The people of the United States of America have spoken and have elected Donald Trump, a dirty-mouthed bully, as president. He is a revolutionary.
A fundamental transformation of the United States of America's federal governing structure is underway. When the U.S. Constitutional framework was first established, the founders adopted the Ciceronian principle of the Roman Republic — namely, of a mixed and balanced government. When a constitutional monarchical form of government was rejected at the time of the American Revolution, the founders looked at the principles that should underlie its constitution. They selected six: republicanism (absence of a monarch or emperor), limited government (no one is above the law), federalism (national and state division of powers), checks and balances, and separation of powers (executive, legislative and judicial), and popular sovereignty ("We the People").
We the People have now decided that something fundamentally wrong has been going on for too long. Too many young men and women were losing their lives in foreign wars and failed invasions that successive presidents had engaged in and lost humiliatingly, starting with the eternally stalemated Korean War (1950-53). The exception is the invasion of Grenada in 1983 by then-president Ronald Reagan, made immortal by Clint Eastwood’s movie fittingly entitled Heartbreak Ridge. Chronically, one in every 200 Americans is incarcerated at any one time, compared to around one in 1,100 adults in Canada. Drug deaths have increased from 18,000 in 1999 to 105,000 in 2023. As of January 2024, some 770,000 Americans are experiencing homelessness, and 43 million people live in poverty, more than 10 per cent of the country, a rate unchanged since 1970.
And now the U.S. is facing a true dilemma. Having been instrumental in lifting billions of world citizens out of grinding poverty, too many American citizens have become frustrated with their own struggles to achieve the American dream. COVID became the straw that broke the dam of frustration. And just as happened after the First World War and the influenza epidemic of 1918, America has chosen to retreat from its international engagements and focus on self-concentrated greatness.
In his pledge to Make America Great Again, President Trump is proving to be a true revolutionary.
In Mussolini-style bombastic tirades, Mr. Trump has been dismissive of his country’s fundamental constitutional framework. He has challenged with presently superb success the fundamental tenets of his own country’s constitution. He has subsumed control of the law enforcement arm of the country and openly uses the agency to threaten and punish his political opponents. His control over political party finances has silenced Congressional opposition and bound them to his will. The Supreme Court has been loaded with acolytes of the supremacy of the presidency over all federally funded and operated matters. And most recently, he has used the National Guard as his personal army and given ICE powers and expanded its actions that remind one of Hitler’s Gestapo. Critics argue his acceptance of gifts and business benefits while in office undermines public trust, amounting to corruption in all but name.
As for the global trade war that he has embarked on, he has successfully hoodwinked his people to date by claiming the tariffs will be paid by the trading country’s producers. He will shortly dole out the proceeds to those who are personally loyal or too powerful to refuse.
Congress has been silenced by intimidation.
The whole scene is eerily reminiscent of the rise and fate of another revolutionary giant, who demolished his republican state and became a tragic populist dictator — Julius Caesar.
