"complaints are everywhere heard from our most considerate and virtuous citizens, equally the friends of public and private faith and of public and personal liberty, that our governments are too unstable, that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties, and that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority." james madison federalist X_______madison ( along with hamilton and jay ) was writing in the wake of a series of events in the state of massachucetts that had made serious inroads into the position of the established powers ( read wealth ) of that state...the "minor party" he was talking of defending from the "interested and overbearing majority" was not the common man...there is some possibility that the framers of the constitution intended the federal government to be a neutral umpire in conflicts between special interests...money and the formation of political parties took care of that neutrality as it placed the government in the hands of the special interests it was supposed to referee...the degradation of "democracy" has a long history and did not begin in 2016...presidents and lesser politicians have lied cheated stolen smeared repressed dissent and whatever else they felt was necessary since there has been a presidency...the early republic dogfights involving hamilton adams and jefferson should be instructive...it has always been a foul abrasive vitriolic process that stemmed from the clash of partisan politicians and interests...the institutions created by the constitution are weighted towards wealth because wealth framed the constitution...and they were purposefully made exceptionally difficult to change because change is predicated on the consent of the warring interests...only when one faction or another holds an unchallenged two-thirds majority has nay change been successfully enacted...not impossible...but the last amendment i can think of had to do with presidential succession in the wake of kennedy's assassination...not an especially controversial topic...smooth succession in the halls of power is less disruptive to say...the stock market...and the system as a whole...if you look at it closely, while the faces have changed and there have been some emergencies that vacated the "business as usual" approach ( the civil war...the great depression...the second world war are a few )...for the most part there has been a continuity of rule by wealth with some lip service being paid to heavily propagandized "voters" who are so balkanized into disputing groups that a coherent opposition to the apparatus of rule is not in evidence..which brings me round to the header of this post...admittedly trump is an unsavory, self-absorbed, entitled nitwit who should never have been elected..there have been others who should not have been as well but they are in the past and lack the immediacy of this particular bozo..so by all mean impeach him...whether the senate would convict relies heavily on the grounds for impeachment and is not assured but impeach away..remove trump...pence will be president and that is not a step up...he may be less publicly unstable but he is no less malevolent in his views...and if you remove him nancy pelosi would be the first woman president...unelected but that is a minor matter..i would point out that nancy is a millionaire..the likelihood of her supporting substantive changes to the current institutions and aims of the government are relatively ( in my opinion mind ) slim...she can tell me she's "for the street" but i believe she is playing politics when she does...change from within is deeply unlikely..the framers aimed for continuity in the protection of the prerogatives of wealth...so far they have succeeded..and find me the last president who retired to poverty..or even an "average" income.
No comments:
Post a Comment