Suppose the founders of the United States, who wrote our Constitution and set many of our precedents, could come back to life and get to know the newly inaugurated 47th president. Do you think they would wring their hands in anguish and say, “Damn it. An amoral authoritarian demagogue was elected. Guess our experiment in self-government is over!” I dont think so. More likely they would look askance at him and say, “Yep. We know your type. We made plans for you.”
Men are not angels
The Consitution of the United States was drafted by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay. In a series of essays known as the Federalist Papers, these three founders justified their design of the new US government. They were influenced by philosophers of the Enlightenment, such as John Locke, who developed foundational principles of government by consent. Madison and his colleagues had studied ancient republics and their downfall, and came of age in an authoritarian world. They were well aware that bad people would occasionally win high office. From Madison’s Federalist 51: “The great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”
How can governments control themselves – and survive the ascendancy of persons of poor character? A primary mechanism, explains the Federalist Papers, is the separation of powers of the three branches: Executive (President), Legislative (Congress) and Judicial (the courts). Under the Constitution, no branch can accumulate excessive control, as each is subject to checks on its power from the others. Some argue that Mr Trump has already packed the judicial branch with his loyalists, but in fact most have retained their independence and do not consistently grant his desires – much to his fury. Yes, Constitutional law can eventually be corrupted by elected authoritarians, but in contemporary examples such as Venezuela, Turkey, and Hungary, it has taken longer than 4 years. It is also easier to do where the institutions of government are weak or new.
A show of strength? Or attention-seeking spectacle?
A flurry of executive orders and memos in the days following the Inauguration has generated anxiety. One of these orders halted all communication from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the major source of funding for biomedical research in the USA. My community of researchers works hard to earn funding from the NIH, and depends on it. How concerned should we be?
Under our Constitution, it is actually Congress that makes law, and Congress that allocates funds. Executive orders can generate attention, confusion, and fear – exactly what the President intends. But these orders cannot be enacted if they contradict existing laws passed by Congress, and they cannot re-allocate funds from the budgets passed by Congress. That is why the Wall was never built, and it is why the National Institutes of Health won’t be shuttered. Thank you, Mr. Madison.
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