RUTHFULLY YOURS

Yesterday, House speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that the first steps are being taken to impeach President Donald Trump.  While few people actually believe that these actions will result in the disclosure of any offense on the part of the president or in a formal impeachment vote, the actions signify that what once made America function so much better than any previous nation is now lost.

In the hotly contested election of 1800, the Democratic-Republican Party — led by Thomas Jefferson — won the presidency and control of Congress.  This was not a mere transition of the gavel from one hand to the next.  Each of the two sides believed that the future of the nation was at stake.  The Federalists believed in a strong central government and ties to the British crown.  The Democratic-Republican party favored decentralization to the states.

Still, when the election was over, the Federalists conceded power to the party led by Jefferson.  It is widely believed that this was the first peaceful transfer of power between two groups with opposing views on the future in all of history.

This ability of the American people to alter the course of our nation through the ballot box is what makes our government and our economy function so well.  A government responsive to the people allows them the ability to go about their business safe in the knowledge that government policy and leadership can be altered if they become too corrupt.  You need not fear the government’s desire for your wealth if you have control over that government.

This is why Speaker Pelosi’s actions bode so poorly for the future for our nation.  For the first time in American history, a party and its leadership are refusing to cede the ability to set policy to the president.  Sure, the president was sworn in, sits in the Oval Office, and issues orders to his subordinates.  However, those orders are challenged by the Judicial Branch on baseless grounds.  The nation’s intelligence apparatus work in congruence with the media to conjure up and give false credibility to absurd stories involving prostitutes defiling a bed that President Obama may have slept in some years prior.  The president’s allies within the population are silenced and assaulted, and there is an unrelenting deluge of propaganda against the president and his supporters.

All of this is done for two reasons.  First, the party that was voted out of power can then claim the moral and legal ground to refuse the will of the people by denying the leader chosen by the people the ability to implement the policies he campaigned on.  A corrupt president is one whose will is inherently illegitimate.  Second, this is all designed to quell the pushback from Americans who see what is happening.  Social media are closed off, reporters attack supporter’s livelihoods, and loosely affiliated terrorist groups run free.

What made America function as a government and as a society was that we all believed that together we would decide what is best for our future and that together we would walk down the path chosen by us all.  That is now gone.  One party obeys the law, adheres to formalities, and works within the bounds established by the constitutional framework.  The other encourages the lawless importation of people from all cultures, assists in criminal activity, and refuses to acquiesce on policy when the opposing party is given power.

The truly troubling aspect of this refusal to cede power is the driving issue in the 2020 election and the central issue around which there is so much contention: immigration.  The American people elected to enforce our boundaries upon the foreign populations who are entering en masse.  Now that the losing party clearly refuses to cede political power to accomplish this, we find ourselves in a position where our government is not only unresponsive to our wishes, but acting in congruence with the wishes of that foreign population.

What was at stake in the election of 1800 was not merely the foundation for the government in the United States.  It was a test to see if our grand experiment in democracy could actually be implemented.  Thomas Jefferson and John Adams lived up to that test.  We have clearly failed ours.

There will still be an election in 2020.  Even if President Trump manages to overcome the media, a lawless intelligence apparatus, and an onslaught of immigration from places hostile to his agenda, there is no reason to believe he will be any more successful in curtailing immigration or implementing the other aspects of his agenda in his second term.

Policy is no longer driven by the American people.  The grand experiment is now over.

Joshua Foxworth is a congressional candidate in the 14th District of Texas.