As we enter further into the Trump Eclipse we see the darkness ahead growing more ominous.
Trump, sitting in the Oval Office, recently allowed Musk to pontificate on the judicial reversals of early Trump/Musk excesses.
Musk rambled on that we live in a democracy and that the will of the people must be allowed to take effect through the elected president. He noted that judges are not elected and when they interfere with the mandate of the elected leader they should be restrained or impeached. Trump nodded along in agreement.
Setting aside the obvious point that Elon Musk is not elected to anything, the Founding Fathers did not create a pure democracy. They created checks on that urge knowing that passions can overwhelm reason and destroy governments.
This concept has been expressed for decades by conservatives who love the phrase, “We live in a republic, not a democracy.”
The most conservative exponent of this “truth” is The Heritage Foundation” (see https://www.heritage.org/american-founders/report/america-republic-not-democracy). In their view:
America’s Founders carefully thought through the problems of direct democracy and explicitly rejected this model — and for good reason. They saw that because ancient democracies lacked any social or institutional forces that could check, refine, or moderate the will of the majority, they were prone to great instability, riven by factionalism, and subject to the passions and short-sightedness of the public. Direct democracies were thus vulnerable to tyranny.
Their analysis is correct. And Donald Trump is the tyrant they predicted.
Will they marshal the conservatives to fight with progressives to prevent this, or will the Trump Eclipse overwhelm this nation?
