That was Professor Sydney Ratner, for whom I was Teaching Assistant. The subject he taught was "American Economics." But, on that occasion, he was commenting on the American Constitution.
Ratner's prophesy was based on the possible disappearance of checks and balances, resulting from the concentration of power in one major political party, or the manipulation of the Constitution by an authoritarian Chief Executive. Or both factors.
America of today is what that professor, who valued his patriotism and his Jewishness had predicted. The America of Trump proved Professor Ratner to have been a true Cassandra, though not generally believed in 1953. As his Arab and Muslim disciple, I trusted somewhat in what he foresaw.
We now find at the White House, a President who rules largely by executive orders, without fear of a Congress which is controlled by a party which he had bent to his ways. It does not matter whether the Republican majority in Congress stands either in fear of Trump, or in sincere belief in his ways. The result is the same.
The third co-equal branch of government, the Supreme Court, has now tilted to the right in favor of Trumpism. It does not matter whether a Court which glories in 5 - 4 decisions, is constitutionally correct or not. The result is the same, and shall become the enduring symbol of the disappearing checks and balances if Judge Kavanaugh ever ascends to its bench.
As a judge and law professor, Judge Kavanaugh had penned his view of any U.S. president. In 2009, he stated in an article that a chief executive was immune from civil or criminal investigation or prosecution while occupying the White House. Too distracting from executive duties. Kavanaugh had therefore put the Chief Executive above the law.
That is not the position of the U.S. Constitution. Its Article II, Section 4 states: "The President ... shall be removed from Office on impeachment for, and conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors." On that basis, Kavanaugh's former students at Yale University countered recently his belief in a totally immune president.
In a letter reported in the New York Times of July 20, 2018, they retorted: "Judge Kavanaugh's nomination presents an emergency -for democratic life, for our safety and freedom, for the future of our country."
Well, the not-so-surprising tenor of that letter confirms Ratner's prophesy of 1953, predicting the emergence of an American dictator. For infecting the judiciary, through the US Supreme Court of 5-4 decisions, with the position of a totally immunized president, makes a mockery of the on-going investigations by Special Counsel, Robert Mueller of Russian interference in the US elections of 2016.
The connectedness of these issues is the essence of connecting the dots on today's American scene. These are: American governance, the rise of Trumpism, the erosion of checks and balances, and all the other aspects of American federalism as anchored in the Rule of Law.
Let us propound those dots, beginning with the oath of office:
It includes the following words: "... and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." Such oath or affirmation by the President upon inauguration makes it incumbent upon such person to serve the United States, not any other foreign power, and all Americans, not just those who voted for him (or her).
But the incumbent President, especially at the Helsinki Summit, had by secreting himself alone with the Russian President, committed various legal violations: No American official record of what transpired, as required by the Official Records Act. Publicly, at the press conference that followed, siding not with American intelligence services, but with assertions by Putin that no Russian cyber-attack was perpetrated on the US.
In legal terms, that is the definition of treason: violation of allegiance to your sovereign (the American people) by adhering to their enemies. A breach of faith coming within the Constitutional scope of "other high crimes and misdemeanors" (Article II, Section 4). Impeachable offenses!!
Yet the presidential shock waves did not stop there. On July 19, the White House announced that President Trump planned to invite President Putin to visit the White House in the fall. The stunned reaction by Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence was on public view. He got the news, not from his President, but from a reporter who was interviewing him.
Coats' reaction to the news of that invitation, "SAY THAT AGAIN?," shall forever live as the three words which frame the mysterious retreat of America to the status of a client-like State behind Russia.
Wondered Michelle Goldberg in the New York Times of July 17: "It was hard not to be staggered by the American President's slavish and toadying performance." But the Republican-controlled Senate, in the face of that American retreat, made more grievous by Trump's attacks on the European Union, NATO and the UN system, stood as a paralyzed co-equal branch of government.
Yes, the House speaker, Paul Ryan had said: "We stand by our NATO allies and all those countries who are facing Russian aggression." But the Republicans in Congress on the same day that Ryan spoke, also blocked a series of measures put forward by Democrats, all anti-Putin resolutions.
The Grand Old Party (GOP) which had been led by Lincoln, is no more, as it has been coopted by Mr. Trump. Strangely, the GOP, prior to the Trump coup, was the champion of free trade, of immigration, of alliances confronting an expanding Soviet Union, and of universal institutions - the UN, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund. These were structures negotiated between Roosevelt and Churchill as of 1942 -three years before the end of World War II.
That party is no more. The Trump Party now stands for: high tariffs (a form of taxation); criminalizing asylum seekers; withdrawing from the UN Human Rights Council; withholding funds from UNESCO; attacking the World Trade Organization; threatening war against Venezuela; withdrawing from the 6-States Iran nuclear deal; blaming the dismemberment of the Ukraine on Obama.
Moreover, Trump had praise for Putin's call for surrendering American diplomats to Russia for interrogation; and favored the expansion of the Mueller investigation into Russia's possible collusion with the Trump campaign by including in it Putin operatives.
"The Word 'Treason' Enters the Debate as the List of Trump Critics Grows," headlined the New York Times of July 18. The Washington Post of July 16, in a column by a noted former Republican, Max Boot, stated that "accusing (Trump) of treason was once unthinkable. No longer... If anyone is the enemy of the people, it is Trump himself."
Truthfulness is the underpinning of trust which binds the governed to the government. Again "no longer" under Trump who is reported to have lied 3200 times in less than 2 years in office. Falsehoods have been explained as "alternative facts;" and the aspiration for "A More Perfect Union" has been inverted into a movement by the American right towards "the destruction of the Administrative State."
Today in front of the White House, throngs of protesters banging on pots and pans, shouted "Welcome Back Traitor."
On Twitter, the word "Traitor" was used 800,000 times; the word "treason" about 1.2 million times.
65 years ago, I should have been more trusting in my professor, Sydney Ratner, who predicted the emergence of an American dictator.
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