Using The Party to override the Constitution

I'm not ready to rewrite the Constitution quite yet. Although I have been thinking that it may not have been necessarily the best idea to have the President be both the head of state (like the king in constitutional monarchies) and the head of government (like prime ministers).

Still, Digby is right in this post in saying (in somewhat different words) that we're seeing right now how an authoritarian party can use loyalty to The Party to override the Constitutional checks and balances (The 34 Senator Gambit 07/29/07):

This is why our institutions are failing. The founders never counted on politicians "doing the right thing." Profiles in courage are always in short supply and no government can depend upon good intentions. But they did assume that they would, at least, want to preserve their own careers and constitutional prerogatives. The modern Republicans are so committed to their party that they will follow their 28% president over the cliff, and that is a mindset we haven't seen since the civil war.

GOP power politics have exposed some weaknesses in our constitutional framework: as long as there are 34 Senators willing to back the president no matter what, short of a coup, he can pretty much do anything he wants until the next election. That's always been true, but nobody ever wanted to push it before. Cooler heads have generally known that balance of powers issues should be left somewhat vague and subject to political compromise so you don't get a permanent imbalance you later regret. (The independent counsel law was arguably one of those unanticipated consequences.) (my emphasis)

I would put this in context with two qualifiers.


One is that given the serious dysfunction of our mainstream media, the Republicans have strong reason to believe that they have a very good shot at retaining at least the Presidency in the 2008 elections.

The other is that what she's getting at in that second paragraph is what I would call the culture of democracy. If an authoritarian Party wants badly enough to override democratic and Constitutional restraints, and those who want to retain them are indifferent, divided or lazy enough, they can do it.

I forget who it was (Joe Conason?) who said after the 2006 elections that the following two years would be one rolling Constitutional crisis. But whoever it was, was right.

Tags: authoritarianism, republican party

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