I first titled this writing “Thoughts on the Presidential Election” but immediately realized I didn’t need the word “Presidential.” What other election is there? Come to think of it, that gets at the main point of this piece: to my way of thinking, this presidential election was far too big a show — to the extent that it obscured the rest of the political process. Quick, name a bill going through Congress right now, or is Congress even in session? Once they got shuffling, slurring, vaguely creepy Joe out the door, it was wall-to-wall Trump and Harris.
This article or essay, whatever it is, shares what this election cycle brought up for me and invites your best thinking about what I offer. I started writing it on Friday, November 1st, a few days before the election, and completed all but the concluding section by the next day. I then took a break to decide how I should finish it up, the part where I talk about you and me. I completed what’s here on November 4th, so I don’t know how the election came out.
To start this off, the first thing that comes to mind is that the damn thing seemed to go on forever. Remember Asa Hutchinson? When was that? Or maybe better, who was he? I just recall the name.
Words come into my head about what went on, none of them positive: undignified, immature, something out of the WWE or Jerry Springer (remember him?). “Who you calling garbage?” “I am too a smart and strong woman!” “It’s Hulk Hogan everybody!” I read somewhere that two billion dollars was spent by the two candidates. Not million, billion. For a governmental office. Absurd. Crazy. A national obsession. Somebody asked me what I was going to do over the weekend and I answered that I was going to write up something about the election, which I find . . . I searched for a word . . . “ridiculous” is what I came up with.
And it was these two? Three hundred million-plus people in this country to choose from and the system generated two people I find singularly unimpressive—limited in capability, uninformed, simplistic, inarticulate, and Trump, outright sleazy. We’ve come from James Madison to this? How’d that happen? I was supposed to get behind one of these two?
At least, I thought to myself, in a few days it’ll be over. But came bouncing right back, “Don’t kid yourself, Robert, it’ll won’t be over on Tuesday. Right after the election, it’ll be, who runs next time? “Vance, you think? Walz is a joke, but how about The Rock? Beyoncé? Maybe Kelly Clarkson. She’s lost a lot a weight, charming, nice smile. She’s over the divorce. Musk can’t do it because he was born in South Africa or someplace.”
This Election (it deserves to be in caps like the World Series) was but a marker in a continuous, never-ending process. The Dodgers won the Series, but right away it was, “Soto is a free agent, the Yanks are in trouble if they don’t sign him for next year.” The Elect a President show (imagine that in lights like the Celine Dion show at Caesar’s Palace in Vegas, or I guess she’s been sick) will go on to the point that the American political process will come down to picking between two people—a third choice? what do you mean Jill Stein?—to be in charge of the country for the next four years. After this election, it’ll be: “What’s [Trump, Harris, whoever won] going to do about inflation [the border, abortion, Ukraine, Gaza, fluoride in the water, Easter egg baskets, etc., etc., etc.]?”
“You know what?” Kamala said this past week. “We are here because we are fighting for a democracy. Fighting for a democracy. And understand the difference here, understand the difference here, moving forward, moving forward, understand the difference here.” A central pitch in her campaign was that Trump is no less than a threat to American democracy.
Really? We’re a democracy and it’s under threat? A couple of years ago in an article, I wrote this about democracy:
As a matter of fact, we don’t have a democracy in this country. Our form of government is a republic. We pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands. Within our republican political system, there are many departures from simple majority rule. In the beginning, senators weren’t directly elected but rather chosen by state legislators and the President still isn’t (the Electoral College). States with small populations like Wyoming have as many senators as New York and California. The Supreme Court is appointed. The President can veto legislation.
More than simply a republic, America is a constitutional republic. The federal constitution puts a brake on what can legitimately be a matter of collective determination. The Constitution sets up a separation of powers and checks and balances that prevent majorities in one branch of government—perhaps dominated by powerful factions (the old term for interest groups)—from wielding control. The Constitution’s first ten amendments, called the Bill of Rights, spell out protections of individuals from the totality as represented by the federal government. They give explicit acknowledgment of the view that individual citizens have inalienable rights — the term used in the Declaration of Independence. These are rights possessed by all humans and they can’t be taken away. These rights are not up for a vote.
