Donald trump has run roughshod over the stature of the presidency. He's squandered its elegance, stolen its preeminence, and diminished its splendor -- all with little subtlety. He's transformed it from the equivalent of a night out to see Hamilton at the theater to a daily episode of the Jerry Springer Show.
During the campaign, the premise for a trump presidency was vaguely defined through a series of long-winded and outlandishly specious promises, perhaps most notably, that Mexico would pay for his border wall. Trump promised to "restore dignity" to the American Presidency after eight years of Obama. He would "make America great again" by being the greatest, best deal-making, most winningest president of all time. And he promised to be exceptionally presidential in doing so.
Those brash promises were good enough to transform millions of politically-dormant backwoods social conservatives, large chunks of independents, some disillusioned Obama voters, and traditional republicans into a politically-energized army of trump hedonists. Even today, while trump's poll numbers are dismal they remain steady which raises some concern about whether a tax cut, low unemployment, and a fairly stable economy will translate into ballot box approval of trump's overall disdain for the presidency. We probably won't get the answer until the November mid-terms.
The Decline
In the meantime, the state of the American Presidency remains tenuous as discernible signs of a growing decline in respect for the Office continue to emerge. It's indicted not only by the growing number of America's championship athletes now declining to participate in what may have once been the dream of a lifetime -- a trip to the White House to be honored by the president of the United States.
There's also the unheard-of spectacle of an American "president" being flat-out declared persona non grata at the funeral of one American icon (John McCain); shamelessly ridiculed at the funeral of another (Aretha Franklin); and summarily banned from the royal wedding of one of America's closest allies.
Meanwhile, imagine a sitting "president" being publicly labeled a "traitor" by the former head of his CIA. Or an American president who is privately mocked by political colleagues, appointees, and many of his fellow world leaders. Imagine a president being called out -- ostensibly on behalf of "Trump Resisters"-- by voices from within his own administration and his own party. Imagine a sitting president who's advised by his own lawyer to avoid testifying under oath before Robert Mueller lest he end up in "an orange jumpsuit."
Is it not now fair to question how the institution of the presidency can be respected at a time when its power and prestige are being abused and tarnished in ways that so widely diverge from our own core values?
Trump has wielded the American Presidency like a bully with a sledgehammer. He's created a dark and capricious institution that has brought shame and ridicule to America. He has utilized its long-held prestige and influence in ways that have created sadness and embarrassment to anyone who cherishes our presidency as an institution.
The donald trump version of our presidency cheapens the pain and sorrow endured by Gold Star families and other survivors of fallen soldiers. Its power is used to grant pardons to its convicted-felon "friends-of-the-president." It bestows its presidential "seal-of-approval" on neo-Nazi thugs and other white supremacist groups. It routinely executes its power in the form of flagrantly-unconstitutional executive orders. It has thus far buried its citizenry under an avalanche of more than 4000 lies. It views America's free press not as the Fourth Estate, but as the "enemy" of the state.
It propagates falsehoods through "alternative facts; it undermines America's law enforcement; and it discredits our intelligence communities. It's used to forcibly ban Muslims from our shores; to deny equal responses in addressing the plight of Puerto Rican hurricane victims; to hastily deport persons from other countries who have fought in America's wars; and to callously separate refuge children from their parents at our borders.
It's a presidency that is void of conscience and bereft of soul. It has been reduced to a cold, crass, cruel and heartless institution; in short, a presidency that's entirely unworthy of respect from any self-respecting patriotic American.
Dead Presidency
If French philosopher Joseph de Maistre's notion that "every nation gets the government it deserves" is taken in context with former vice-president Joe Biden's portrayal of America's presidency as "the embodiment of the federal government," it's likely to produce a fairly ominous visual of America's future. Yet, at the end of the day, what America faces extends far beyond the extreme parameters of trump's personal abuse of the presidency.
Because while a president plays a dominant role in preserving the stature and dignity of the presidency, the true guardians of that institution are the voters, whose judgement is crucial in determining whether the individual it chooses has the prerequisite combination of character necessities required to hold down that office
But it's also Congress, which is not only assigned the tremendous responsibility to serve as a check on presidential abuses of power, but must also show that it has the wherewithal to do so -- as it has shown with prior presidents.
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