We have a republic: will we keep it?

A version of this was published in the Winter Park Times, Nov. 8, 2019

https://winterparktimes.com/opinion/columnists/setting-a-precedent/

Update Nov. 12, 2019

Admiral William Mcraven, (ret)
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/17/opinion/trump-mcraven-syria-military.html

"It is easy to destroy an organization if you have no appreciation for what makes that organization great. We are not the most powerful nation in the world because of our aircraft carriers, our economy, or our seat at the United Nations Security Council. We are the most powerful nation in the world because we try to be the good guys. We are the most powerful nation in the world because our ideals of universal freedom and equality have been backed up by our belief that we were champions of justice, the protectors of the less fortunate.

But, if we don’t care about our values, if we don’t care about duty and honor, if we don’t help the weak and stand up against oppression and injustice — what will happen to the Kurds, the Iraqis, the Afghans, the Syrians, the Rohingyas, the South Sudanese and the millions of people under the boot of tyranny or left abandoned by their failing states?
If our promises are meaningless, how will our allies ever trust us? If we can’t have faith in our nation’s principles, why would the men and women of this nation join the military? And if they don’t join, who will protect us? If we are not the champions of the good and the right, then who will follow us? And if no one follows us — where will the world end up?
President Trump seems to believe that these qualities are unimportant or show weakness. He is wrong. These are the virtues that have sustained this nation for the past 243 years. If we hope to continue to lead the world and inspire a new generation of young men and women to our cause, then we must embrace these values now more than ever."

If we let President Donald Trump off the hook for misusing the power of his office for his own political benefit we could cause the eventual end of our democracy. There are those who will say what he did was wrong, but it was not wrong enough to justify impeachment or removal by the Senate. Consider this. How Congress acts will create a precedent for some future wannabe dictators from the left or from the right who think they too can get away with it. Many democracies in our modern era have died a creeping death because citizens allowed their constitutions and laws to be abused. Our founders feared the rule of a tyrant (king, dictator or autocrat) would reoccur. They had fought a revolutionary war to rid themselves of one. They wrote safeguards into the Constitution. If those safeguards are ignored, wrongdoings go unpunished, or unexposed, there is a likelihood that sometime in our future we could see our democracy replaced by an autocrat getting away with ignoring laws and the Constitution as Trump did. It is not only about members of Congress who fear being primaried or concerned with their reputation in history. It is also about the future of the kind of governance our children and grandchildren will have. Frequently quoted Ben Franklin on the passage of the Constitution: “We have a republic if we can keep it”. American democracy is being tested.

Important guardrails protecting us from the demise of democracy are written into our Constitution: the separation of the three co-equal branches of government and their ability to have specified kinds of checks over one another. A major difference between a dictatorship and a democracy is that the rule of law trumps the rule of a person in a democracy. In a dictatorship, the autocratic leader tells you what the laws are or mean and persecute you for not adhering or daring to protest. Impeachment by Congress is one of the Constitution's checks against this happening. Important witnesses have braved repercussions to their own futures to provide confirmation of evidence already public in the record of a telephone call between President Trump and the President of Ukraine, and slips of the tongue of officials. Corroborating evidence is emerging from the behind doors inquiry that Trump used the powers of his office to get help from a foreign government for his 2020 re-election bid. The impeachment inquiry is now moving into the light of public hearings and voters will have a chance to see and hear for themselves if this is a sham, an unfair process, and a partisan takedown, as Republicans claim.

Charges being investigated by the House are whether the President asked, pressured, or demanded the Ukraine President to help Trump’s re-election. Soliciting, accepting and using aid from foreigners for election purposes is by itself a crime per election laws. Our democracy, our elections, are of, by, and for Americans, not of, by, or for Russia, China, or any other country. In the July 25 telephone call, Trump asked the new Ukrainian president to find dirt on the family of Joe Biden, his most feared opponent in the upcoming 2020 US elections. He further conditioned a visit to the White House and the release of bi-partisan supported military aid Ukraine desperately needed if they agreed to the favors he asked. That phone call described a “quid pro quo”, a Latin phrase, meaning “I will give you something you want (quid), the release of US military aid and a White House visit, though if you do what I want (the quo)’“, and investigate Hunter Biden’s Ukraine business. That kind of bargaining is used to support national security policy’s established objectives, but that is not what this quid pro quo involved. It was to benefit Trump’s re-election. Trump’s defense that the deal was to fight corruption in Ukraine is a farce since any reference to corruption the President made only mentioned Biden’s son’s Ukraine business dealings.

https://www.newsweek.com/federal-judge-slams-trump-attacks-judiciary-1470674