Hail to the .....King? Post-Inaugural Musings

 Well. Apparently the last time I blogged here was in 2016. Basically a lifetime ago. Eight babies in Heaven now, a married daughter, two adult teen sons, a sixteen year old son, and 21 years of marriage have given me some perspectives, experiences, and much to ponder. That isn't the reason for this return from blogging hiatus though. I process by writing and so this is much more for me than it is for anyone else. I also welcome discussion, so I will share these musings and perhaps a discussion will help me crystalize them further. We are all in this crazy world together, trying to get each other to Heaven, so let's talk about it...

Oh yes, we did the matching PJ pic this Christmas!

I followed the inauguration of President Trump and Vice President Vance with interest. My own foray into Presidential Politics back in the 2012 race has certainly given me a perspective into how that particular "sausage is made." Living in Virginia, relearning much of our American history from more authentic, first hand, and Catholic perspectives rather than from protestant-puritanical-manifest-destiny-winner-writes-the-story-federal-level ones has been eye opening. (I highly recommend Virginia First: The 1607 Project by the Abbeville Institute. The video is well done and well worth the watch and consideration). Perhaps a helpful exercise has also been re-reading the American Constitution with one of my sons (as part of his schooling). Reading about the powers of the Executive Branch as they were set forth by the founders is all at once refreshing and dismaying. We have come very, very, very far from what was first envisioned and recorded in that document. In addition to the Federal Constitution, we are also reading the Constitution of the Confederate States of America and the Constitution of the State (Commonwealth) of Virginia. These are exercises I highly suggest because there are indeed some fascinating things one would discover upon doing so; including that the CCSA focused on emphasizing the States' individual Rights and the primacy of such and sought to limit the Federal reach and Federal Powers. It also federally banned the international slave trade and then pivoted to the states to enact what Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis were actually in favor of: the deliberate and planned phasing out of institutional slavery. The Virginia Constitution included and still includes, a Bill of Rights (a new innovation of the time in which it was first written)! It is argued that the Federal Bill of Rights is modeled after the Bill of Rights in the Constitution of Virginia.

By Samuel Shepherd & Co., Richmond VA - http://www.wvculture.org/history/government/1830constitution01.html, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5300998

All this comparing and contrasting was in my mind as I watched the inauguration on January 20, 2025, and as I read through the (as of Tuesday, the 21st of January) five pages of Executive Orders posted on Whitehouse.gov. As of Saturday, February 8, there are ten pages of executive actions. The first time I visited whitehouse.gov I was treated to the auto-splashed video that really should be called "Trump: The Experience." Subsequent visits have not produced the video. If you have yet to visit whitehouse.gov, do yourself the treat and see if the video plays for you. It is a masterpiece in emotional American nationalistic media. 

Those ten (and counting) pages of executive actions are an interesting contrast to the currently nine - that is nine total, not nine pages - of upcoming congressional actions listed at govtrack.us, one of which is a bill to recognize the National Museum of Play. Obviously Congress has been busy with the confirmation hearings for the official Government positions that need to be filled, but that is still quite the contrast in the workloads of the branches. The giant elephant in the room of those approval hearings (no political pun intended) is that the busiest, most influential, and most powerful person in the Trump Administration right now is arguably Elon Musk. A man who is not subject to Congressional approval because his position is completely made up. Let's talk about that for a minute. 

Upon being crowned  inaugurated, President Trump created a new extension of the Executive Branch.  A branch of the branch so to speak. Not only that, but he gave this new Executive Department the power to expand itself by hiring a team and employees. The goal of this expansion of the Executive Branch of the Federal Government? To shrink the Federal Government. This is a fascinating time to be alive, friends. It is an incredibly novel idea to shrink the government by first growing it. I am not sure that has ever been tried (and found successful) before, but here we are. 

I am not arguing that we don't need to drastically reduce the size of the Federal Government. Good heavens, we do. I am not arguing that the entire system is out of control, corrupt, and off the Constitutional reservation. It is. On one hand, President Trump knows he was elected to fix it. If I have learned one thing after growing up watching Trump make comeback after comeback and deal after deal, it is that when he is determined to do something, he will do it. The man has a tenacious resiliency. He also loves to keep score. That is one of the reasons why whitehouse.gov is meticulously updating the executive actions. It is all at once his version of transparency and also his "I told you so." On the other hand, though, I think we need to admit that we are not the America of the Constitution. We are not the America our Founding Fathers envisioned. We are not the America that has three co-equal branches of Government who are to carry out duties that have not been delegated and left to the states. Neither political party is actually the party of limited Government. How could they be? You can't be cheering on President Trump and his growing list of Executive orders, and then cheering on Mr. Elon Musk and his DOGE and also maintain that you want a small, limited Federal Government. The very Government you are cheering on is a Federal Government on steroids with an Executive Branch on a power-bender. 

