How does America lose its democracy? The short answer is: if an unscrupulous, dishonest president is elected, and I am not referring to Donald Trump.
Here is how a president, choosing to sell out his oath of office, operates. Within most government agencies, at the top, political appointments are made — in other words, the IRS and all the cabinet appointments, as well as many other major government organizations, even at the Federal Communications Commission level. These political appointees, under an unscrupulous president, must be capable of playing politics, doing the illegal, and being dishonest.
The high-level political appointees begin rewarding the people within these departments who “play ball.” In other words, if you are not going to be political and do what the president wants, you will not advance in the organization and you will be passed over. If one or two individuals are passed over for advancement, while politically acceptable and pliable workers are promoted, the message becomes loud and clear.
One’s employment and economic well-being, as well as career, depend on one’s political views. Without question most presidents seek to appoint people who are more or less in agreement with the agenda. The problem is when the president’s agenda demands dishonesty and illegalities. In theory the government departments operate to serve the American people and do not function to benefit one party or the other. In practice, a dishonest president and the dishonest president’s appointees can turn the government apparatus, the government organizations, into a political weapon.
One example of extreme policy change done with mere internal change is the following. Under Obama, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) adopted an initial screening exam for air traffic controllers. Those applicants who were unemployed and disliked science received more scoring points than those employed and who liked science. To most observers this is a crazy method of finding the best people to keep the planes from crashing into each other. Nevertheless, if political ideology is the central determinant of actions, government agencies can quickly be turned upside down, resulting in decisions that make no common sense.
Such political weaponization of government departments is easily accomplished by a flimflamming, corrupt president. The kind of president who would tell the American people 'if they liked their health insurance plan, they could keep their health insurance care plan,' and that the ambassador and staff killed in Benghazi were not the victims of a terrorist attack.
This is precisely what happened during the Obama presidency. The laundry list of corruptions is as they say, “as long as your arm.” There are too many corruptions to recount in this essay. Obama literally set in motion the forces to unravel the entire democracy. If people doubt what is said here, they need to review what happened within the following: IRS, Attorney General (Justice Department), EPS, State Department (Hillary Clinton), and the illegalities and lies of the president himself.
The founding fathers provided a checks-and-balances system, anticipating there would be corrupt leaders, but the framers did not anticipate the exceptional loyalty to political parties over loyalty to the nation. Thus, Harry Reid, the Democratic majority leader, in control of the Senate of the United States, blocked efforts to reign-in Obama’s dishonesty (Reid most likely was briefed about the spying on the Trump campaign).
There was no outcry when it was revealed the Obama IRS had dishonestly stifled the political participation in the 2012 election of 1,000 organizations supporting Republicans. Instead Democrats in Congress fought back, supporting the president and his dishonesty, and the fierce opposition of these Democrats was sufficient to allow Obama to do whatever he wanted with the executive branch and its departments, even if was not legal and undercut the Democracy.
It understandable how America has ended up in 2018 with the revelations of a corrupted FBI, Justice Department, State Department, and most likely many other places within the government. The Obama presidency underscores the importance of choosing an honest president and one who believes America is a beacon of freedom rather than something to be torn apart and ridiculed.
One of the saddest aspects of this is that the press, the journalists, and media are not prepared to “tell it like it is.” The complete facts are suppressed on almost every media.
The legacy of Obama is that the Democrats persist in opposition, unwilling to admit what has happened, and a ticking time-bomb of politicized bureaucratic malcontents. The Democrats are tainted by the corruption that went on under Obama and the fact that the Democrats two years later continue to defend the illegalities will eventually haunt them.
If the American people realize the rot and corruption inside the government that Obama left, Democrats’ chances in future elections are severely damaged.
John Havick has a Ph.D. in political science. He was a professor at Georgia Institute of Technology for many years, authored several books and a number of articles, including the widely cited "The Impact of the Internet on a Television-Based Society." His work has appeared in The New York Times, and his recent book, "The Ghosts of NASCAR: The Harlan Boys and the First Daytona 500," is available at ghostsofnascar.com. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.