Poor Donald: The Constitution is Working…..Against Him
P. Schultz
Some conservatives love to talk
about the Constitution and how we need to get back to honoring that document,
that supreme law, in order to set right the ship of state. And, no doubt, they have a point. There are
more than a few practices that have arisen in the last few decades – and before
– that are inconsistent with the Constitution, e.g., that presidents may do
almost anything that serves, in their minds, national security. But one thing
these conservatives often don’t appreciate sufficiently is that the
Constitution is, as one commentator put it, “a machine that goes by itself.”
And this is what Donald Trump is – or should be – finding out now.
Consider the above article from
today’s NY Times, entitle “Trump’s Budget is Aspirational. Reality in Congress Will Change It.” In
brief, what this article points out is that Trump’s proposed budget is or will
be “dead on arrival” in the Congress, as expressed by Lindsey Graham, a leading
Republican senator. And what this means is that that old constitutional
principle, the separation of powers, is working and it is, as it was intended
to work, working against the current president of the United States. As the article puts it: “Like
many presidents before him, President Trump is pushing a
bold budget proposal. But for a business executive used to getting his way,
he is likely to find, as his predecessors did, that final budgets often bear
little resemblance to the originals after being run through the shredder on
Capitol Hill.”
You see, as this
makes clear, the political arena is a very different kind of place than the
business arena, because in the latter “business executives” are “used to
getting [their] way.” Presidents have no such luxury and, of course, the
shouldn’t have it insofar as the political world is a far more complex place
than the business world. And because the
political world is far more complex than the business world, it is not only
necessary but commendable that different points of view are represented; for
example, that the views of popularly elected representatives of the people,
legislators, need to be taken into account along with those of elected and
unelected executives, i.e., presidents and cabinet officials.
Or to put this in
another way: bold proposals are not always, in fact rarely are, the way to
go in politics. Bold moves, e.g., invading Iraq, making war in Asia, invading
Cuba, or overthrowing democratically elected governments ala’ Iran, are most
often than not disastrous. And this is especially true of bold moves not encased in
legislation. Hence, the power and the prerogatives of the executive department,
where boldness seems most appropriate, are limited.
This is the “theory”
of our Constitution and one of its main characteristics, the separation of
powers. And this is what is proving to be the undoing on the Trump presidency
right now. In the near future, we will find out if Trump is educable, if he is
able to comprehend and accept the reality of constitutional, i.e., limited
government. If he does, he just might make a dent in the status quo as it is
currently configured. If he does not, his presidency, like so many of those who
have preceded him, will be perceived as a failure.
