We rethink the week with Dean Spiliotis, Civic Scholar and Presidential Scholar at Southern New Hampshire University; and Glenn Smith, consultant to ProgressTexas and former campaign manager for Gov. Ann Richards’s first campaign in Texas.
BARACK OBAMA REMINDS US WHY WE MISS HIM
We are inspired by former Pres. Barack Obama’s online speech to 2020 graduates. Obama again brings us all together as one united country, our fates tied together with each other’s. This is in sharp contrast with Pres. Trump, who works overtime at dividing us. Whereas Trump is a liar and divider, a narcissist and corrupt self-server, Obama is an authentic, caring, uniting leader (even though we were sometimes disappointed in his policies or decisions as president).
IS THE VIRUS STARTING ANOTHER SURGE?
The novel coronavirus continues to show its novelty. We had hoped that, once people got sick and then recovered from coronavirus, they would develop antibodies and be immune from the disease (and maybe they would even be able to help other people, medically or otherwise). But now that can’t be guaranteed. Sailors on the USS Roosevelt have now developed symptoms even though they had previously “recovered” from the disease.
Will Trump and the Republicans in Congress take action to control COVID-19? They are opposing efforts to provide federal money to shore up our protections (masks, PPE), or to help the millions of Americans whose lives have been devastated – their bodies, their incomes, their ability to afford health insurance, their homes – by the virus. The Republicans believe that the lives of ordinary Americans are expendable. So why would they spend any money to protect or to cure them?
ARE OUR CHECKS AND BALANCES BREAKING DOWN?
Trump has fired yet another watchdog. This time the victim is the Inspector General of the State Department, who had opened an investigation into potentially illegal actions of Sec. Mike Pompeo. It is apparent that Trump only fires the watchdogs, who might investigate corruption. Instead, he wants to be surrounded only by lapdogs, who will be cheerleaders for whatever he says, whatever fits his (campaign) narrative – whether it is true or not.
Trump’s constant actions to eliminate any opposition – to fire anyone who even questions what he or his cronies want – seems like the very same pattern that Putin has used to consolidate his power in Russia. We’re not surprised that Russia would be susceptible to such manipulation: After all, they’ve had a history of monarchy, communism and whatever one can call their transition. But we thought the USA’s long history of democracy was strong enough to withstand someone like Trump who constantly tests the limits of autocratic power. Were we wrong to be so confident in our democratic roots? Norms, checks and balances, respect among institutions, would be ultimately constraining.
While designing our constitutional system of government, James Madison it was not enough just to write these constraints into a document (the Constitution). In addition, we must make sure that our institutions themselves are structurally strong enough to check any one person’s ambition.
