What’s become a somewhat commonly held view among some of us is the idea espoused by our current president that, “When somebody is the president of the United States, the authority is total, and that’s the way it’s got to be.”
One of his most trusted aides reinforced that point of view with this POTUS-supporting statement, “the president is the only official elected by the entire nation” so ” the will of the nation is given to the elected president.”
Carrying such a banner with stated view into the White House, No. 47, President Donald J. Trump has asserted absolute control by dictatorial actions over the federal bureaucracy and administrative agencies. This “unitary executive” design and beloved conservative scholars’ theory has been repeatedly presented to us during the last 50 years. If ever officially adopted, the U.S. president would have unobstructed, unilateral authority over the executive branch.
Meanwhile, there’s more to this matter than what the conservative view recognizes.
My personal understanding of it harkens back to school history lessons at Astoria High School. Getting acquainted then with the U.S. Constitution, I learned about its three coordinate and equal branches of our government, each representing our nation’s people in equal but different ways: a Congress that votes bills up or down, a president who signs or vetoes them, and a U.S. Supreme Court that decides what they mean and whether constitutionally legal or not.
Where does such a design get us? No single branch of our federal government represents the people’s will. No branch is over or greater than the others. No branch is given total power over the others!
It is all spelled out in the U.S. Constitution and easy to read and understand. Amendments can be found in the Bill of Rights as approved by the states over the last nearly 250 years.
Why? Our founders back in the late 1700s knew the world’s history of monarchial authoritarian rule and didn’t want it for themselves. So, conflicts arose with England, terminating in a years-long Revolutionary War. Hence, by war and peace, the founders sought a system to establish and preserve liberty and thwart tyranny.
With an open mind and thoughtful reflection, one can read the documents that established the limits of the president within constitutional boundaries. Though some limits have been contested over years, Americans have kept the Constitution as our governing lighthouse from the “rocky shores” of autocracy.
Case in point: The American voters chose Trump in part to act on what’s become a chronic border control problem. Nevertheless, that does not mean we empowered him to act illegally, as the law makes a distinction between acceptable and unacceptable means of acting on the people’s will.
Meanwhile, the nation’s judges do their duty by enforcing this difference. This condition of operating a democracy obviously frustrates Donald Trump and those who want a “unitary executive.”
However, such limits by law and order guarantee the very survival of our liberties, freedoms and tenets of a functioning democracy, which must be honored. Failure to do so ensures an end to what a great many of us want preserved as our way of life.
Gene H. McIntyre lives in Keizer.
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