DEMOCRACY SOLD OUT

 

The Supreme Court of the United States is no longer to be seen as an independent institution and part of the checks and balances built in to the Constitution of the United States. The separation of powers in government is a bedrock of American Democracy and the independence of the judiciary is vital in upholding the rule of law. The judiciary is there to prevent the executive branch of government or the legislative branch from becoming a dictatorship.. The Supreme Court has been the final arbiter in the legal system establishing the limits to which the executive and legislative branches of local, state and federal administrations can exercise their power. The principle that no single individual is above the law within that framework is at the core.  The rule of law is paramount.

 

To even consider the argument that the head of any executive branch of any organisation is immune from upholding the law is tantamount to accepting dictatorship. To even make the argument is, in my view, an outrage. Mr Trump’s attorneys have stretched the concept of immunity for the holder of the office of President of the United States well beyond its limits. The argument that a sitting president is immune from prosecution of any kind unless or until he is formally impeached and found guilty by a two thirds majority of the senate is despicable. That any individual would be allowed to kill off any opposition and remain in situ is preposterous, or is it that Mr Trump would seek to emulate Mr Putin for whom it appears this doctrine applies.

 

The founding fathers, unfortunately, never contemplated a leader capable of such mendacity, chicanery and criminality as Donald Trump, and so, in deciding on the question of a finding of guilt by the Senate, chose a two thirds majority rather than a simple majority. They clearly shied away from unanimous as being too onerous or difficult to achieve. One also has to bear in mind that when the constitution was established the senate was a much smaller body of 26 people, which is only a quarter of the current membership; however, the fact of presidential impeachment has nothing whatever to do with the basic principle of law. No person is above the law, and most particularly when it comes to crime.

 

It is of course possible for a person to be granted judicial immunity by the State for individual offences, but only in exchange for testimony against other offenders. No one has blanket immunity because of office. That would be contrary to any public policy in any democracy across the world. Dictatorships are another matter, but be that as it may, for the Supreme Court of the United States to even hint that the lower courts’ unanimous decisions thus far need any examination or debate is, as one commentator put it, “selling American democracy down the river”.

 

Not only is the decision to accept the question atrocious, but the scheduling and delay is deliberate interference in an overdue prosecution of Mr Trump and his co-defendants, some of whom have already pleaded guilty. The court knows full well what it’s doing as they could easily schedule and settle the question in a matter of days. This court is no longer worthy of any respect and has merely prepared the planks for the coffin in which to bury the last vestiges of democracy in America.  

 

If the American voters do not come out in fury at this outrage then there is no hope for what we have come to think of as the free world. All we will have left is a Trump dictatorship and a Putin autocracy. East and west with the bodies pilling up in between or accumulating in the frozen north and south.

 

There are too many conflicting energies at large in the world. President Macron suggesting western troops on the ground in Ukraine which would no doubt lead to an escalation of war. There is also a call for a prolonged cease fire in the Middle East, which is having little effect in the face of Mr Netanyahu and his supporters. Violence in the Gulf of Aden, the Arabian Sea and Yemen continues. The list of conflicts supposedly in the interest of restoring peace is growing. Why does it always seem necessary to create carnage to bring parties to a conference table?

 

My anxieties continue to fester, what with the inability of governments to come to terms with its citizens. Elected representatives are meant to work at improving the lot of the individual citizen by improving the lot of all citizens. There is dissatisfaction on all fronts. In France, farmers are turning signs upside down, to indicate their world has been turned upside down. In the UK strikes, never before contemplated by personnel in the NHS, have become repetitious, as have actions by rail and transport workers. Politicians are always declaiming what ‘the people want’ when in fact they are merely claiming what they want. Representatives no longer care about what their constituents actually think, but are so immersed in bolstering a party line that they will say anything and make the feeblest excuses and arguments to support the party line, and at the same time claiming opposing parties have no plan whatsoever. It is no longer about what the people actually want and need, it is about staying in power. Keeping the job is all that matters. Public service is mere lip service. In the UK the electorate is somewhat at sea, floating like refugees on the Raft of the Medusa waiving rags to attract the attention of some distant saviour on the horizon.  Never has a painting been more appropriate to the current human condition across the world. One can only ask, what has changed in the last 200 years besides the capabilities of a mobile phone, which is actually useless in the middle of the ocean without a network? We are left with waving rags for any kind of attention.