Of Presidents and Kings

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Dr. Malcolm Cross

Last week was strange.  It opened with a celebration of the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr., and closed with the inauguration of President Donald John Trump.

No—I’m not going to offer a comparative analysis of King versus Trump.  That would be too easy—and also too unfair.  Trump has been a political figure for less than two years; a President for less than three days.  How good or bad he proves to be remains to be seen.

My real point is that we obsess too much about the presidency, and thereby ignore the limits placed on those who would use the presidency to change society.  And in our obsession with the presidency, we ignore the potential of those who, without holding public office, can effect more change than most presidents do.

Whoever is President cannot act alone.  Rather, he works within a system of separation of powers and checks and balances which constrain his actions and limit both the good and the harm he can do.  Indeed, the Founding Fathers intended the President to be subordinate to the Congress on most matters.  For example:

The President may be the Chief Executive, but the Constitution assigns to the Congress the power to design the executive branch of the government of which the President is head.  It is the Congress which determines which departments, agencies, bureaus, commissions, offices, etc. are necessary and then legislates them into being—the Constitution created nothing in the executive branch except the office of President itself.  Everything else has been created by Congress and can be altered or eliminated by Congress at its discretion.

It is the Congress, again through the legislative process, which determines how the President may staff his administration and the degree to which he may direct, coordinate, and control its personnel.  For example, the Congress says the Senate must have the last say over the leadership of the executive departments—the President appoints but the Senate confirms or rejects.  The Congress allows the President to fire whomever in the cabinet he chooses, but it prohibits him from firing members of independent regulatory commissions.  The Congress determines the qualifications for the millions of civil servants who staff the executive branch of government, determines the procedures by which they can be hired or fired, and deprives the President of the power to make most personnel decisions unilaterally.

The Constitution also says that no policy may be implemented nor money be spent except by law.  And while the Constitution gives the president roles to play in lawmaking, it still retains the upper hand if it chooses to exercise it.  The president may recommend legislation but the Congress may ignore him.  The President may veto legislation but the Congress may override his veto, force him to enforce laws he does not like, and impeach and remove him from office should he choose to do so.

None of this is to say the President lacks power.  His powers to appoint, to direct the bureaucracy, to command the armed forces, to make treaties, etc., make him the single most powerful man in government—but not all powerful.  Moreover, much of the power he has today—the power to launch wars without congressional approval, etc.—have been ceded him by customs and traditions which Congress can reverse, if it chooses.

The bottom line is that because of separation of powers and checks and balances,  in all probability Donald Trump will be neither the savior that transforms a corrupt and rotting political system, as his supporters hope, nor the Godzilla That Eats Washington that his opponents fear.  He will probably turn out to be not as effective as hoped for nor as destructive as feared.

And what about Doctor King?  His life and legacy offer another lesson altogether.  What’s fascinating—and heartening—about his example is that he started his quest to transform America with far less power than any President or Governor or member of Congress ever had, and yet he effected more change, and more beneficial change, than almost anyone other than our greatest presidents did in American history.  If he had no office whose formal powers he could exercise, he had no limits placed on himself in office, and hence he was free to erupt from the political system and thereby change it with his speeches, his writings, his peaceful protests and his appeals to conscience.

And much the same could be said about other truly transformational leaders, such as Mahatma Gandhi, King’s role model and the liberator of India, and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the writer who did so much to expose the evils of the Soviet Union and delegitimize its government.  Like Dr. King, neither Gandhi nor Solzhenitsyn ever served a day in public office and therefore lacked the power that might come with an office.  But like Dr. King they were free to peacefully use unconventional tactics, such as protests, demonstrations, and writing,  to challenge existing political systems—those of the American South, the British Empire, and the Soviet Union—and ultimately free those whose liberation they made their lives’ work. 

In making Donald Trump the object of our hopes and fears, we hope too much, fear too much, and obsess too much about him in particular and presidents in general.  In doing so, we give Trump and other presidents too much power over our emotions, at least, if not over our fate.  We should insist that all our elected officials work within the limits imposed by the Constitution.  And we should obsess less about Trump and his presidency, and think more about what can be done by those who never become president, and perhaps do more ourselves.

Malcolm L. Cross has lived in Stephenville and taught politics and government at Tarleton since 1987. His political and civic activities include service on the Stephenville City Council (2000-2014) and on the Erath County Republican Executive Committee (1990 to the present).  He was Mayor Pro Tem of Stephenville from 2008 to 2014.  He is a member of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church and the Stephenville Rotary Club, and does volunteer work for the Boy Scouts of America. Views expressed in this column are his and do not reflect those of The Flash as a whole.

1 Comment

  1. Excellent insight …My concern is that we now have all three branches of government controlled
    by one political party = Now how do checks and balances work when the power structure is in the
    hands of one “tribe’ ?

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