In the early years of this country, the distinction between a republic and a democracy was an important one. John Adams declared, “There is no good government but what is republican.”1
Over the course of this century, democracy has taken on the quality of an unquestioned religious law worth killing and dying for, but that wasn’t the case in this country’s early years. In the article, I quoted a number of major figures from back then, including the aforementioned James Madison and Alexander Hamilton and the respected French observer Alexis de Tocqueville, all of whom were highly critical of democracy. I noted that the writer James Fennimore Cooper saw democracies as tending
to press against their proper limits, to convert political equality into economic leveling, to insist that equal opportunity become mediocrity, [and] to invade every personal right and privacy; they set themselves above the law; they substitute mass opinion for justice.
I’m coming down on Harris here, but it needs to be said that the presidency in this constitutional republic doesn’t square with Trump’s pronouncements about “running the country”—as if being president is akin to playing the boss on a TV reality show.
Over the course of the campaign, it struck me that the people running for president were in effect applying for a job that didn’t have a posted job description. Did you ever hear it come up that the president does this and doesn’t do that? It’s after the fact now, but perhaps it will help up the line if I offer a job description here. It’s what the U.S. Constitution says about the duties of the office of president. It’s in Article II.
Before I do that, however, I’ll briefly refer to what’s in Articles I and III about the responsibilities of the legislative and judicial branches of government, because the presidency does not stand alone: its functions integrate, complement, these other two branches of government. Article I says “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.” Article III says “The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.” The point: the president does not make laws or hand down court decisions.
I went through Article II and extracted what it says about what the president does:
The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.
The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.
He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.
The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.
He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States.
See what you make of it, but my reading of it is that according to the United States Constitution the president is not the leader of the country. He (or she) doesn’t embody the country, represent it, speak for us all, or call the tune. He’s not a dictator, philosopher king, or the Dalai Lama. He needs the consent of others to do things. Congress legislates. The Judiciary adjudicates. He suggests. He executes. He serves.
This past week, Harris said, “Hey guys. Let’s talk for a moment about Gaza. We all want this war to end and to get the hostages out, and I will work on it full-time when I am elected president.” Trump has made it clear that if he got in, he’d get together with Putin and Netanyahu because, you know, he’s close personally with both of them and work out deals around Ukraine and the Middle East. What I would have liked to hear from a candidate is something to the effect, “If I’m elected president, I’m going to urge the people’s elected representatives in Congress to take on the issues in Ukraine and Gaza and Israel and Iran and debate them from the perspective of what this country’s policies and actions should be and I’ll implement whatever they decide.” To me, that is how this country is supposed to work.
So why don’t we do it this way? I don’t want to oversimplify matters, but I think you go a good distance toward understanding what’s going on if you see it as a power play. Those currently engaged in pulling the props out from under the Founders (“Jefferson had a mistress!”) and this country’s political and social heritage (“Racism, sexism, oppression, and exploitation, repeat after me”) and referring to America as a democracy and making a huge to-do of the president know what they are doing. It’s about them getting themselves and theirs dictating what goes on in this country and in the front row at the feeding trough.
If you can sell democracy—putting anything and everything up for a vote; constitutional restraints, including free speech, just get in the way—you take power away from individuals and give it over to the collective, or better, those who can control the collective by monopolizing the information and idea flow, throwing money around, and making people pay if they cross them. And if you can sell the notion that it’s the president and his cronies who decide whether or not to blow up Iran, you just have to manage one person to get your way, and everybody is manageable. Ironically given how they are pitched as putting the masses in charge of their fate, democracy and “the leader of us all” concept of the presidency (FDR was a good example) result in minority control, which in our time is a mix of moneyed big shots, the pseudo-educated, corporate and media elites, revengeful and exploitive ethnic and racial elements, managers and bureaucrats, intimidated and paid-off politicians, and bullshitters.
One last reference to the Constitution. This is what it says in Article II about selecting a president:
Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress. . . . The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two Persons, of whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves. . . . The President of the Senate shall, in the Presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the Certificates, and the Votes shall then be counted. The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President, if such Number be a Majority of the whole Number of Electors appointed.
It’s enough in this context to affirm that the Constitution doesn’t dictate a nation-wide, forever-and-a-day, phenomenally costly, attention-monopolizing, mediocrity-surfacing, and misleading (our political system is not a one-person operation) extravaganza complete with schoolyard insult-level discourse, dressed down business moguls jumping up in the air, and hokey Saturday Night Live appearances.
