Widespread conservative indifference to Donald Trump's personal failings raises fundamental questions. If a President pursues policies we like, and advances our party's agenda, why should we care if he (or she) is of questionable personal character? When it comes to Presidents, does personal morality matter? And if it does, how?
Immersed, as I have been, in the study of early American history, I thought I’d seek answers to these questions by turning to the men who led the American revolution and framed the U.S. Constitution.
Immersed, as I have been, in the study of early American history, I thought I’d seek answers to these questions by turning to the men who led the American revolution and framed the U.S. Constitution.
Like many people in the late eighteenth century, the founders of the United States conceived of human societies as composed of many bodies – individual bodies, ecclesial bodies (“the body of Christ”), political bodies, and so on. The struggle to establish, maintain and restore right order in these many bodies dominated every dimension of life in the early American republic - from the practice of medicine, to disputes over church doctrine and polity, to the founders' struggle to create a new form of government.
The way the founders thought about it, different “bodies politic” function differently, according to their "constitution." Following the French philosopher Montesquieu, Thomas Jefferson identified the "conservative principle" of "each species of government" – conservative meaning life-sustaining, like blood flowing through veins. In a despotic form of government, Jefferson wrote, "it is fear, in a monarchy honor, and in a republic virtue." As a republic, Jefferson concluded, the United States must be established on the principle of virtue, and as a democratic republic, devoted to "the rights of man," it must also be established on the principle of reason.
Virtue and reason - these were the key principles the founders considered necessary to "conserve" the democratic republic of the United States. Across more than two centuries, we have practiced these principles very imperfectly, but the flow of them has been sufficient to keep our body politic alive.
For the founders, this was not mere metaphor. They knew that all bodies die, including the great nations from across the ages. At any moment, any body politic could become "disordered" by threats, from within or from without, to the regular flow of essential principles through it. Not for a moment did they presume that the nation they were seeking to establish would be guaranteed immortality. Quite simply, they did not believe that any body politic could survive the complete corruption of its core principles, any more than a human body can survive the complete contamination of its blood.
In his inaugural address as the nation's second President, John Adams enumerated what he saw as the "natural enemies" to "our Constitution." Most of these were enemies from within the body politic: "the spirit of sophistry, the spirit of party, the spirit of intrigue, the profligacy of corruption." But Adams cited one external, and existential, threat. "The pestilence of foreign influence," he declared, "is the angel of destruction to elective governments."
A foreign power launched an assault on our presidential elections, an attempted body blow to our very form of government. If the harm this assault caused is left untreated, our constitution could be gravely compromised. and our democratic government imperiled.
Ordinarily, in such a time of crisis, Americans would look to the White House for moral leadership, to ensure the necessary circulation of virtue and reason through our body politic.
Sadly, our President, far from advancing these principles, is the very embodiment of the greatest threats to them - sophistry, partisanship, intrigue and corruption. His presence in the Oval Office represents a cancer in the head of our body politic, and the effects of its spread are obvious to all except those who are in denial.
This is a sobering diagnosis. The constitution of our body politic is under attack, from within and from without, and because our President is so utterly lacking in moral character, we must look elsewhere for a remedy to what ails us.
UP NEXT: From Whence Does Our Help Come - Thoughts on Religion and Politics in the 21st Century
AFTERTHOUGHT: Some will justify their continuing support of President Trump by protesting, as the conservative Christian leader Ralph Reed did recently, that the 2016 election presented “a binary choice," the implication being that things would be even worse had Hillary Clinton been elected President. Of course, we will never know whether this would have proven true, and, in the end, it doesn't matter. When the diagnosis is cancer, it does not advance recovery for the patient to protest to the doctor, "but it could have been a stroke!"
The way the founders thought about it, different “bodies politic” function differently, according to their "constitution." Following the French philosopher Montesquieu, Thomas Jefferson identified the "conservative principle" of "each species of government" – conservative meaning life-sustaining, like blood flowing through veins. In a despotic form of government, Jefferson wrote, "it is fear, in a monarchy honor, and in a republic virtue." As a republic, Jefferson concluded, the United States must be established on the principle of virtue, and as a democratic republic, devoted to "the rights of man," it must also be established on the principle of reason.
Virtue and reason - these were the key principles the founders considered necessary to "conserve" the democratic republic of the United States. Across more than two centuries, we have practiced these principles very imperfectly, but the flow of them has been sufficient to keep our body politic alive.
For the founders, this was not mere metaphor. They knew that all bodies die, including the great nations from across the ages. At any moment, any body politic could become "disordered" by threats, from within or from without, to the regular flow of essential principles through it. Not for a moment did they presume that the nation they were seeking to establish would be guaranteed immortality. Quite simply, they did not believe that any body politic could survive the complete corruption of its core principles, any more than a human body can survive the complete contamination of its blood.
In his inaugural address as the nation's second President, John Adams enumerated what he saw as the "natural enemies" to "our Constitution." Most of these were enemies from within the body politic: "the spirit of sophistry, the spirit of party, the spirit of intrigue, the profligacy of corruption." But Adams cited one external, and existential, threat. "The pestilence of foreign influence," he declared, "is the angel of destruction to elective governments."
"The pestilence of foreign influence is the angel of destruction to elective governments." - John Adams
Perhaps all this will help to clarify for you, as it did for me, why the current moment is so dangerous.
A foreign power launched an assault on our presidential elections, an attempted body blow to our very form of government. If the harm this assault caused is left untreated, our constitution could be gravely compromised. and our democratic government imperiled.
Ordinarily, in such a time of crisis, Americans would look to the White House for moral leadership, to ensure the necessary circulation of virtue and reason through our body politic.
Sadly, our President, far from advancing these principles, is the very embodiment of the greatest threats to them - sophistry, partisanship, intrigue and corruption. His presence in the Oval Office represents a cancer in the head of our body politic, and the effects of its spread are obvious to all except those who are in denial.
This is a sobering diagnosis. The constitution of our body politic is under attack, from within and from without, and because our President is so utterly lacking in moral character, we must look elsewhere for a remedy to what ails us.
UP NEXT: From Whence Does Our Help Come - Thoughts on Religion and Politics in the 21st Century
AFTERTHOUGHT: Some will justify their continuing support of President Trump by protesting, as the conservative Christian leader Ralph Reed did recently, that the 2016 election presented “a binary choice," the implication being that things would be even worse had Hillary Clinton been elected President. Of course, we will never know whether this would have proven true, and, in the end, it doesn't matter. When the diagnosis is cancer, it does not advance recovery for the patient to protest to the doctor, "but it could have been a stroke!"
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