“He who saves his country does not violate any law.”
That saying, which is attributed to Napoleon, appeared last February on President Trump’s Truth Social page. He was apparently arguing that a nation’s leader—namely Mr. Trump in this case—should be above the law. The belief that a ruler answers only to God has indeed held sway throughout most of history.
But the founders of our nation rejected that ancient concept when they adopted the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. John Marshall, our first Supreme Court Chief Justice, declared early on, in a landmark case, that ours is “a government of laws, and not of men.” We call this basic principle the “the rule of law.”
Dictators understandably hate that idea. Harvard professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt have spent over 20 years researching the tactics that power-hungry politicians have used to undermine the rule of law throughout Europe and Latin America. Their book, published in 2018 and titled, “How Democracies Die,” traces how it has happened time and again.
They show that authoritarians like Benito Mussolini in Italy, Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, and Victor Orban in Hungary don’t necessarily start out by blatantly breaking the laws. They begin instead by violating the unwritten standards of conduct that keep democracies and the rule of law alive—and they encourage their followers to do the same.
Crude and disrespectful language toward opponents is a key part of that strategy. Another is to display disrespect for the courts, legislature, and press, and to belittle the people who work in them. The would-be dictator’s goal is to discredit these institutions as “enemies of the people,” present himself as the only hope against them, and begin to gather all power unto himself.
He replaces independent judges, law enforcement professionals, and other government watchdogs with people who are loyal to him above all else. From there, he’s free to intimidate, corrupt, weaken, or control members of the legislature, courts, opposition, and press. The corrosion spreads bit by bit, often unnoticed by many, until they wake up one morning to discover that all the machinery of government is under the control of their democratically elected dictator.
Leaders and their followers take the first step on this journey when they disregard the standards of conduct that are the mark of true democracies like ours, as opposed to the empty facades found in countries like Hungary, Turkey, and many others, with their crippled legislatures, courts, and press. We’re justly proud of our Constitution and the kind of government it represents. But a constitution is just a piece of paper without the codes of civility and respect for institutions that are the foundations of a free society.
The American people still honor those ideals, regardless of what we read and hear in public media and from extremists on both sides. The respected and nonpartisan research organization PRRI (Public Religion Research Institute) reported in April that nine in ten Americans agreed that “no elected official, including the president, should be above the law.” And nearly eight in ten rejected the idea that the president should be able to ignore decisions by Congress or the Supreme Court.
Many of the respondents sensed a threat to those democratic values, as well as others, in our current President. 52% of them agreed that “President Trump is a dangerous dictator whose power should be limited before he destroys American democracy.” Others, though, at 44%, affirmed the statement that, “President Trump is a strong leader who should be given the power he needs to restore America’s greatness.” The difference between these two groups falls heavily along party lines.
But the crossroad we face isn’t primarily about a political party or our personal feelings about Donald Trump. It's about whether we’ll place our faith in the rule of law, or instead in leaders who claim to be above it.
The death of the rule of law begins with contempt for the unwritten rules that lie at the heart of real democracy. The President started down that road many years ago. His opponents must resist the temptation, which some of them seem to find attractive, to imitate his tactics in the name of saving democracy, a tragic mistake that would seal its doom.
Lowell Harp is a retired school psychologist who served school districts in Ogle County. His column runs monthly in The Ogle County Life. For previous articles, you can follow him on Facebook at http://fb.me/lowellharp.
