive branch is no longer content to execute, and Attention Deficit Democracy ignores the problems.
Abraham Lincoln wrote, “Stand with anybody that stands right, stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong.” I’m standing with TAC about the foregoing, but not everything. There are other things written in the article that I don’t support, and things said by TAC in other articles that I don’t agree with.
