NOVEMBER 6, 2019 – Each of us is born with a hard-wired power unit that lights up ambition and aspiration and powers all plans and actions. The power runs constantly, fueled by will, wind, or whim, depending on individual disposition, experience, and circumstance. Evolution gave us the power unit for survival.
In most of us, power is harnessed. By education, upbringing, and social pressure, we acquire resistors that limit surges before the fuses blow. Thanks to social evolution, the vast majority of us retain and deploy enough power drive to achieve a modicum of success amidst constant competition for finite resources and opportunities. We’ve even learned how to share, borrow, and combine our power units cooperatively and constructively.
Some people, though, are not equipped with surge protectors. Or the protection is overwhelmed by other conditions—paranoia, sociopathy, psychopathy, and narcissism. Such “haywire” people become cruel, criminal, dictatorial, or . . . cruel, criminal dictators. For the simple reason that their power drives are out of control, such people never share or borrow power—they steal and hoard it.
Now enter the Framers of the U.S. Constitution. They understood that in adopting a government structure, they needed to address the reality of power addicts and unbridled ambition. They knew they couldn’t prevent “haywire” people from running for office then taking office. But—with the proper framework, the Framers figured they could temper if not prevent autocratic tendencies and power grabs that would monopolize power.
Of course, we know the core of this framework: “checks and balances”; three co-equal branches of government. For extreme circumstances, the Constitution provides the remedy of impeachment.
What we have observed for the past three years is a “haywire” power addict at the head of a huge power plant; a shim-sham man masquerading as a president in a white shirt, red tie, blue suit bearing a American flag lapel pin, who denies facts as he demands personal fealty. He is transfixed by the display of sparks whenever he crosses wires or orders sycophants to do so for him.
This cannot end well—for him, for his “base” who confuse power plant sparks with Fourth of July fireworks, for the rest of us who rely on that power plant to generate a predictable flow of electricity.
Impeachment is now an imperative. But what will the imperative be if impeachment doesn’t work—not because the offense isn’t profound enough or the evidence convincing enough but because members of the proverbial base have become hypnotized by agitprop and Republicans in Congress want to retain their jobs—and their power? What then? The ballot box? What if that fails to end the crisis—either because “We the people” can no longer keep the Republic or because the “haywire” man declares his defeat “fake news”?
We are witnessing how power corrupts and why absolute power corrupts absolutely. But a good chunk of the electorate doesn’t know or won’t admit what it sees. Let’s hope the latter folks see the light before the power plant blows up.
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© 2019 Eric Nilsson
