Tom Nichols, author of “The Death of Expertise,” writes that social media have allowed widely separated cynics to form broad movements that contradict expert information. These can then be exploited by demagogues to build political strength.

One explanation of Trump’s refusal to observe the guidelines of his Coronavirus Task Force or the CDC is his general disregard for the superior knowledge of experts. This applies also to almost all fields, including military affairs, national security, climate change, and others.

An intriguing contrast may be drawn between Trump’s own upbringing by parents who deferred obsequiously to his impulses and the possibly opposite formation of his most loyal staff members, including Jared Kushner, Steve Mnuchin, Mike Pence, William Barr, not to mention Kellyanne Conway.

None of these Trump aides probably were coddled like the Donald was as a child.  Nor did any of them likely have the wealth provided by their parents that he did.  Therefore, they were conditioned to defer to his narcissism and have been able to retain their jobs.  They also have adopted his cynical counter theories in the face of relevant experts.  It makes you wonder what ultimate reward they have agreed to or assume they will receive.

The presidency of the republic could not have been envisioned by the Founders to be earned by someone who was able to convince the nation that his instincts outweighed the advice of experts who know the facts of any situation facing the country.  However, the Founders didn’t anticipate an electorate that could be bamboozled by a masterful reality TV show star.  The constitutional government they devised has been proven to be vulnerable to technological and communications innovation.  Excising the current resident from the White House will require a political campaign that adapts to the electorate’s need for entertainment.

The lack of imagination in the Trump administration is leading to the break-up of the

American union. By refusing to lead a national response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the president is forcing each state to harden its borders in order to forestall the undermining of its health rules by residents of other states with less strict (and less effective) corona virus-control policies.

This would be avoided if there were a national pandemic policy mandated on every state. However, the states’ rights argument that underpins this lack of federal action has been rejected by an apolitical disease. There is no justification for individualism when a common strategy is needed to solve a global existential problem.

Could the dissolution of our federation lead to a civil war? Could differences in national pandemic control measures likewise lead to a world war?  They have already fomented chaos. The principle organization formed decades ago to address such world-wide health challenges, the WHO, is under attack by know-nothing critics like Trump who distrust all expertise.

The abdication of federal leadership could make our union fall apart.  The absence of supranational coordination could make humanity fail before an inanimate molecule.

The 6,000 attendees at the 20 June 2020 Trump rally in Tulsa acted like the suicidal followers of Jim Jones who died in Guyana  in 1978.  Despite the warnings of medical experts about the resurgence of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in states like Oklahoma where measures to slow the spread of the virus were being relaxed, the Trump supporters who believed the President’s downplaying of the disease chose to indulge Trump’s egomania by forming a would-be enthusiastic crowd to cheer on his lie-ridden bombast. 

The tragic health effects of that blind faith in Trump’s evangelism won’t be known for a week or two.  In any case, the puny size of the Tulsa crowd may signal the ultimate collapse of the willing suspension of disbelief that brought electoral victory to Trump in 2016.  That  could  lead to the restoration of sense in government in November. 

The Amy Cooper story gives the answer:  She knew that the police treat blacks differently than they treat whites. That was the leverage she thought she could use to rebut the dog-leaching suggestion she received from a black bird watcher in Central Park, New York.  Would George Floyd in Minneapolis or Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta have lived after their police encounters this month if they had been white? 

Many policemen in the country have been trained to believe that, beyond enforcing the law in their jurisdictions, they are stationed in society as the personification of the law.  They are the law, as the typical Western movie script usually referred to the sheriff.  Therefore, resisting arrest is considered by them to be a capital offense, rather than a matter subject to due process.  That means that they believe they can use deadly force to make the law prevail, and not rely on their own skills of apprehension to submit the perpetrator to adjudication. 

For Messrs. Brooks and Floyd an order from the police was tantamount to a fate as bad as death.  In their minds, submission to the likely judgment and penalty that acquiescence to the police would entail were just as likely to result in destroying their lives as running the risk of surviving gunfire or manhandling by the designated defenders of social order. 

This conclusion does not seem to be rational to a white member of society.  The society’s law enforcement and judicial systems work in favor of the erstwhile dominant racial group in the country.  Afterall, whites have crested that system in order to preserve their way of life.  Their way of life has always included discrimination against people of color, although that is not essential to the personal welfare of white members of society.  However, in order to better their well-being, white society has invited or enslaved persons of color to perform economic functions that they prefer not to do themselves. 

That has had unintended consequences.  Inevitably, the black, brown and yellow people brought into society have realized their disadvantaged status; many of the dominant white population also came to realize that inequity countered their own professed beliefs.  Education, communication, and risk—aversion have combined to make the preservation of a discriminatory social system unagreeable for a majority of what professes to be a liberal democracy.  However, there continue to be segments of that society who refuse to concede changes in the balance of social equity; alas the police forces of the country seem to be a last refuge of those traditionalists.

The police are armed in order to defend themselves against an armed foe.  If a physically harmless perpetrator is in flight, he is not deserving of deadly force.  He is normally left to be pursued and brought to justice as soon as possible, without the killing him.  However, the events of April, 2020, have shown that when the perpetrator is a person of color, the normal rules don’t apply.

