Accelerating Erosion
A bad day for the United States of America
Biden pre-emptively pardoned family members. Trump pardoned January 6 insurrectionists.
Biden declared the Equal Rights Amendment was the law of the land. Trump declared the 14th Amendment (guaranteeing birthright citizenship) was not.
Biden declined to enforce the Supreme Court-mandated ban on TikTok. Trump declined to enforce the Supreme Court-mandated ban on TikTok.
Inauguration Day was not a good day for American democracy, one that seemed to render the rule of law gossamer thin. Trump signed about 200 Executive Orders, many of them appalling. But the real story here is the growing reliance on unilateral presidential edicts in the 21st century amid the erosion of will and effectiveness on the part of a legislative branch whose members live in fear of primaries by polarized minorities.
It will take a crisis—foreign, economic, perhaps a combination of both—before the American people will be confronted with the consequences of democratic decay. I fear what they will choose in the face of it.
I too live in fear these days. So sad that, at age 77, I'll be 81 when this scary man finally leaves office. And what then? Is the rest of my life to be lived in such fear?