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I didn't go to work Wednesday. Too depressed; depressed almost to the point of being physically ill; gravely concerned.

My son came over, I was non-communicative, cranky when I did communicate and after he left he sent me this text message:

"Dad, remember this is America, our Founding Fathers prepared for the day a tyrant came to power and wrote our Constitution to protect us from a tyrant; you taught me this last year during my PoliSci call and I whole heartedly agreed with you. Our country has been preparing for this day since 1776 and we WILL not let this man become a monster. I have faith in our system; he won fair and square. But our country is still the United States, with checks and balances and multiple branches of gov. This man will not ruin this country in fact I believe the opposite, this country will ruin this man."

Bestest boy-child. My Golden Child.

I had written about this frequently and at length and couldn't engage in another polysci discussion at the time and mustered up only a perfunctory, "I disagree." 

Cliff Notes polisci discussion: "I disagree" was aimed mostly at my son's last sentence. The rest of what he wrote was true: that was the Founding Fathers intent, but, I disagreed with the rest in the sense that the FF failed. 

The Founding Fathers failed because, in the end, their structure of fragmented power and of checks and balances--with the intent of preventing a tyrant from coming to power--rests on the agreement of the people, and on the agreement of the politicians. 

A tyrant might not be down with that separation of power shit. One can see how he might not be.

In fact, America has seen an erosion in the Fathers conception of a chief executive with limited power. By uniting in the president the roles of government chief executive and commander-in-chief of the armed forces, the FF fucked up. If you and I have a dispute and I have a gun and you do not, are we co-equal? 

"It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is."

-Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall, Marbury v Madison, 1803.

Tell that to Thomas Jefferson! Marshall did, in McCulloch v Maryland in 1819 and TJ was PISSED; denied that the Constitution ever gave the Supreme Court that "province and duty." 

Ben Carson channeled Jefferson in 2016 with his assertion that it was an "open question" whether Supreme Court decisions were binding on the president. 

Tell that to Andrew Jackson! Marshall did in Worcester v Georgia in 1832.

"John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it."

That was President Jackson's reaction in deed, by refusing to enforce the Worcester decision, if not in those exact words. "How many divisions has the Pope?" Jackson may have said also. John Marshall had no gun in his dispute with Andrew Jackson, who had them all, and hence, with the lack of Jackson's consent, a Supreme Court decision went unenforced.

Jackson was America's first mobocratic president. 

An unschooled, violent outsider Jackson won the mob's support with endless repetition of his--unproved--allegation that only a "corrupt bargain" had kept him from the presidency in 1824. Jackson rode populist resentment into office in 1828. 

Donald Trump channeled Andrew Jackson in 2016 with his endlessly repeated assertion--a lie--that the election was "rigged" against him.

Jackson expanded the power of the presidency beyond anything that had come before, and beyond the Founding Fathers intent. But, he repeatedly pointed out, consistent with the Founding Fathers design. The presidency was the only of the three branches of government determined in election by the entire country. The president stood first among co-equals. It is a conception that has endured ever since.

Four years after Jackson left office William Henry Harrison proved that the Founding Fathers had not prepared for the day when a candidate would win the presidency via the big lie. A wealthy pro-slavery landowner Harrison co-opted Jackson's image as the champion of the common man and portrayed himself as a log cabin-living, hard cider-drinking, anti-elite. The big lie worked.

William Henry Harrison did not expand the power of the presidency for he died 32 days into his administration, only that of the big lie in winning the office.

What can we do now? In running through the possibilities we first rule out what we cannot do.By 1841 therefore the mold for future presidents had been set. The giant, tied up and chained down by the Lilliputians, broke his chains. The system of checks and balances and of divided government proved to weak to restrain him. We cannot rely on the Founding Fathers.

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