Trump Is Not the Problem

[elleng]

His election is the consequence of a crisis that’s been brewing for a long time.
By Andrew J. Bacevich

'Like it or not, the president of the United States embodies America itself. The individual inhabiting the White House has become the preeminent symbol of who we are and what we represent as a nation and a people. In a fundamental sense, he is us. It was not always so. Millard Fillmore, the 13th president (1850–1853), presided over but did not personify the American republic. He was merely the federal chief executive. Contemporary observers did not refer to his term in office as the Age of Fillmore. With occasional exceptions, Abraham Lincoln in particular, much the same could be said of Fillmore’s successors. They brought to office low expectations, which they rarely exceeded. So when Chester A. Arthur (1881–1885) or William Howard Taft (1909–1913) left the White House, there was no rush to immortalize them by erecting gaudy shrines—now known as “presidential libraries”—to the glory of their presidencies. In those distant days, ex-presidents went back home or somewhere else where they could find work.

Over the course of the past century, all that has changed. Ours is a republic that has long since taken on the trappings of a monarchy, with the president inhabiting rarefied space as our king-emperor. The Brits have their woman in Buckingham Palace. We have our man in the White House.

Nominally, the Constitution assigns responsibilities and allocates prerogatives to three co-equal branches of government. In practice, the executive branch enjoys primacy. Prompted by a seemingly endless series of crises since the Great Depression and World War II, presidents have accumulated ever-greater authority, partly through usurpation, but more often than not through forfeiture.

At the same time, they also took on various extraconstitutional responsibilities. By the beginning of the present century, Americans took it for granted that the occupant of the Oval Office should function as prophet, moral philosopher, style setter, interpreter of the prevailing zeitgeist, and—last but hardly least—celebrity in chief. In short, POTUS was the bright star at the center of the American solar system.'>>>

https://www.thenation.com/article/trump-is-not-the-problem/

[guillaumeb]

1. If Trump embodies the prevailing zeitgeist,

and if he is the logical consequence of 200 years of American exceptionalism coupled with the ugly American syndrome, the fact that he was only elected with the help of strong suppression should give some cause for hope that he is representative only of that 35% or so of GOP voters for whom victory is everything.

[marylandblue]

3. If Trump is not the problem

Then it doesn't matter that he represents only a minority of the electorate. What he really represents is a failed system that will only get worse until it breaks completely, unless we turn it around. Getting Trump out of office would only be the beginning of the process, and success is by no means assured.

[Hoyt]

2. Agree, Trump is not the problem. It's the deplorables who voted for this.

[Nitram]

4. No Trump is not the problem, but I don't agree that "the individual inhabiting the White House has

become the preeminent symbol of who we are and what we represent as a nation and a people." Conservatives have gamed the system to the point where even as a minority they can gain control of the levers of power. The GOP-dominated Congress has refused to consider the interests of the country over their party's political power. Conservative state legislatures have gerrymandered permanent seats for their representatives to Congress. Our devotion to free speech has resulted in the brainwashing of a significant portion of the electorate. I don't know how we are going to do it, but we must restore balance to the system and get it working properly again.

[JayhawkSD]

5. And yet when we had a Democratically controlled Congress...

We got "the surge" in Iraq.
We got immunization of telecoms in spying on Americans.
We got a renewal of the Patriot Act.
We did not get even an attempt to roll back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.
We got the Military Commissions Act.

I could go on, but I think my point is essentially made.

[Nitram]

6. Yes, and we also had just experienced 9/11. There was no guarantee at the time that

that disaster would not happen again. Perhaps an over-reaction, perhaps not, but tightened security can be relaxed again when we have more knowledge about the nature of the dangers that face us. Which now include Russian hacking of our election. It is very easy to stand on principle when you are not personally responsible for the safety of 323 million Americans.