ILLUSION OF DEMOCRACY

By Mickey Skidmore, AMHSW, ACSW, FAASW

It should be abundantly clear by now, although it flies in the face of most logic — the rule of law that applies to rest of us, does not appear to apply to one Donald Trump. Moreover, the rule of law by and large, has essentially not applied to him for most of his (adult) life. Among the many monikers that apply to him, he is also a legal terrorist. His immense wealth enabled him to manipulate the legal system  — stall, delay, distract, confuse — and try his legal indictments in the court of public opinion (via social media) and in many instances escape a court of law (which would no doubt have resulted in a different outcome). Not only that, these efforts also resulted in the Supreme Court essentially extending the range of executive power of the Presidency, thereby green-lighting near complete immunity for his conduct in office.

He conned the electorate with promises of reducing inflation and making things more affordable for the average individual. Yet one of his first actions in office was to undo Biden’s hard won achievement of reducing the price of medication for those covered by Medicare. Siding with drug companies, he made medications more expensive — rather than more affordable. 

While this was emblematic of what to expect of the MAGA administration, this largely flew under the radar given the fast paced plethora of executive orders of the Trump administration during his first week in office. The second week Trump continued his assault on the government with his proclamation to end birthright citizenship; freezing a range of funding authorised by Congress; purging career prosecutors in the DOJ (who happen to have been involved in his previous indictments); and firing Inspector General’s without complying with a 30 day notice and explanation of cause to Congress as outlined in law.

Many scholars say such action is plainly illegal. The legality of ousting scores of federal workers  without cause other than fulfilling the whims of his political retribution is at best questionable. The third week unleashed Elon Musk and his DOGE hackers to further these efforts by making their way into the US Treasury payment systems citing a mandate to root out fraud as justification of his unilateral efforts (with a lacking of transparency regarding what they were actually doing).

There seems to be no real consideration of whether such radical disruption — flouting generations of policy and challenging the law will actually address any of the problems he was elected to fix. Governing by decree is not the way to address these policy differences. This past election resulted in the GOP winning the House of Representatives; the Senate; and the Presidency. If you want change, do it legally — propose a bill to reflect your new or amended policies; debate it and vote on it to be signed into law by the President. Attempting to rule by decree highlights a lack of patience; his pension for petulant retribution; and supports the view so many already know — despite having a majority in three domains of government, governing is not the GOP’s strong suit.

While he only seems to be getting started on the domestic front, his ego seems to have no bounds or limits, as he is now intent on undermining international order as well. When he speaks on the international stage regarding tariffs he is completely oblivious of how he humiliates himself to the world with his astonishingly limited grasp of basic economics. Despite his significant wealth, his economic instincts are not only misguided, they are frequently wrong. (There is abundant historical examples to make the case that almost everything that Donald Trump touches — turns to shit). The economic and political chaos that will result from his grand plan is almost entirely self-inflicted and will lead to increased isolation of the United States.

Despite the gravity of these events, I suspect many of them are performative distractions. The bigger picture is Donald Trump is the architect of a narrative of mass delusion that was successful enough to con 49% of the electorate into voting him back into office (far from a “mandate”). The tools of this mass delusion is Orwellian projection; gas-lighting; mis-information; social media; repetition and endless lying and falsehoods. The real enterprise, under the guise and justification of rooting out waste and fraud is dismantling the guard-rails of the government and constitution and installing a systemic structure of corruption that will support and reinforce his narcissistic, autocratic and fascist proclivities — for his own power and financial benefit.

For example, the role of the (independent) Inspector-Generals that Trump has recently purged (without cause) was in fact to oversee and protect the government from waste and fraud. Moreover, recent statistics have been reported in the press that this structural institution of our constitution saved or recouped the the US Government billions of dollars from their efforts (which isn’t to say that there isn’t room for improvement). 

I understand Trump’s election is underscored by a desire for change. However, the manner in which he is moving forward with change does not appear to be taking place within the context of democratic principles or under the rule of law. Of course, this should not be surprising as it is increasingly clear that the rule of law does not and has not applied to Trump for some time now.

In fact, currently the only legal recourse to stopping Trump, is for him to be impeached. However, Trump’s grip on the Republican party is powerful (as evidenced by republican Senators rubber stamping several of the most alarming and unqualified individuals to serve in key roles in his administration (again, implementing a structure of corruption). It has been an open (yet publicly unacknowledged) secret since his previous impeachments that many politicians will not stand up to Trump, out of fear that if they did — they or their family would be faced with not only election /career challenges (primaries), but physical violence against them. The likelihood is no longer hypothetical following the pardons of thousands of January 6 insurrectionist who have already demonstrated their willingness to resort to violence for Trump. 

This is not democracy — or at least democracy that I understand. This is a transactional, quid-pro-quo, mob-style corruption masquerading as the illusion of democracy.

Apparently, America wanted change. While they are certainly getting change, one wonders when they will realise that these changes were not what they envisioned.