We know from their words what the founding fathers believed. Madison and Hamilton in the Federalist Papers express their belief in the necessity for a government whose power is limited, with built-in safeguards against both the tyrant and the tyranny of the mob, because men are not angels.
Jefferson believed in a nation of yeoman farmers, Hamilton in an economy of private manufactures, but also to enable it a national bank and a vigorous public sector providing public works. Franklin spoke for personal frugality, ingenuity and industry; Washington for restraint, order, duty; Lincoln for a government of, by and for the people, all of whom are created equal.
A succession of presidents beginning wth Theodore Roosevelt believed government had a role in assuring the people a square deal, a new deal, a fair deal by conserving natural resources, controlling corporate rapacity, providing consumer protection, guaranteeing the right to freedom of speech and worship, and to be free from want and fear. They sought to protect the right to work and to provide security, justice, and equality. All believed in literacy, free speech, and a free press as bulwarks against demagoguery.
We are now ruled by a zero sum president who was taught at his father’s knee that life is divided into winners and losers. His philosophy scorns the win-win of compromise and meeting in the middle in favor of a winner take all universe. He has shown himself to be tone-deaf, if not actively hostile, to a balance of powers, to checks and balances, the granting of some rights to the state and the reserving of others to the people that are the essence of constitutional government.
Trump has spoken in favor of autocrats, and as if he were an autocrat. He describes the Justice Department as “his,” its lawyers no different from his private stable of attorneys, tasked with putting in the fix. He also speaks of “his” generals. The Us versus Them, my side versus your side dichotomy colors his every judgement.
In his mind, if immigrants to America win, then native-born Americans must be the losers. If we trade with other nations, then we must win — as measured by trade surpluses or deficits. And if we run a deficit, we must address the imbalance by banning imports, imposing tariffs or requiring the other side to purchase our products.
Clearly these notions are absurd. A nation of immigrants has prospered mightily by welcoming talents from elsewhere. And not every trade relationship can run a surplus. We don’t produce coffee or tea in this country so we must either quit drinking the stuff or be losers. Maybe that’s why Trump drinks only Diet Coke. But by that logic, countries in the market for crops we grow or advanced technological products we produce should refuse to purchase them. It would unbalance their ledger. Commerce and trade are cooperative endeavors, which may explain why Trump as a businessman was an expert in bankruptcy.
In day to day politics, we now behave on every issue as if a Democratic win is synonymous with a Republican loss. But if legislation benefits the people that both parties represent, should partisan advantage matter? Logically, no. But if you are wedded to never meeting in the middle, only having fights you can win, you will inevitably accomplish very little. Is nothing really better than a deal in which each side gets something?
Such behavior isn’t playing hardball or being “Tough” and “Strong,” two of Trump’s favorite words. It is often simply pigheaded, intransigent and self-defeating. Examples of how this need for a win at all costs leads to failure are everywhere.. Trump promised a middle class tax cut and a poke in the eye for Wall Street, but when the Republican Congress gave him the opposite, he took it. it was a win.
Beating Hillary and Obama is his idée fixe, so a “win” is defined as undoing anything they favored. Like Obamacare, even if doing so has actually been bad for millions of his voters. War has winners and losers. Diplomacy has compromise. The democratic Rule of Law is slow and involves give and take. Autocratic Rule by Fiat is swift and unequivocal. Guess which ones gets his water hot?
Trump didn’t create the gridlock and polarization that has made self-government in America dysfunctional, but his reflexive refusal to seek a middle ground, his toxic need to always win and to brand anyone who disagrees with him an enemy, to insist on a full loaf when the best he can get is a half a loaf promises a continuing inability to deliver on the grandiose promises that got him elected. The likely result will be to deepen the division and distrust that are undermining American democracy.
It is hard not to recall Shelby Foote, the Civil War historian, lamenting in the Ken Burns documentary the reason that American catastrophe became inevitable: “We failed to do the thing we really had a genius for— to compromise.”