Our Chief Executive, Mr. Donald Trump, and the Republican Caucus, headed up by Majority Leader McConnell and Speaker Ryan, have run together as only the worst pairing in a three-legged race could.
Mr. Trump strikes out at his “partners” while the 3-legged race is in progress, hurling slanders and trash talk at his “trusted” aides and Senate “allies.”
The undignified and repeated bashing of various public and elected officials follows closely on Mr. Trump having earlier extolled the same persons in the most oleaginous phrasing.
Many suffer cognitive whiplash if they take Mr. Trump’s twitterings seriously.
Our unseemly Senate debate in the Republican Caucus has gone on for months weighing how much we’ll pay for war and a wall and reducing taxes for the rich at the expense of providing affordable health care to millions of Americans who will be ill or die without the care.
James Madison, in Federalist 49, cautioned that we need to be wary of a government composed of three departments, designed to check and balance each other, if ever two of those three Departments become dominated by the same faction.
Madison referenced Thomas Jefferson’s concerns that “the weaker departments of power” be able to withstand “the invasions of the stronger” and, if two Departments become so strong and unified, Jefferson insisted we must convene to alter or correct our constitution.
If the people are “the only legitimate fountain of power,” then such an encroachment requires “an appeal to the people themselves …”
Madison conceded that “every appeal to the people … carr[ies] an implication of some defect in the government.” Continue reading
