Trump and friends like unchecked power

Gordon L. Weil

“Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.  Great men are almost always bad men.”

These are the classic words of Lord John Acton, a Nineteenth Century British historian.

We seem to have no shortage of eligible “great men” these days.

Having gained a taste of presidential power, Donald Trump proclaims his interest in more and greater power.  He could free his criminally convicted allies, use the government to punish his foes and replace the nonpartisan civil service with his loyalists.  Single-handedly, he would remove the U.S. from international leadership roles.

Civics students could ask how he could accomplish that with the checks and balances of the Constitution.  A complacent Congress and a compliant Supreme Court could help him.  By using dubious state tactics to suppress the Democratic vote for Congress and in the electoral vote count for president, he might gain for himself wide freedom of action.

For his core backers, the fact this “great man” is a “bad” man makes no difference.  Ultimately, his chances for another term could depend on whether traditional Republicans drop him if he is convicted of a major violation of law.  Otherwise, with unlimited power, his unlimited ego could prove Lord Acton correct.

Equally subject to Acton’s principle is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a Trump ally. He has just admitted to one of the most historic lies. As soon as Israel was created in 1948, the international community adopted the concept that Israel, the homeland of dispersed Jews, and Palestine, an Arab state, should exist side-by-side.  Israel agreed. Now, he flatly rejects it.

It has become clear that Israel, under Netanyahu’s long leadership, has had no real commitment to the two-state model with a separate Arab state, even one that is disarmed.  He has simply hoodwinked the U.S., Israel’s willing ally and financial backer, and others.

Israel is now strongly influenced by conservative, ultra-religious parties.  They favor a purely Jewish state with Arabs denied independence and subjected to Israeli authority allowing it to control Arab land. The destruction of Gaza conforms to this policy.

Gaza is being demolished to punish the population for the heinous acts of Hamas on October 7. Netanyahu resists American and European calls for humane treatment of the population.

This policy reveals the extent of his own power.  Though he relies on his religious party backers, his policy denies what they profess to promote.  The bible says that God asks only that the people of Israel “do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with their God.”  Mercy is now missing.

Maine Sen. George Mitchell, who tried to negotiate Middle East peace, once warned that their failure to agree could lead to both sides losing.  The Palestinians would lose territory and Israel would lose friends. 

Netanyahu is making that forecast come true.  The last words of the biblical passage stating God’s expectations reveals that, for Israel’s failures, “you will bear the scorn of the nations.”   

In Russia, President Vladimir Putin, Trump’s trusted friend, shows the excesses of absolute power.  Russia was offered a close relationship with its former opponents, but he chose to continue to assert that his country remained a superpower under his leadership.  Ultimately, he believed his own myth and invaded Ukraine, a nation he deemed inferior.

He believed Russia would win in a few days.  When it failed, it showed the world that Putin’s superpower was gone.  He had sacrificed the historic standing of Russia to serve his own sense of power.

Yet Putin continues to hold onto his absolute power.  He can kill his opponents even if they are abroad.  After he failed to kill Alexei Navalny, his most effective political opponent, he imprisoned him almost indefinitely.  Even foreigners, like Evan Gershkovich, an American journalist, can be jailed endlessly without charges.

Acton’s observation seems to become more credible the longer a “great man” holds onto office. Netanyahu is in his third term as Israel’s Prime Minister.  Putin will soon gain his third term as Russia’s President plus one term as Prime Minister.  If he wins in November, Trump has hinted that he should get an unconstitutional third term because of the controversy surrounding the 2020 election.

There can be no doubt that Acton was right.   Power may come from elections, but absolute power results from leaders abusing their office to promote their complete authority, allowing them to alter the system to reflect their interest, not the national interest.

More important than any issue in an election is the threat that it can lead to the exercise of unchecked power.  Such an election can have more long-lasting effects than any policy.  And it rarely can produce a popular and successful result.

Power grows in a vacuum, one created by passive people. Lord Acton is only correct if we let it happen. 

Correction: House Speaker Mike Johnson is from Louisiana, not Texas, as I incorrectly wrote last week.