Biden or Trump? It Shouldn’t Matter!

Whoever is president should make little difference in our lives

George Noga
June 23, 2024

Each presidential election cycle I remind readers that whoever is president should be of little concern. For the first 150 years of our republic, the party or identity of the president was irrelevant because he had little power over our lives. That is just as our founders intended. The Constitution grants the executive only a few enumerated and limited powers within a framework of separation of powers and checks and balances designed to prevent concentration and abuse of power. Who was on the school board, mayor or governor mattered more in our daily lives than who was president.

In earlier times, government stayed mostly inside its constitutional box. Presidents exercised limited power and vetoed unconstitutional bills. Congress used to check legislation to make sure it passed constitutional muster; it did not cede power to an army of unelected bureaucrats which has morphed into a deep state. The judiciary was largely apolitical. States jealously guarded their rights as part of federalism. The media held government accountable. Ordinary citizens held power to convene grand juries and to nullify laws; they valued liberty above all and voted accordingly.

We have strayed from the halcyon days of limited government to an overbearing one that dictates the amount of water in our toilets, which restrooms to use and can’t define a woman. A recent president declared he would stop the rise of oceans. Even King Canute in the 12th century knew better; his famous anecdote was really to illustrate his humility; unlike Obama, he knew he could not command the tides.

We have gotten to a congress that in the dead of night passes 2,000 page bills containing trillions in spending. We have a hyperpolitical judiciary that conjures new rights from thin air and has abandoned equal justice under law. We have become like Lavrentiy Beria, former chief of the KGB, who said, “show me the man and I’ll show you the crime”. Even the FBI and the intelligence community have taken to pushing misinformation. We have a jury pool in many jurisdictions that is too politicized for a fair trial. We have millions of bureaucrats and 250,000 pages of regulations. We have a statist media, neutered states and a populous that meekly accepts all these horrors.

The concentration of immense power over our daily lives in the hands of the president was predictable. Jefferson understood this when he wrote, “It is the natural order of things for government to gain and for liberty to yield”. Free market capitalism has made Americans so rich we forgot the wellspring of our liberty and prosperity. This has given recent generations the wherewithal to embrace socialism and the leviathan state. Any society that indulges in psychologists and acupuncturists for their pets has badly lost its way. Like Esau, we sold our birthright for a bowl of stew.

Unfortunately, who we elect president in November will wield enormous power over our lives. Presidents have morphed into potentates with unchecked power, unthinkable in the earlier days of our republic. We have come to view elections as contests between good and evil. Everything in our lives has become politicized. We view those with whom we disagree as not merely wrong, but evil. This dehumanization of political adversaries sanctions increasingly extreme behavior.

Our liberty is a priceless jewel of inestimable value. However, its setting has become badly tarnished. It is up to us to restore its original luster by putting government back inside its constitutional box. If we succeed, one day in the future who becomes president will again be of little consequence.

© 2024 George Noga
More Liberty – Less Government, Post Office Box 916381
Longwood, FL 32791-6381, Email: mllg@cfl.rr.com