I caught but a glimpse of yesterday’s Republican debates in Milwaukee, but it was a scary glimpse.
The eight candidates were asked whether they’d still support Donald Trump if he were convicted of subverting the Constitution.
Seven out of eight right hands shot up, and one, Vivek Ramaswamy’s, stayed in that position long after the others went down.
Let me see if I get this right. Those magnificent seven, one of whom may well end up swearing tautologically to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States”, in fact despise it.
Hypothetically, they see nothing wrong with a convicted felon running the country. And not just any old felon, but one specifically guilty of stomping the Constitution into the dirt.
Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying Trump is guilty of the charges against him. Neither am I saying he is innocent. For my purposes today, it doesn’t matter one way or the other. Either possibility is equally bad; both represent a triumph of politics over the law.
It’s to prevent such a Pyrrhic victory that England and, following her lead, America produced constitutions whose lynchpin is independent judiciary. The rule of law thus becomes absolute: it’s immune to political pressures or passions.
Such is the theory – in the past also the practice – of Western constitutional polity. When the practice gets divorced from the theory, the constitution becomes for all practical purposes null and void.
If Trump is indeed found – and is – guilty, continuing to support him as a presidential candidate will betoken utter contempt for the law. Political expediency will rule.
Yet even if Trump is found – and is – not guilty, the law will still have suffered a shattering blow. That would probably mean that the charges were spurious, brought by the governing political party for purely political reasons. The exculpatory verdict would be good news for Trump, but the trial would be rotten news for the rule of law.
By declaring their support for Trump whatever the outcome, the seven Republican candidates showed they knew all that and didn’t care. Since Trump is still the likeliest Republican nominee, they didn’t want to jeopardise their careers by putting the law above politics. After all, any one of them could end up as Trump’s running mate – and tomorrow the world.
Unlike the former president of the United States, the former president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, has already been tried on similar charges on two separate occasions and found guilty.
Sarkozy’s first conviction in 2021 earned him a sentence of three years, two of them suspended and one in prison. His appeal is still pending, but meanwhile he was convicted at a second trial, receiving a sentence of one year under home confinement.
One would think a former president convicted of breaking the constitutional law of the land would be dead and buried as a factor in the country’s politics. That’s how it would be if France were indeed ruled by law rather than by political vicissitudes.
But in fact Sarkozy retains much of his influence on France’s Republican (Gaullist) Party. Specifically, he tries to persuade it that his old friend Vlad Putin is France’s friend as well. Hence France should stop supporting the “belligerent” Ukraine and force her to cede some of her territory.
As he writes in his recently released memoirs, “Ukraine must pledge to remain neutral… Nato could at the same time affirm its willingness to respect and take into account Russia’s historic fear of being encircled by unfriendly neighbours.”
This is the idiom used by every Putinversteher and indeed by Putin himself. It doesn’t matter to any of them whether or not such fears are founded. They exist, and because they do we shouldn’t try to contain Russia’s imperial ambitions.
Interestingly, this view is shared by the victor in yesterday’s debate, Vivek Ramaswamy, who proved his ability to keep his right hand up longer than his rivals. Trump’s own position on this issue isn’t a million miles away either – but this isn’t my subject today.
My theme today is the diminishing respect for the law throughout the West, with the US and France as only two illustrations of a dominant trend. Neither domestic nor international law is untouched by palpable contempt; both are held hostage to politics.
Thus the leaders, past, present and possibly future, of what used to be the free world don’t see anything unacceptable in Russia’s flagrant violation of international law – just as they are ready to dismiss violations of domestic law as irrelevant.
They thereby show their ignorance of what it was that made the West synonymous with the free world. That world wasn’t free because it practised some form of democracy, as is widely believed. No method of governance is a guarantor of freedom, as any commentator on today’s cancel culture will acknowledge.
People are equally capable of voting for a Churchill or for a Hitler, with democracy served in either case. Yet in one of the outcomes, under some conditions perhaps even in both, freedom would be abused if the law suffers even the slightest attrition.
Only the supremacy of just law over politics guarantees freedom and social tranquillity. This immutable observation applies both domestically and internationally.
Allowing politics to rule the roost at the expense of the law is a recipe for civil war at home and even world war abroad. Whatever our political tastes and passions, we should subjugate them to our unwavering respect for justice.
This understanding used to be shared universally, certainly within the political class of the West. As the Republican candidates showed yesterday, it no longer is, certainly not to the same extent.
The situation is fraught. If politics trumps justice, a country can find itself at the mercy of any charismatic demagogue good at rabble-rousing. That would test the sturdiness of the braces holding the country together, and they may not hold.
Hobbesian war of all against all may well follow, and no country in the world is immune to such a disaster. I do hope our leaders will sort out their priorities and arrange them in the right descending order.
Oh yes, we all remember the case against Al Gore for disputing the election in Florida in 2000 – oh wait! That never happened!
Might I recommend, Mr. Boot., that you reread the Bill of Rights. Perhaps you should pay attention to the last clause, that of petitioning the government for a redress of grievances?
The rich and famous have always had a bit more leeway with the law than the rest of us, up to a certain point. (Well, sometimes beyond that point. How does one spell “Chappaquiddick”?) But starting with President Clinton, it seems all of our Presidents or their cabinets have had some involvement with criminal conduct. Of course, the degree to which the perceived transgression is prosecuted depends on the perpetrator’s political party.
However, supporting a convicted felon is something else. I did not watch the debate, but I assume that every participant who raised his hand did so to woo Trump supporters. I assume they were not given time to explain their position. This is just another example of the ridiculous format of these debates. They are always reduced to sound bites and no issue is ever discussed in full. Just another dog and pony show for the illiterate electorate.
You don’t seem to distinguish between Mr Trump being convicted of subverting the Constitution and Mr Trump being guilty of subverting the Constitution. What court can be sufficiently free of bias to deliver a reliable verdict on a defendant whom every potential judge and juror already either loves or hates? I’m reminded of the trial of King Charles I, though even Mr Trump’s most fervent fans are unlikely ever to venerate him as a saint.
We are certainly very close to living in a culture without the benefit of the rule of law. This is terrifying, but not surprising. Why should one part of Classical-Christian culture be preserved when all the other parts have been ruined?
Why should one part of Classical-Christian culture be preserved when all the other parts have been ruined?
Why should one part of Classical-Christian culture be preserved when all the other parts have been ruined?
An interesting question! I know too little about other cultures, such as those of SE Asia. Did they have widely applied systems of law?
Of course what we now know as the US shot itself in the foot by separating from the UK where law continued (continues) to develop and was never lost.
I hope you understand that I was asking a rhetorical question. The abolition beyond recall of every element of Classical-Christian culture is the objective of that culture’s enemies.
India and China certainly had ancient laws, comparable to the Common Law shared by the UK and the USA. The ancient legal tradition of China has obviously been abolished by Marxism. I don’t know in detail what’s happened to the ancient and venerable laws of India, but I do know that M K Gandhi aimed to overturn a large part of them by abolishing the caste system, not gradually (which might have been admirable) but suddenly (which has proved disastrous).
The common principle in all these cases is that everything that has lasted a long time and been proved to work pretty well must be destroyed in order to build Hell on Earth.