Let’s check the calendar: with over 1,300 days left in Trump’s new four-year term, many Americans are already feeling the strain. The sense of exhaustion is palpable – and entirely understandable.
Trump’s feats of self-enrichment almost defy belief. If David Copperfield could make a Boeing 747 disappear, Trump could make it reappear in his own pocket – especially if it was a “gift” from Qatar. Yet such sleights of hand pale in comparison to his real magic: manipulating news cycles to create lucrative investment opportunities for himself, most notably in the wild west of cryptocurrencies. The American intelligentsia is growing uneasy, including The New York Times: “Trump Profits Like No Other President, as Outrage Is Muted”
Recent coverage suggests that, in just a few months, the Trump family and its business partners have raked in $320 million from a new cryptocurrency, sealed multibillion-dollar overseas real estate deals, and launched an exclusive Washington club called “The Executive Branch” with a $500,000 membership fee—likely just scratching the surface of their latest financial ventures. And that, one suspects, is only the tip of the iceberg.
But the real issue is not simply Trump’s audacity – it’s the system that enables him. How has he managed to become so untouchable, so brazen in his disregard for the rule of law? The answer lies in America’s own constitutional DNA. Montesquieu, the French philosopher, famously observed that the difference between monarchy and despotism is the presence of checks and balances. America may not have a king, but it has certainly perfected the machinery of unchecked power.
A revealing article on the American Institute in Taiwan’s Chinese-language website, “On Democracy: The President’s Power,” lays it bare:
“Anyone who reads Article II of the Constitution is immediately struck by the fact that it spells out the mechanism for electing the president in great details, but says very little about the president’s powers once in office. There are no specifics, for example, about how the president is to give orders to the heads of departments, how he is to control the various branches of government, or how he is to remove officials.”
In other words, Trump is operating with almost no real oversight. With the Republican Party controlling both houses of Congress and the White House, America is experiencing what political insiders call a “trifecta” – a recipe for unchecked executive power.
According to the article, the president “may veto acts of Congress, either on constitutional or policy grounds, and his veto cannot be overturned without a two-thirds vote to do so in the House and Senate.” The article further explains that “the most important checks on the president involve the ‘auxiliary precautions’ of impeachment and removal for ‘high crimes and misdemeanors.’”
However, the article also notes that “the American constitutional system does not contemplate removal for losing the confidence of the legislature (such as is implied in losing a vote of confidence in a parliamentary system).”
Moreover, “a president is impeached (equivalent to being indicted) by a majority vote of the House of Representatives, thereafter he is tried in the Senate, with the Chief Justice of the United States presiding.”
But even the Chief Justice, in this era, is seen as being within Trump’s sphere of influence. Add to that Trump’s mastery of social media – which has allowed him to sidestep traditional media gatekeepers and drown out dissent – and you have a president who is, for all practical purposes, untouchable. Who, then, could possibly ignite a “Dump Trump” movement? Most have simply chosen to wait out the next 1,300 days.
What kept previous presidents in check was not just law, but a sense of honour – a moral compass. That compass, it seems, is now broken. John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of United States, often opened his speeches with a warning:
“The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who in time of moral crisis preserve their neutrality.”
This, in essence, is how a society descends into chaos: when morality collapses and the world looks away.
The turmoil in America today is not just Trump’s doing – it is the tragic, inevitable fate of a fading empire.
Deep Blue
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