Update badly needed in the system of Government
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If after the demise of the Trump administration – we all hope sooner than later — a semblance of rational discourse can be restored, then the most important issue to discuss is governance of this country. The massive concentration of power in a single person – the President – makes possible an abuse of power so vast that it tears the fabric of society and damages its key institutions. The mere fact that the character of a single man or woman voted into office – abysmal and entirely lacking a moral compass in Trump’s case – can determine the fate of the nation and the fate of this planet virtually unchecked is preposterous. Ironically, the United States of America owes its very existence to the successful attempts of visionaries to secede from a country that was at the whim of a monarch, and establish a government with democratic principles.
We have been brought to this point of raising the question of governance, and reexamination of the tenets of the Constitution, by the election of the vilest human being who ever was in public office. We know by now that the checks and balances designed by the framers of the Constitution are readily brought to naught by a rogue since they ultimately rely on tacit, unwritten rules of decency. In this aspect (among other aspects) the similarity with the rise of Hitler are eerie: in that case, a rogue took advantage of the blind trust of people in the integrity of the judges and Civil Servants and their ability to uphold the tenets of the Weimar Constitution.
It takes little imagination to predict a total disintegration of the Republican Party since its leadership has abandoned whatever was left of its principles. I predict that Trump and his family and willing lackeys will soon find themselves in the dustbin of history. However, the country will be bitterly divided, and it is difficult to see an easy path to a constitutional convention. But such a convention is dearly needed to establish a system of government that curtails the power – in domestic and international affairs – of a single man or woman, so that gregarious abuses we see daily now will never happen again.
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