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Gordon L. Weil formerly wrote for the Washington Post and other newspapers, served on the U.S. Senate and EU staffs, headed Maine state agencies and was a Harpswell selectman.
American political history has reached a turning point.
So, too, has the country’s moral sense, at least about politics.
But that did not happen this week. It happened eight years ago, when Donald Trump was first elected president. Any doubt was erased by his victory and the powerful vote for Republicans across the country this week. Except for the coasts, that win was national.
Just as in 1933, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal changed the country, so have Trump and his intent to “Make America Great Again.” For FDR, the emphasis was on a “new” start while for Trump the emphasis has been on greatness “again.”
Before FDR, the nation had been essentially conservative. The private economy dominated and the role of government and individual rights were limited. The economic crisis of the Great Depression and World War II forced change. The New Deal era and American post-war world dominance transformed people’s thinking.
By 2016, Trump had absorbed and embodied the increasing public sense that the country had gone too far beyond its conservative origins. Whether he exploited that sentiment or truly believed it did not matter. He came to be the flag around which the people yearning for the political norms of the past could rally.
That realization was more than the supporters of the politics and institutions of the New Deal era could readily accept. Government was the main tool by which Americans took care of one another, and it was difficult for them to believe that cutting its cost would assume a higher priority than increasing or even maintaining its services.
The political aberration may not have been the 2016 election, but the 2020 election when the old guard barely clung to office. Looking back, it becomes less difficult to understand how bitter it was for Trump and his backers to accept Joe Biden and company who stood as obstacles on their path to changing the country.
This year, Democrats believed they could snuff out Trump’s movement, because of their appeal to growing segments of the electorate and on the abortion issue. The rushed selection of their candidate, made necessary by a president who ignored his own failings, left them running on the hope that the people would inevitably recognize Trump as a mistake.
They ignored the scope of the belief that the government had gone too far, too fast. Social change, focused mostly on the sexual characteristics of some people, was not yet acceptable to many. The lack of control of the border, seen by some as the government’s intent, created national uneasiness. Democratic progressives, buoyed by a few election upsets, overreached.
American politics have fundamentally changed, and Trump has been able to take advantage of it. Originally, Congress was supposed to be the dominant power of the federal government, not the president who had replaced the British king. Parties were not expected to matter as much as the balanced institutions with their built-in checks.
In 1992, Newt Gingrich, the House Republican leader, set out to change the system. GOP members of Congress would commit to acting like a bloc and would loyally back the leader of their party. In effect, the U.S. would adopt the parliamentary system. It has worked and congressional Republicans, whatever they may think of Trump, are totally loyal to him.
This year, the power of the president was further boosted by the decision of the Supreme Court that the chief executive could exercise almost unchecked power. The appointed court, confirmed by the president’s party, became a prime driver of presidential dominance.
Underlying the changes that are taking place is a reversal of what had come to be accepted political morality. It has been a version of the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
In practice, that meant there were certain unwritten understandings about political behavior. The Constitution could not describe every possible form of government conduct, but the early leaders believed there were certain customs that would be observed. They could not suspect that acceptable behavior would change as much as it has.
Trump was clearly behind the assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. He radically denies undeniable facts. He savagely attacks those who oppose him and shows no respect for many people who have earned respect, even if they disagree. The way he denigrated John McCain, an American hero of unlimited courage, went beyond civilized bounds.
If not dead, the constitutional culture is seriously wounded. Unwritten understandings are readily repealed. The Trump goal is nothing less than the transformation of government.
Voters may be ready to believe that Trump does not mean what he says when he lashes out or that he cannot carry out his threats, but they may find his claim is true: He will be a president unlike any other.