The least the Trump Administration and his compliant Congress can do is to indemnify businesses for submitting to his encouragement to reopen their operations despite the lingering ill-effects of the pandemic is to indemnify them against liability suits from workers who contract the disease.  An alternative source of relief for business would be to insure themselves against that liability.  The difference is that in the latter case the cost of indemnification would ultimately be borne by the business customers.  In the former case, the cost would be borne by all taxpayers. 

Overthrowing an American president is not a simple matter.  Thank God the military is reluctant to act extra-constitutionally,  However, when political office holders that we have elected to defend our constitution are unwilling to put the interests of the public ahead of their own careers, is it wise to trust their judgment of what the people want?  The constitution is supposed to guarantee that the government adheres to the will of the people; but It is based on the assumption that a majority of the people will know and act in its own best interests. 

If an electoral majority of the people does not know what is in its long-term fundamental interest, a wily politician may act to please their short-term myopic desires and gratify them in order to prolong his or her career and expand his or her personal wealth.  At the time of the founding of the republic, it should be remembered, politics was a duty, not a profession. 

Of course, other duties often are also professions.  Cooking, for example, is necessary for healthy nourishment; and those who are good at it can make a living performing that function for others.  The narrower the function, the more valuable and incorruptible are the services that a specialist in that function are.  Government is a much broader function; in fact, it may encompass all other functions in society.  Ages ago, responsibility for that function was commonly given to a monarch or ceded to a conqueror.  When we were able to organize a method for giving control of that function to the governed themselves, its operation was performed by those who could afford to divert a portion of their attention from making a living or earning a fortune.  They were able selflessly to perform the duty of governing on behalf of the public at large.  When a partisan group or leader defines the function without regard for the common interest, they have to marshal sufficient support to defend that interest or else abdicate their rebellion.    Performing the function of government has also always offered opportunities for corruptly building personal gain.  However, by the 21^st Century personal gain has become almost the dominant purpose of engaging in politics. 

It was always an important component of good government to guard against corruption in the operations of a society.  In the middle of the last century it became an essential function of outside non-profit organizations to uncover corruption in government itself.  When the primary objective of corrupt politicians is the anointment of a totally self-indulgent president like Donald Trump, the naïve faith of the Founding Fathers in the power of a written document to “keep the republic,” may have exhausted its power.  Words alone won’t protect or, especially, create freedom and equity. 

Is resort to a power source external to the written constitution subversive of democracy?  Must our options be restricted to the terms of a centuries-old document?  The ease and ubiquity of modern communications may allow our general devotion to the principles of liberal democracy to be mediated by the interchange of information and opinions through social media.  That is certainly a risky alternative to the rule of law.  On the other hand, the rule of law is already being subverted by direct demagoguery over the same channels of communication.  Donald Trump’s lasting bequest to the country may turn out to be forcing it into the modern era of direct democracy.

How do you remove a delusional person from the Presidency of the U.S.?  His authority is ultimately based on the willingness of those supposedly under his command to execute his orders.  Those who do not, including the military and law enforcement agencies, can, of course, be opposed by those who do.  In the end, it is civil control of the country that must reign supreme either through the electoral process or by organized unrest and rebellion.

The constitutional provision for dealing with a president who is deemed unable to perform as expected is the 25^th Amendment.  Its provisions depend on the agreement of a group of national office holders, who have been selected or appointed by the president with various degrees of loyalty to him, to certify his inability to serve.  The group determines their collective decision on both the ability of the incumbent president to “discharge the powers and duties of his office,:” and to determine whether his actions are consistent with the president’s sworn duty  “to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” 

After advising the Senate and the House of that decision, the Vice President is authorized to assume the Presidency on an acting basis, without the express consent of the Congress unless and until the President notifies the Congress that he is able to resume his duties.  Realistically, that is unlikely to happen.   As a matter of fact, it probably cannot happen unless the President loses consciousness or motor control of his body.  (The writers of the TV series, “The West Wing,” did invent, however, another eventuality of voluntary temporary suspension of a president’s duties.)

Therefore, removing the president from office during his elected term can only be done by extra-constitutional means.  That fact demonstrates the failure of the U.S. Constitution to assure the public’s lasting self-determination.  It does not guarantee that the winner of a presidential election will not act as if his or her victory is tantamount to being anointed by God to reign as an absolute monarch.  As we know from the record of the French Revolution and other governmental upheavals, that sort of change is likely to be bloody and very costly.  It is the threat of that outcome that is the most powerful card for a would-be dictator to play for preserving his freedom to do as he will.  As long as he does not pose a risk to the short-term consumerist and financial wealth of his support base, a strongman president of the U.S. is hard to remove.

Democratic autocracy is a dangerous distortion of the legal mechanism of the U.S. government.  The rule of law by itself is unable to protect the public from the whims of a president who ignores its human interests.  The laws must be reinforced with a wide commitment of everyone to living in an equitable society.  Laws are tools that can be used to implement many different objectives.  Without a set of common goals that treats every individual fairly, our rule of law can just as easily protect a wily manipulator who uses it to feed his narcissism.