Scandal revisited

In my youth I cut my political teeth on the Watergate scandal, which nearly paralyzed the country of my birth for the two years between 1972 and 74. Although my family generally voted Republican when I was growing up, I began to have doubts about Richard Nixon’s presidency after the break-in at the Democratic Party headquarters. As Nixon was implicated in the cover-up, many Americans were increasingly persuaded that he had abused his office, putting his own political fortunes ahead of the Constitution. Three years after his resignation, Nixon admitted in an interview with David Frost that “when the president does [something], that means that it is not illegal.”

Ten years ago, we observed the 800^th anniversary of Magna Carta, a document that the English barons compelled the ill-starred King John to sign after the Battle of Runnymede. Magna Carta is the heritage of all English-speaking democracies and enshrines the principle that no one, not even our rulers, is above the law.

History repeats itself

I had hoped that Americans had learnt a lesson from Watergate and that allegiance to the rule of law would now outweigh partisanship or personal loyalties. Yet half a century later, the United States is in even worse straits. It is dangerously divided between two political parties that once boasted a large overlap with respect to policies. Extremists have risen to the top in both parties, with each doubling down on its most objectionable stances.

The Republican Party is led by a cadre of billionaires whose ill-considered actions are eviscerating the country’s capacities to exercise its ordinary responsibilities with respect to public health, fiscal sanity and international leadership. The President seeks to use the Justice Department as a tool of vengeance against his political enemies. The similarity to Nixon’s notorious enemies list is evident.

Furthermore, in 2024 the US Supreme Court ruled that the president has “absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority.” Given that six of the nine justices decided in favour of the President and that three of the former were Trump nominees, one might be forgiven for concluding that he had “stacked” the Court in his own favour.

The ball in Congress’s court

As I write, the Trump administration has unleashed chaos on both domestic and international fronts. Any office with such power at its disposal has the potential to do extensive harm. In the wake of Nixon’s threats to the constitution, Congress tried with uneven success to recover its own power in the face of presidential overreach. Whether the current Congress can succeed in checking the president during a worse crisis remains to be seen. Next year’s midterm elections will indicate whether it has the will to counter the threats to the rule of law in a country with a long history of constitutional governance.