I’m not worried about who will be our next POTUS based on anything that the candidates are saying. To be honest, They can’t do 90% of anything they claim to be able to accomplish while campaigning for the office. You’re not a lone gun slinger or a sole proprietor of a business. If you were, a wave of the hand would take care of any problem. There are constraints on the office that prevent a democratically elected president from becoming a dictator. As I wrote in my book.
One of Trump’s basic negotiating tactics is to “fight back very hard” if negotiations don’t go smoothly. That might work well in the business world because buildings don’t bleed. But in the geopolitical world of today, fighting back very hard will get innocent people killed. At the very least it will get us involved in a conflict that will cost us more treasure and blood than we can afford to lose. Do we really want a leader who believes it’s acceptable to negotiate with people’s lives as if they were buildings?
But this is what does worry me. The next president will nominate one or more Supreme Court justices. That’s a job for life. As I wrote my book, here’s how it’s gone so far.
There’s plenty of time to nominate a new Supreme Court justice. Normally, that wouldn’t be a problem. But this isn’t a normal time in political history. From a Republican point of view, with a little bit of luck, they could take back the White House. If that happens, there would be a Republican controlled Congress and White House for a couple of years. But that would be enough time to ensure a Republican nominee and a GOP majority in the Supreme Court for the foreseeable future. And if Republicans are really lucky, the next opening would be from the other side. Hey, I’m not being morbid; Supreme Court justices don’t have to die because they can retire at any time.
Of course there is always the possibility that the Democrats will hold on to the White House. In that case, a liberal Supreme Court justice will be appointed and the balance of power will shift. This shifting of political power isn’t what the Founding Fathers envisioned for SCOTUS. When the country was coming together, no one even considered that any of the three branches of government could corrupt the Constitution. They were building a framework that would enable the new American society to function. They thought that they had addressed all the problems that might arise and for the times that they lived in, they had.
It’s not so much the president, but the president’s political party that becomes a problem. Because it really doesn’t matter which side of the aisle you’re on. The next POTUS will determine the structure of life in this country for generations to come. I’ll leave you with one final thought.
This November, we’ll either elect a man who will make America great again, again or a woman who is actually for America (as opposed to all the other male presidents who, unfortunately were not). What gets lost in all the regurgitated slogans and vapid rhetoric is that this is not an election for the United States of Trump or the United States of Clinton. It is an election for the United States of America.
Copyright 2016 – 2023 Mark I. Jacobson. All rights reserved. No portion of The Year of My Life: reminiscences and rants: Politics may be reproduced without the expressed written permission of the author.