This presidential election was geared to get us to focus on Trump and Harris—attend to me, care about me, come to my rally, donate to my campaign, support me. To finish up this writing, I want the frame of reference to be what’s going on with you and me. Whatever you and I do about presidential elections or anything else politically is going to be among the finite number of actions that will comprise our lives between now and the oblivion and we need to keep that in mind. Recently in a writing, I took a stab at articulating what I think our lives come down to: “I see our fundamental challenge in life is an individual one: to become the truest, wisest, most productive, most decent, most honorable, and happiest person you can manage in the finite time allotted you on this earth. Sing your unique song and look out for yourself and yours, find someone to love who will love you back, wish everyone well and help them when you can, try not to harm anybody, even in small ways, be kind, and then die, and try to leave some good behind.”2
I’ve decided that my existence as a human being should be characterized by the highest quality possible to me and personal integrity. With that as the standard, I couldn’t get with the presidential election hoopla and inflated conception of the presidency it promoted and neither candidate did it for me as a political figure or person, and these days I’m not into compromises and going with the lesser of two evils and I stayed out of it. I didn’t vote. Sorry, but I’m not sorry.
Though I don’t have a specific person in mind, I do have an image of somebody I could get behind as a presidential candidate in the future. It’s someone like an American president a century ago who has been all but forgotten, Calvin Coolidge.3
Calvin Coolidge became president in 1923 upon the death of president Warren G. Harding and was elected to a full term in 1924. He was a Republican, but that isn’t what draws me to him, he could have been a Democrat. He declined to run for a second full term as president in 1928. He was 56 years old and could have kept it going for another four years, but he thought he had completed his work, wasn’t personally ambitious, didn’t feel a need for the limelight, and didn’t view himself as indispensable.
The big reason we’ve heard so little about Calvin Coolidge is because the people who have done the public talking all of my life don’t like presidents like him. They like top-down, activist presidents who make big things happen of the sort they personally favor, like wars, government control of people’s lives, and showy collectivist ideas: Abraham Lincoln (“Kill ‘em!”), Franklin Roosevelt (“Have I got a program for you”), John Kennedy (“We’re going to the moon!”). That wasn’t Coolidge.
Coolidge was born in Plymouth, Vermont and grew up among Vermonters, whom he referred to in a writing late in life as “hardy and self-contained people.” Coolidge was descended from a people with a history and a heritage they were proud of and he gained strength and direction from that in conducting his life. He was quiet about it, but he cared deeply about others: his wife and two sons, his neighbors, his community, his state and nation. From all reports, he was a civil and giving person. No shadiness and scandals with Coolidge.
Coolidge was educated, an honors graduate of Amherst College where he was a successful debater; accomplished, a successful attorney and governor of Massachusetts; and literate, a serious student of philosophy, Hegel and such. He was committed to racial justice, which included respect and concern for white people. He was rooted in this constitutional republic and saw himself continuing the American story. At its core, the American political system is an experiment in personal freedom and responsibility. It is the opportunity and the challenge to individual human beings to make something worthwhile out of their lives in both the private and public spheres. It cherishes the right of people to control their own destinies. Calvin Coolidge sought to free people, not control them. He didn’t hector people to be this way or that or try to manage their lives and he didn’t take kindly to anybody else doing it. To him, America was about Americans and their lives, not him and his life. He wasn’t trying to be the star of the movie, look at me. He always rented the houses he lived in to keep costs down.
How did Coolidge do as president? The American economy grew, wages rose, unemployment hovered around a low 3%, the national debt went down, tax rates fell, the budget was a surplus every year, and the federal government was smaller at the end of his six years than it was at the beginning. Congress took control of immigration with the Immigration Act of 1924. We didn’t send young people off somewhere to kill and be killed and we didn’t support anybody else doing it. During Coolidge’s years, Congress endorsed by a vote of 85 to 1 the Kellogg-Brand Pact between the U.S. and France to outlaw war as a means of resolving disputes. (Frank B. Kellogg was Coolidge’s Secretary of State and Aristide Briand was the French Minister of Foreign Affairs.) Later, 47 additional countries signed on. Not bad for a nobody-nothing president who’s been tossed down the memory hole of history by the presumed enlightened among us.
Perhaps a Coolidge type will contribute to taming things down politically and bringing us back to what we are supposed to be about as a country and get me off this couch I’m sitting on, at least to vote.
That’s me. Where are you with any and all of what I’ve brought up here?
Endnotes
- See, Robert S. Griffin, “The American Political System and White Racial Discourse,” The Occidental Observer, posted December 13, 2022.
- It’s in Robert S. Griffin, “Kinjies and Me,” The Occidental Observer, posted September 28, 2024.
- This description of Coolidge is drawn from Robert S. Griffin, “Where is Calvin Coolidge When We Need Him?” The Occidental Observer, posted March 30, 2019.
