How often have you heard Democrats and liberals claim that Donald Trump will harm democracy?
If you have paid close attention to the coverage of the 2016 presidential campaign, your answer is—a lot.
“Trump is a fascist,” many of his political opponents have stated, a claim that seems based on Trump’s criticism of political leaders he calls weak and his declaration that he will be a strong leader.
Of course, a strong president is NOT harmful to democracy as presidents of various political stripes have proved.
Did Republican President Abraham Lincoln harm American democracy or save the only democratic nation at the time when he took decisive action during the Civil War?
Did Democrat Franklin Roosevelt harm democracy or protect democracy from the most evil regime in world history when he took decisive action during World War II?
Here’s what’s harmful to democracy — leaders who would never have become leaders if their father or someone else in the family hadn’t also been a leader.
World history has shown again and again that family dynasties rule with the preservation of their family dynasty in mind rather than the needs of the governed.
Currently, the non-democratic nations, i.e., the dictatorships, of Syria, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, are ruled by the children of their predecessors.
True democracies, on the other hand, are based on merit — the best people should be chosen by an open and fair election.
Our Founding Fathers knew from the experience of being mistreated by Great Britain’s King George III, who was preceded by grandfather George II (George III’s father died while George II was king) and succeeded by son George IV, that monarchs didn’t listen to their nation’s people.
Thus, they did not want an American monarchy, and Americans historically have opposed family members dominating the presidency and other important offices.
A nation’s political system is broken if the best and the brightest don’t seek political office, particularly the presidency, because they believe the system is rigged to help a political dynasty.
It’s also broken when its leaders are people who don’t have an understanding of the problems that Americans confront on a daily basis. Family members of previous leaders generally lack that understanding.
Unfortunately, the American political system might be broken. In 1999, the financial backers of ex-President George Bush pushed his son George W. Bush for president so aggressively that a few promising candidates couldn’t raise enough money and dropped out before the first vote.
In 2000, the Bushes became the first father-son duo to be elected presidents since the 1820s.
That same year, New York’s Democratic Party machine ensured that no politician challenged former First Lady Hillary Clinton when she ran for the party’s nomination for the U.S. Senate although she had just moved to the state.
Does anyone seriously believe that a Hillary Clinton who had not married President-to-be Bill Clinton would have been anointed by the Dems and elected? Does anyone seriously believe that no Democrat in the state was more qualified than she was?
Now, Hillary Clinton is running for president for the second time. Had she been elected in 2008, the U.S. presidents from 1989 through at least 2013 would have been Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton.
If she’s elected in 2016, the U.S. presidents from 1989 through at least 2021 would be Bush-Clinton-Bush-Obama-Clinton, with Bush, Sr. having been vice president from 1981 through 1989, and Hillary Clinton having been Secretary of State from 2009 through 2013.
Electing Trump would save the U.S. from four to eight years more of a run of two political dynasties that is, in large part, responsible for producing the anger in the electorate that has spurred Trump to success in the first place.
“Royalty” Is Dangerous
How dangerous are political dynasties? Very, according to numerous political experts.
The possibility of a Clinton dynasty just after a Bush dynasty is so dangerous that a book has been written about the possibility. It’s entitled “American Royalty: The Bush and Clinton Families and the Danger to the American Presidency.”
The author is Matthew T. Corrigan, who is the chairperson of the University of North Florida’s Department of Political Science and Public Administration as well as a professor at the school.
Corrigan wrote the book in 2008 when Hillary Clinton was one of the favorites to win the presidency. She didn’t win, of course, but the book is still pertinent given the 2016 candidacies of Clinton and Jeb Bush, the subject of a different book by Corrigan.
The Republican donor community favored Bush early on just as it favored his older brother George W. in 2000, while the Democratic establishment was so monolithically pro-Hillary Clinton that only one longtime Democrat, ex-Maryland governor Martin O’Malley challenged her.
Bernie Sanders has won about 20 Democratic Party primaries or caucuses, but he was an independent for about 99 percent of his political career.
In his book, Corrigan points out that political “royalty” often has a major advantage in elections, because of name recognition and other factors. One such factor being the candidates’ connections to the financial elites whose donations are critical to the viability of presidential campaigns.
However, he contends that the job performance of political dynasties is substandard because they don’t focus on the needs of their constituents.
“Governments based upon family relations have led to the best documented record of inequality in world history,” he wrote.
“European monarchies until the 18th century produced a decent standard of living to less than 2 percent of their populations. Moreover, over 80 percent of their populations lived on a subsistence level. Beyond economic inequality, most familial governments have not advanced the cause of human rights and liberty.”
Corrigan noted that a Bush or Clinton was part of every presidential ticket for seven consecutive elections from 1980 to 2004. “Never before in the history of the nation have two families dominated the political process in such a manner,” he wrote.
“This two-family domination has endangered the American presidency as a representative institution and has allowed personal, family issues to dominate policy-making at a crucial time in American history.”
Corrigan was particularly critical of the Clintons for advocating a “two for the price of one” power-sharing arrangement during the 1992 presidential campaign.
“For a candidate to seriously advance the proposition that his spouse would hold as much power in a presidency as he would is an obvious affront to the founders who explicitly rejected familial sharing of power,” he wrote. “The presidency is not a monarchy handed off to a spouse or son in a casual or automatic fashion.”
Although Corrigan’s book focused on the national problem of political dynasties, it should be noted that political dynasties have become increasingly important in the governance of states and state elections.
During the 2014 U.S. Senate campaign, the Democratic Party candidate in virtually every competitive statewide election was the son or daughter of a politician who was powerful in that state.
The nominees included the son of Arkansas’ longtime senator David Pryor, the daughter and sister of two longtime New Orleans mayors, the son of Alaska’s only congressman, the daughter of Georgia senator Sam Nunn, the Colorado son of prominent congressman Morris Udall, and the daughter of the longtime chairperson of Kentucky’s Democratic Party.
In most, if not all, of these elections, the Democratic Party establishment did everything it could to ensure that none of these candidates were challenged in a primary.
In addition, the Democratic governors of California and New York are the sons of ex-governors of California and New York, and a son and grandson of Jimmy Carter have been the Democratic nominees for statewide office in Georgia and Nevada.
And here’s part of the Wikipedia entry for Democratic senator Tom Udall of New Mexico: “Udall is the nephew of Arizona Congressman Morris Udall, and first cousin of senior Colorado U.S. Senator Mark Udall, double second cousin of former Oregon U.S. Senator Gordon Smith, and second cousin of Utah U.S. Senator Mike Lee.”
The Clinton (and Kennedy) obsessed Democrats seem to have much more fondness for political dynasties than Republicans, but here’s the good news — the dynasties lost ALL of the aforementioned competitive Senate elections in 2014. Perhaps, the American people are becoming more skeptical of political dynasties and will reject the Clintons in 2016.
