Horrible President? The U.S. Will Survive and Perhaps Thrive

Though the Devil him/herself may be our next president, I'm confident that our country will survive and perhaps thrive. Why? Because the founders of our nation created a brilliant document called the U.S. Constitution -- the blueprint by which our federal government operates. Within the Constitution is a check-and-balance system that prevents any one branch of government from asserting too much power.

Could a dimwitted Devil be our next president?

Of course, with the election just around the corner, the fate of the executive branch concerns us most these days. What if an incompetent tyrant becomes President? First of all, the U.S. Constitution was created to foil a bad president's devilish schemes. The founders understood the fallibility of the human heart. Contrary to 21st century post-modern philosophy that takes a high view of the human soul, the founders realized the intrinsic evil within all of us. They knew that if any one person is given too much power, that power would likely be abused. To prevent this, the U.S.Constitution mandates something called the separation of powers.

To see how this works, let's quickly review the three branches of our federal government. They are the Executive ( the president and his appointees), the Legislative (the Senate and House of Representatives), and the Judicial (the Supreme Court and lower courts). Each branch has the authority to overrule the other branches. Most presidential decisions must receive congressional approval before becoming law. Likewise, congressional legislation typically needs a presidential signature to become law. The Supreme Court can invalidate a proposed congressional law by declaring it unconstitutional. The Supreme Court can also declare an executive (presidential) order unconstitutional, thus invalidating it.

So, when we elect a dimwitted Tasmanian devil as our next president, he/she will be thwarted by the Legislative and Judicial branches of our wonderful federal government. Though the next president will likely cause some injury to our nation and the world, the Constitution helps prevent extensive damage. Also, if the president blatantly abuses power and breaks laws, he or she can be impeached and removed from office.

In my opinion, a bad president can only inflict a limited amount of harm to our country. We will survive and perhaps thrive. Granted, the system is not perfect. If it were flawless, we would never elect a lousy president to begin with. Mistakes do happen, but thank God for our great founders, who created a Constitution with solid checks and balances.

Our country is experiencing a short-term discontent within the electorate, both liberal and conservative, that has resulted in a broad-base desire for radical change. Socialist Bernie Sanders nearly defeated establishment candidate Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination. Promising big change, Donald Trump won his party's nomination by defeating a large field of establishment Republicans. I see all this as a short-term, fluky phenomenon caused in part by the polarization between the Obama administration and the conservative congress. The public, both left and right, became sick and tired of nothing getting done. As chaotic as this current situation is, I think it will resolve itself.

However, there is a long-term malaise that is slowly spreading through the soul of our country. This malaise has been caused by the gradual transformation of the American world view over decades. These societal changes slowly affect change within all three branches government. The malaise affects both Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, zealous and apathetic. The will of American society, if persistent through the years, will cause significant change in leadership.

Our world view has become much less vertical, and much more horizontal. See my blog post The Rise of the Nones, which discusses the 2012 Pew research data showing a steady decline of religious affiliation by Americans. In a nutshell, we are slowly becoming a country that ignores God. This is a long-term sickness of the American soul that isn't directly related to politics. However, it certainly reflects the type of political leaders we elect.

I think it's fine and necessary to criticize our political leaders, as long as the criticism is valid. But there's a big difference between valid criticisms and tasteless insults. All the derogatory language we see among the candidates simply reflects our cultural decline.

The Bible tells us to pray for our leaders. And yes, Scripture says we are to obey them (even those we voted against), though we should not obey those laws that violate God's laws. The New Testament was written during the rule of an evil Roman government that persecuted Christians.

This has been by far the most chaotic and distasteful presidential campaign of my (nearly) 57 years. I'm a bit of an eye-rolling cynic, so my response to this circus has been mostly mocking snickers, rather than anger. In a way, we're getting what we deserve by voting these people in. Though democracy strikes out occasionally, it usually hits the ball pretty good. And thank God for those checks and balances.

So that's my political philosophy contained in a single blog post. The Tasmanian devil made me do it.