The impeachment of Donald Trump is a tense moment for American democracy

[ad_1]

Former President Donald Trump is scheduled to appear in a Miami courtroom tomorrow after a federal indictment unsealed Friday charged him with thirty-seven felony counts related to his handling of classified information.

Dean Phillips, a Democratic congressman from Minnesota, said of Mr. Trump and the allegations against him: Everyone is innocent until proven guilty, but we don’t need a judge or jury to determine whether his Destruction of decency and dangerous incompetence continue to stain America. Democratic Congressman Robert Garcia of California added: Donald Trump is a fraud who has destroyed our institutions, turned us against each other, and will finally be held accountable by the nation he tried to destroy.

By contrast, only 17 percent of Republicans in a recent poll thought Mr. Trump on how he handles classified documents; 75 percent said he shouldn’t. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy called the indictment a senseless power grab, and several other Republican leaders voiced similar protests. Some of the supporters of Mr. Trumps has even called for civil war, other acts of violence, and public executions of traitor rats behind the allegations.

The Wall Street Journal editorial board called the Donald Trump indictment a critical moment for American democracy. It explained: For the first time in US history, the prosecutorial power of the federal government has been used against a former president who is also running against a sitting president. The board predicts the indictment will roil the 2024 election and US politics for years to come.

New York Times columnist Peter Baker also wrote that Donald Trump’s impeachment is one of the most serious challenges to democracy the country has faced. It represents either a validation of the principle of the rule of law that even the most powerful people face responsibility for their actions or the moment when a large part of the public is convinced that the system is irredeemably damaged by partisanship.

How did we get to this critical moment for American democracy? What is the way forward?

Our passion for this dangerous vice

James Madison wrote in 1787, Among the many advantages promised by a well-constructed union, none deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to destroy and control factional violence (The Federalist Papers No. 10). Madison, often called the Father of the Constitution, was deeply concerned about the threat of factions to American governance: The friend of popular governments was never so concerned for their character and fate as when he contemplates their inclination to this dangerous vice.

The Founders’ solution to this problem, as embodied in the US Constitution, was to create a republic in which the will of the majority and the rights of the minority were balanced. This balance, however, is based on a foundational commitment to objective truth and agreed morality.

George Washington was convinced that truth would ultimately prevail where pains were taken to bring it to light. In a biography of Benjamin Franklin, Henry Stuber wrote, A nation of educated men who have been taught to know and appreciate the rights God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the region of ignorance that tyranny begins.

Because of this, according to Alexander Hamilton, It seems destined to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether the societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good govern from deliberation and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force (The Federalist Papers No. 1).

This is the important question that stands before us today.

A seminar in two paragraphs

For many years, I taught a doctoral seminar at Dallas Baptist University on the history of Western thought. To summarize that seminar in two paragraphs:

What we call Western civilization was founded by the Greeks and Romans on the belief that the world could be understood by human reason acting through objective principles of logic and investigation. The rule of law has developed over time as the cultural foundation for a moral and stable society. Although thinkers differ in their interpretive methods, they hold to the belief that truth is objective.

The postmodern revolution that began in the mid-twentieth century shook this foundation like an earthquake. Building on the work of Kant and Nietzsche, postmodern thinkers such as Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, and Richard Rorty have convinced us that because our subjective minds interpret our subjective sensory experiences, all -claims of truth must be subjective. (This is, ironically, an objective truth claim.)

This insistence on subjective truth soon gave way to subjective morality in the sexual revolution that legitimized pornography, premarital and extramarital sex, same-sex sexual relations and marriage, and the larger spectrum of LGBTQ ideology. . Now we are witnessing the damage the cultural earthquake is doing to our larger democracy and the political institutions on which it stands.

Where there is no law, there is no freedom

Clearly, a large percentage of Americans have decided the guilt or innocence of Donald Trump not on the merits of the allegations against him (which few have even read) but on the basis of their preconceived opinions about him.

This reflects our larger loss of faith in the judiciary: only one-third of Americans trust our courts. We also don’t trust the media to report this story fairly: only 16 percent of us trust newspapers, and only 11 percent trust television news. We also don’t trust our elected officials to respond fairly: only 7 percent of us trust Congress.

When all truth and moral claims are viewed as subjective impositions of personal opinions, there can be no objective laws. And, as Benjamin Rush said, Where there is no law, there is no freedom.

Tomorrow would be great to explore biblical solutions to the cultural crisis. For today, I encourage you to pray David’s words to me: Show me your way, Oh, that I may walk in your truth; unite my heart to fear your name (Psalm 86:11). Now pray them for our nation: Teach us thy way, Oh, that we may walk in thy truth; unite our hearts to fear your name.

Upon receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the last word on truth.

Do you agree?

NOTE: Do you believe that the Fifth Great Awakening is possible in America? At the Denison Forum, we are asking God to have a role in his movement in our country. We believe that understanding the news from a biblical perspective will help all Christians stand up for God in our increasingly secular culture. If you also stand by our mission, please give today to our summer campaign. Plus, any gift today will be DOUBLE with a generous matching grant of $75,000.

[ad_2]