What has "Trump" taught us of the weaknesses of our constitutional republic?

[sweetroxie]

During this horror show, my overwhelming feeling has been one of helplessness and powerlessness. And I see the same impotence in the rules we operate by. There is no one in charge. No one to fix this mess. tRump is allowed to wreak havoc while he is under investigation and there's nothing to stop him. Our constitution is based on the honor system, i.e. that everyone is an "honorable" person and will do the right thing and will honor the rule of law. But it seems that that is not exactly the case. tRump doesn't respect the rule of law at all except to run roughshod over it.

So what are the lessons for us going forward?

[FreepFryer]

1. 1. Repeal Citizens United 2. Reduce Unitary Executive 3. Require civics ed. 4. Fairness Doctrine

Lots more but that'd be a good start

[Binkie The Clown]

2. Checks and balances don't work when the checkers, themselves, are corrupt.

The legislative branch is supposed to hold the executive branch in check. They are failing miserably in that constitutional duty.

[LonePirate]

7. Exactly. Our checks and balances are dependent on the other branches voluntarily doing so.

[rock]

12. Yep

[dameatball]

3. Terrific question. Needs serious reflection.

[Sneederbunk]

4. Founding Fathers never anticipated a rotten exec with other branches complicit.

[MustLoveBeagles]

5. I can think of two lessons

The obvious lesson is to not elect complete novices into office no matter what party they claim to represent. And this gerrymandering and vote rigging has to stop too. I don't really know the solution to fix either problem.

Ediit: FreepFryer and Binky also brought up some excellent points. These problems didn't happen overnight so fixing them will take some time.

[dameatball]

6. It also points out that the so-called fourth pillar exists in a variety of forms

[LonePirate]

8. The Electoral College is no longer a viable safeguard against a corrupted or stolen election.

The EC needs to be abolished. We also need to implement some sort of system to deal with stolen elections like what happened in 2016 with all of the known and/or unknown Russian tampering.

[marylandblue]

9. Democracy is dependant on leaders following democratic norms

Google the book "How Democracies Die." If the Democrats manage to regain power, we will need to re-establish those norms.

[NewJeffCT]

10. A lot of things that were "expected" due to public and political pressure

didn't hold with Trump, so I think those things will eventually be written into law. He couldn't be publicly shamed into doing these things since he has no shame.

1) Disclosure of Tax Returns. It was always expected, but there really was no consequence when Trump didn't do it.
2) Divestiture of business interests. Again, it was always done and always expected. But, no real consequence when Trump did not.
3) There will probably be something written about how to enforce the emoluments clause in the constitution.

And, I'm sure, there are other things I'm forgetting.

[NRaleighLiberal]

11. It is more than our politics - it is our culture. It is our widely varying attributes as people,

but also our weaknesses as a species.

What I've learned -

There are probably generational norms - probably regional, family, social, societal norms to overlay onto it - about what decency is...the importance of truth, and of honesty. Our "system" seems to work best when people are truthful, of course.

Over time, when lies go unchallenged - I think of the Bush years (so many horrors that are now being eclipsed by the mess we are in), so many lies were told, but no one paid. We've been in wars, with few offering any sacrifice.

Our weakness as a species - that it is easier to spread a lie and have people believe it than it is to disprove it. That we tend to believe things when they are endlessly repeated.

The media - split into two, creating echo chambers - the polarization both helping cause the split, and the split making things worse.

Money - greed - power - root cause issues that never have been solved (equality of all sorts).

We are not in a good place socially, culturally - and we've learned that when people stop being kind, decent, nice - when people fling lies about indiscriminately -

then let's add in the dash of religion - that some of our flavors have people thinking that they are already chosen - that they can do what they like - that they can trash the very bible they espouse and live lives in total opposite.

I think what we've learned in the last two years is that we are in pretty big trouble. We will get through it - some how - but it won't be easy. Whether we get the one third of our lost country back, is really doubtful to me. They have done to the darkest of dark sides, and likely have no idea that they are there.

[BSdetect]

13. Ask if we can rejoin the UK?

[kentuck]

14. That our country is only as strong as the House and Senate that we elect.

If there is a weak link, such as the present Republican Congress, then our Republic is very much threatened.