As American schoolchildren, we are taught that the great genius of the Framers was to create a constitutional balance of powers that wouldn’t rely on the assumption that “enlightened statesmen will…always be at the helm.” This structure is presented like an ecosystem, as self-regulating and auto-correcting. As the liberal political strategist Neera Tanden observed, however, “The American system of checks and balances is only as strong as the leaders who have the character and courage to enforce them.”
A more detailed and sharply defined set of rules might not depend as much upon the monarchical-like happenstance of whether an era’s politicians are venal or self-sacrificing. As we have had it since 1788—despite Alexander Hamilton’s best efforts—the system’s effectiveness relies on their willingness to be, in those most undefined of personality adjectives, decent and polite.
When we consider the rules that govern American politics, we focus on the written ones: the Constitution, laws and major court rulings. Many of these are complicated but decisive. Others, like the “well-regulated militia” prefatory phrase of the Second Amendment, are nebulous. While some principles, like separation of church and state and fetal viability as it relates to abortion rights, may be hard to define clearly and are destined to perennial controversy, the fact that these seminal texts exist in written English keeps pulling us back into further arguments.
Except during times of crisis—cough, cough—we fail to appreciate that the system relies at least as much on unwritten historical traditions and the infinite ephemerality of good manners.
And not just manners in general, but a specific set of them. Just as today’s airline pilots adopt a calm-under-pressure drawl like Chuck Yeager’s, the landed white males who have run America for the last quarter millennium have largely assimilated the courtesies and values of British gentlemen—regardless of their class origins.
The men who signed the Constitution were predominantly the wealthy elites of the upper echelons of 18th-century society. Most were well-educated men of means. Born in the English colonies, their education, legal training and social norms were rooted in genteel Western European traditions. Half had college educations, often at colleges like Harvard, Yale or Princeton, which mirrored British models. Their legal practices drew on English common law, and their manners, dress and social customs—such as formal correspondence and deference to rank—reflected British gentry ideals. Figures like George Washington and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney embodied the gentlemanly ideal of refined behavior, civic duty and landownership, similar to the British aristocracy.
They set a standard for U.S. political behavior that persisted into modern times, when neither whiteness nor maleness is required to ascend to power.
George Washington, who voluntarily stepped down after his second term, set a precedent of U.S. presidents serving no more than two terms. It wasn’t in the Constitution. It didn’t need to be. It just wasn’t done. When FDR broke the unwritten rule in 1940—Great Depression! World War II! you need me!—many people, and not just Republicans, were outraged. My political button collection includes countless variations of “No Third Term” pins.
FDR, a rule breaker, had previously infuriated traditionalists with his 1937 plan to stack the Supreme Court to his liking. (In fairness, the number of justices was changed repeatedly throughout the 19th century.) When tradition fails, law steps in. Roosevelt’s extended tenure prompted the drafting of the 22nd Amendment, ratified in 1951, which formalized the two-term limit.
Richard Nixon, son of a grocer and gas station owner who struggled financially, famously bent both the law and fair play. In the clutch of his political life, however, he respected tradition more than his patrician predecessor from Hyde Park. As scandal brought down his presidency, Nixon allowed aides like John Dean to testify before the FBI and the Watergate grand jury but directed them to limit disclosures. Nixon respected the system even more than his desire to cling to power. After the Supreme Court unanimously rejected his claim of executive privilege and ruled that he had to release the White House tapes, he complied, including the “smoking gun” recording, which proved his early involvement in the cover-up and forced him to resign.
Those British traditions are dead.
As a real estate developer who became the first American to have never held political office or served in the military before being elected president, Donald Trump came from a family of immigrant strivers. His father, literally a showboater, taught Trump that money was more important than dignity. Trump didn’t aspire to becoming an heir to some buttoned-up 19th century WASP ideal. Nor is he a student of history. When Trump reinvented campaigning by ditching the time-honored cut-and-paste “stump speech” and free-associating at his rallies, he was motivated by laziness. Writing and practicing a talk takes time! Also, there’s no evidence that he knew was expected to do anything differently. Freed by his ignorance of tradition, his appearances became must-see happenings.
If Trump did read up about the nation he leads, he’d learn that fortune has frequently favored Americans who ignored traditional niceties, like Andrew Jackson and his pre-presidential move to invade and annex Spanish-occupied Florida against the wishes of Congress under the doctrine that it’s easier to beg forgiveness than to get permission.
Some of Trump’s verbal tics are “nobody ever thought anyone could do it” and “nobody’s ever seen anything like it.” They’re key to understanding his style of governance and communication. Trump’s spiritual heartland is P.T. Barnum’s America, where being ignored is the worst possible death. The privileged chums who gatekeep the club of power never invite you in just to be nice, even if you’re sort of a billionaire, certainly not when you’re from Queens. You have to overturn the game table, make a splash, break the paradigm, drive the elites crazy. The commoners, who happen to be almost all of the people, will love you for it.
As Trump learned in his first term, however, a populist must govern the way he campaigned. Rule 1 of 1: be entertaining! The razzmatazz must go on!
Which is why every day brings several new outrages, many of them to be abandoned and forgotten within weeks or months. Nobody has ever seen troops on city streets in cities without riots or hurricanes. Nobody ever thought a president could deport people, including green-card holders, to countries in which they’ve never lived. You might not like it. But you can’t deny it’s exciting.
Sure, Trump’s policies can be ideologically incongruous. Having the government buy 10% of the control of a major microchip manufacturer—that’s socialism, right? Or is it fascist corporatism? Striving for peace in Ukraine while encouraging genocide in Gaza—that’s weird! Because we keep trying to figure out Donald J. Trump, we keep talking about him.
Take that, Chester Arthur.
(Ted Rall, the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, is the author of “Never Mind the Democrats. Here’s What’s Left.” Subscribe: tedrall.Substack.com. He is co-host of the podcast “DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou.”)
