Yay! I Think...

It's an understatement to say the 2106 presidential election results were shocking!  Donald Trump's rise to the presidency is unparalleled in the annals of American history.  The American populace was able to witness and be part of what undoubtedly is nothing short of a political revolution.  We may not have drawn swords as our fore fathers did in the Revolutionary War or loaded muskets against our brothers in the Civil War but make no mistake that what happened at the ballot box in 2016 was an uprising of historic proportions.  What Donald Trump pulled off was a bloodless revolution and what we as Americans do moving forward will be up to us.  I am reminded of Benjamin Franklin’s words when he was asked what kind of government the colonies had created in the wake of the American Revolution.  Franklin skeptically responded with, “It’s a republic if we can keep it.”

Donald Trump’s ascension was an in your face assault against the established political class in Washington DC, both Democrat and Republican.  In recent years, our country has been dangerously edging closer to the reasons we revolted against the British in the first place nearly 150 years ago… namely because political leaders have completely lost touch with those who they were supposed to be serving.   Just as the British parliament and crown lost touch with the needs and concerns of the American colonies, our current crop of politicians we have placed in Washington DC have become disconnected as well.  That disconnect has led to an atmosphere of leaders more interested in maintaining their power than tuning into the heartbeat of the nation.  As a result our government has been gradually morphing into nation of two permanent classes, the political ruling class and the voting peasant class.  Trump’s victory marks a reset in showing and reminding the ruling class that their right to govern hinges on the voters permission.

So now what?  We will certainly have a different kind of president that we have never had before and we should be cautiously optimistic as well as skeptical.  In fact, it is not only our right but our duty to be skeptical of our leaders.  We should not simply fall in line with our new leader and think their coattails are big enough to save us.  Under the US Constitution with its brilliantly inspired separation of powers and system of checks and balances, the president cannot be the end all be all to the success or failure of us or our nation.  We the people, are the power behind the nation and we owe it to ourselves and our future to be constantly vigilant of our awesome responsibility and freedom to question authority.  To forget that the power lies with us is to misplace our trust in leaders that inevitably will seek to maintain their power even if it runs rough shod over the rights of the people. 

Unfortunately, we have been increasingly looking to our leaders as the answer to our problems.  We want them to fix “it.” To completely and blindly trust and follow our leaders is naively misplacing trust in the power of authority which inevitably is inherently corrupt.  After all, as Lord Acton who was a member of the House of Commons in England during the 1860’s so poignantly claimed “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”   Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon faith put it another way by stating that, “We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion.”   With that in mind then, it is incumbent upon us as a citizenry to constantly be on guard and ever watchful of our leaders lest we allow them to become what their inherent nature indicates they will assuredly become when they acquire power.

Even though I was not an enthusiastic supporter of Donald Trump I am thankful our nation woke up and took stock of the cliff we were heading towards.  However, that does not mean that I am not skeptical of Donald Trump.  The great thing about living in America is that if we don’t like what Trump does or the direction he takes our country we can and should throw him out of office in four years.  Because of the blood that has been spilt in behalf of our nation we thankfully now live in a nation where we can be participants in bloodless revolutions.  I echo Benjamin Franklin’s sentiments of wondering if we can hang on to the representative republic we were intended to be. The answer is, yes we can, if we remember the words of William Henley in the famous poem Invictus…We are the masters of our fate, we are the captains of our soul.