By Office of Speaker Mike Johnson - X.com, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=157377497

Now, before I am accused of all sorts, from all sides, let me also say that I recognize we didn't get here overnight. In fact the imperial Presidency has been on its way up since Lincoln. It got another leg up with FDR's New Deal and yet another with Bush's declaration of "war" without Congress's approval.  Then Biden issued an astounding amount of reversals to previous Trump policies in his first one hundred days in office, essentially "undoing" much of previous four years.  So obviously, upon retaking office, Trump had to do likewise. This has been the trend in America. There has always been political tension between those who profess the need for heavy federal vs heavy state powers. New Yorker, Alexander Hamilton, the most prolific of the founders in the Federalist papers, made case after case for a heavy centralized federal government. His southern (and almost exclusively Virginian) political adversaries fought for a smaller and less powerful federal system and a more robust and independent association of sovereign states, confederated under a constitution that articulated the states' duties towards one another in matters of national defense, commerce, and foreign relations. While the latter system is largely "how we started" and was what the civil war failed to reestablish, it is nowhere near where we are today. 

Obviously something must be done. Obviously many Americans are thrilled to see something happening. I too, marvel at the massive amounts of money mishandling, bloat, media corruption, and government-run-amok being uncovered. I think some important and necessary conversations are happening about the duties of a nation with regards to immigration, borders, and security, and even more important and necessary conversations about a Christian's duty to the same. And I, like many, want to feel like I am winning. Like I am finally on a winning team. Like I can believe in my country and for what it stands. However, I can't help but want to issue a caution. 

The Caution: We are in an unprecedented place in history. America of now is not America of yesterday and we have no idea what America of tomorrow is actually going to look like. How does a country, how does a government, walk back from growing itself and gaining for itself unprecedented power? When in history has that happened? When has it happened without violence, a war, or an invasion? Power tends to corrupt. The antidote to that is humility and servant-leadership. In order to have humility one must have a moral compass that leads to virtue. Time will tell what the moral compass of our  King Commander-in-Chief actually is. Let us not forget that President Trump willfully reinvents himself for the occasion as is necessary. Let us pray for his sincere and lasting conversion. 

Then let us not be surprised if, down the road, this goes, very, very wrong. 

Stay with me, here, I am not about to go all doomsday on you, but I think there are some things worth saying and considering. The most important being, if there isn't a clear end-game and end-point to this brave new DOGE-world driven by executive orders and propped up by a Congress distracted by talking about museums and adjusting it's own parliamentary rules, then we are headed for trouble. Big trouble. Don't worry - I also have two options for that end game. First though, we need to just be honest about the trouble. 

Trouble #1: In order for DOGE to do its ultimate job it has to work itself out of job. Then those in power must willingly give up that power. What happens if they don't? A Trump v. Musk showdown? The world's most likable narcissist v. the world's smartest man? They're both rich, so at least money isn't an object. It really comes down to power. When was the last time you saw two powerful men willingly give up that power? When was the last time you saw a government entity willfully and deliberately dissolve itself? Go ahead and think for a minute...I'll wait... 

Trouble #2: The Imperial Presidency is now firmly ensconced in American political landscape. The new modus operandi is when a new president is elected, he will spend the first weeks undoing everything the previous president did, and he will do so by executive fiat. When Biden did as such, Republicans decried the unconstitutionality of it. They railed against the "dictatorship of Joe Biden." When Trump did the same (and continues to do so) those same voices are jubilant. What happens in four, eight, twelve years when the inevitable party-power change happens again? We can expect the same and then-some. The precedent has been set and accepted now. Checks and balances are laughable. We have welcomed a soft dictatorship of election. In fact not only do we welcome it, we expect it now. At what point does the soft dictatorship of election give way to a deliberate dictatorship? I fear we are the frogs being boiled, friends. 

