“Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”, said Lord Acton aeons ago. The adage has held its validity despite the passage of time. Flash forward to Trump 2.0, when the Republicans won the US Presidency as well as secured a majority in the House of Representatives and the US Senate. Giddy with power, President Trump believed the verdict to be an affirmation of his coronation as, in effect, the Emperor of the United States, at least as long as he remains President. A prudent ruler would have let bygones be bygones and focused on good governance rather than on vengeance. Instead, President Trump embarked on a vengeance tour, with targets new and old. Anyone who dared challenge “Emperor” Trump or question his deeds and motives was to be a target.
In Pam Bondi, Trump found the ideal Attorney General. She has continued to function as the personal attorney of Donald Trump rather than be the pivot of justice for the US people, affiliations amongst them being ignored. The manner in which ICE (Immigration Control Enforcement) has operated is reminiscent not of any actual democracy but of a dictatorship. James Bond 007 style, ICE agents act as though they believed they had a licence to kill, and they used that freely. Several lives were lost in ICE shootings, many of which were not illegal immigrants but US citizens. Even if the target individual was an undocumented immigrant, he or she merited due process. It is inhuman to ignore human rights in the manner that has become routine in the functioning of ICE.
Small wonder that the approval rating of President Trump within the US public has slipped to 35% and is still declining. The State of the Union address on February 24 was delivered by “Emperor” Trump, not by President Trump. All that he did or wanted to be done was good, exemplary in fact, while all that the critics and naysayers warned about was in effect trash. Such hubris is not just delusional, but dangerous in a Head of State and Government who wields as much power as the President of the United States. And it was precisely that hubris that the US Supreme Court’s majority judgment of six Justices for and three against brought down. A governance system needs to have checks and balances so as to prevent the misuse of authority, and this has been re-instituted by the US Supreme Court.
President Trump believed that as he had chosen several of the Justices of the US Supreme Court, they owed their fealty to him and not to the Constitution and the laws of the United States. What he wanted, those chosen by him should simply rubber stamp. The US Supreme Court showed that the US remains a country ruled by laws and not the caprices of whosoever would be elected to the Presidency of the United States. Until now, the Republicans in both Houses of the US Congress, the House of Representatives and the Senate, had overall functioned as flunkeys for the White House. No longer. More and more of the party faithful are finding their spine and going against the man they know is not Emperor Trump but President Trump.
“Advice and Consent” was the name of a book by Allen Drury about the US Senate, and this is what more and more of that august chamber have been doing. They are aware that the road they are being led to by President Trump is a ticket for Democratic control of the US House of Representatives and the US Senate, come the midterms. What is a disappointment is the behaviour of Vice-President Vance. All traces of his former spirit seem to be getting systematically erased by the Vice-President himself. More, much more important than Vice-President Vance is the persona of J.D. Vance, the author of “Hillbilly Elegy”. Vance needs to rediscover that persona rather than blindly follow President Trump down the abyss of sinking approval ratings.
Assuming that Vice-President Vance has not damaged enough sufficient to hand over the baton of Republican candidate for the US Presidency in the next polls to determine who will be the tenant of the White House during the next four years, he will face a tough challenger in the Democratic nominee. This may be California Governor Gavin Newsom or even another candidate, such as Governor Spanberger. If elected, she would be the first woman President of the US. The fact that there has not so far been a woman as US President is a smudge on the strength of democracy in the US, and perhaps that may get erased should Governor Spanberger be chosen the Democratic standard bearer and win the race and the keys to the White House for at least the next four years.
The US Supreme Court—6 in favour and 3 opposed—decision to render the Trump tariffs illegal in law shows that institutions remain strong in the US, and that there is no place in that country for the “strongman” leaders that abound in full or quasi dictatorships. The Judiciary has spoken. Next the Legislature must speak, to show the US remains a country ruled by law and not by the whims of the President of the United States.
