From Suicide Pact to Faustian Bargain to the Art of the Deal: Bowing to Presidential Power
The evolution in America of apologies for the cascading growth of presidential powers, which began in earnest in the post-war world and followed a trajectory through the expression of the Imperial Presidency before reaching new heights in President Donald Trump’s authoritarian pretensions, have long found foundation in the misappropriation and misuse of Justice Robert H. Jackson’s famous aphorism, “the Constitution is not a suicide pact.” Apologists for a sweeping scope of executive power—both Democrats and Republicans—found sustenance in imagining a world in which U.S. national security interests were imperiled if the projection of presidential power was handcuffed, depriving the chief executive of the latitude to act with “speed and dispatch,” yet another misappropriation of a famous aphorism, this one from Alexander Hamilton’s writing in the Federalist Papers.
The assertion during the early days of the Cold War of a presidential emergency power, succored by the purported need to act on a moment’s notice, particularly in the realm of international relations, stilled the objections of the few politicians willing to challenge claims of power that that threatened the metes and bounds of the Constitution, lest they face career-ending accusations of being soft on communism. The purchase of silence from members of Congress and many in the academic community, spurred the growth of unilateral executive warmaking in Southeast Asia and beyond, and fed the springs of executive privilege in domestic affairs. At all events, the claims of presidential power were ascendant, while congressional power was in retreat.
President Trump’s predecessors in the Oval Office, adept at warnings about the threats to the nation of a diminished presidency, however, typically adhered to at least notional understandings of the separation of powers, checks and balances and the rule of law, despite their interest in expanding the scope of executive power. In turn, the growing interest of congressional representatives in careerism and longevity in Washington, combined with aims and hopes for some legislative successes that required presidential support, trimmed their appetites for challenging the president. In time, Trump’s domination of the Republican Party and, with it the raw power to “primary” and defeat GOP incumbents, as demonstrated in the election losses suffered by Sens. Bill Cassidy and John Cornyn, of Louisiana and Texas, respectively, has revealed the futility of the Faustian Bargain that GOP Senators have struck with Trump and the exercise of untrammeled power executive power that has flattened constitutional limits.
Sens. Cassidy and Cornyn, typical of GOP Senators, including Wyoming Senator John Barrasso, the number two man in the party, have been Trump accommodationists, bowing to his demands and conditions at nearly every turn. Their loyalty to Trump—the Faustian Bargain– however, was never repaid. They certainly now understand the Art of the Deal.
The loss of an election, and the rare opportunity of a sitting U.S. Senator to genuinely promote the health and welfare of the nation, however, hardly compares to the abject surrender of the constitutional authority of Congress, in both foreign and domestic affairs, in the face of authoritarian power grabs that have defaced republican principles. Congressional acquiescence and thus complicity in President Trump’s soaring assertions of absolute, unilateral power in the realms of foreign relations and national security, which have sacrificed American leadership, credibility, stability and safety, will tattoo resumes and careers.
Trump’s war of choice in Iran, from which there is no viable exit strategy that will allow him to save face, reveals the infliction of pain on everyday Americans, as measured alone by soaring gasoline prices and rising costs of groceries, will render our nation less, not more, secure. If nothing else, Trump has taught the Iranians what was previously an unarticulated, indeed, unmentionable lesson, one that was simply a matter of supposition, that Iran could, indeed, convert the Strait of Hormuz into a strait jacket on the world’s economy.
Trump, moreover, has pursued for Russia was Valdimir Putin has tried, but failed to do, in hollowing out NATO, which has proved to be America’s, indeed, the world’s greatest defense alliance. Trump, without formality, has surrendered American leadership in NATO and convinced Europeans that the United States is no longer a credible and reliable partner.
Participation in a Faustian Bargain–by congressional representatives and community leaders—does not serve the Madisonian constitutional principles, bur rather leads to constitutional corruption and collapse.
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