Trouble #3: The American people have forgotten that they do still have agency - to accept or not the trajectory of government. They have forgotten that the very founding documents we still delude ourselves into thinking govern us stated very clearly that 

..to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. (Declaration of Independence)

 The argument will be made that "No! Trump was elected to do just this! The American people won!" Friends, it won't feel like winning when the next President is of a different party, lesser moral character, and more power hungry. President Trump is purporting to fix a corrupt and broken system by using the same methods that got us here in the first place. Novel. Risky. But successful? Only time will tell. In the meantime though, the American people have slowly forfeited the very rights that they claim to be "fighting for at the ballot box." 

What then is the solution? 

I think faced with this unique situation, there are only two reasonable solutions. 

Solution #1: A Constitutional Convention 

...when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security. Such has been the patient Sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the Necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.  (Declaration of Independence). 

Let Trump be Trump. Let him run unbridled side by side with DOGE into the sunset of the nation cleaning up what he can clean, keeping his promises, draining the swamp, and uncovering all the abuses, atrocities, corruptions, and deep states that he can. While doing so, he should turn his political machine loose on the states. Let's elect GOOD and strong Governors and state legislatures. Then, in the last year of his presidency, he should put all his political weight behind calling for a Constitutional Convention to reset and reshape the American Government. Everything is on the table. Even a state's membership in the United States. (Southern states, you want out? Now is your chance. Looking at you too, California). Dissolve the present government by executive fiat. (Why not? Executive fiat has already been accepted as a form of governing!) Institute a transitional government for national security while the convention takes place, to be dissolved upon the new ratification of whatever the representatives from the states decide is to be the next form of Government. We did it once. It lasted.... 200 years. We can do it again. 

Solution #2: Crown Trump King and adopt a parliamentary system of two branches 

Ya'll thought I was kidding with my strikethroughs but I'm actually not. First of all, "King" sounds better than dictator and as much as I have been enjoying seeing corruption uncovered, I have to say that sometimes it feels like we are perilously close to having one. Secondly, human beings are actually wired for monarchy. It is in our nature. We are hierarchical beings. We respond best to authority and operate best when clear authority and structures of hierarchy exist. Nature itself is a hierarchy. Heaven is a Hierarchy. The supernatural is governed as a monarchy, why should it surprise us that our tendency is to want to govern ourselves as such? It is this part of our nature that predisposes us to accepting despotism in various forms and often seeing the destructive results only when it is too late. It is this part of our nature that has allowed the Unites States to morph into a form of government dominated by an imperial presidency. So let's make it official and simply declare Trump the King. 

Beckstet, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

What would said Kingship look like? Well, that would be up to the king but since he has already remade the executive branch into his own image, I think that we can trust that he can morph the other two branches into a parliamentary two-branch system that operates in conjunction with the King. What happens after four years? I don't know. Maybe we elect a new king. That would be novel. Maybe Vance becomes King and we elect a Vice-king. Maybe our Governors elect a new King for us. Maybe we throw elections out the window and Barron becomes the new king. The sky is the limit, my friends. I think Melania could totally rock a royal tiara...I'm just saying. 

Obviously I am being a tiny bit facetious. However, my point that we are made for monarchy stands. It is this part of our nature that we have been fighting against for 200 years during this experiment called America. The actual solution, my friends, I believe lies in Catholic social teaching. 

Actual Solution #2: We need to return to a state that is governed by the Principle of Subsidiarity. 

“A community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need and help to coordinate its activity with the activities of the rest of society, always with a view to the common good” (CCC 1883).

 In other words, in matters of governance, economy, industry, and safety, the lowest possible level of government capable of dealing with these issues, should. To put it another way: let the people closest to a problem deal with the problem; only escalating if resources are lacking. 

Maybe the question we really need to be asking ourselves is how do we structure ourselves, our government, our societies, to operate this way? Maybe then, when we have that constitutional convention, we will know what to do...

Thanks for reading the musing of a homeschooling mom who knows she is far from an expert on any of these matters, yet can't help but see what is going on and take pause. Thank goodness we aren't made for this world. Thank goodness that while much of this is beyond our control, we do have the ability to strive for sainthood every day. We can practice the principle of subsidiarity in our homes. With our families. We can raise saints. After all, in the course of history, it has always been the saints who have saved the world...