Ignoring our Republic’s Norms Dooms its Future

Denigrating the norms of a political system can undermine even the greatest and strongest of republics, as it transformed the 400-year-old Roman Republic into a dictatorship.

This past week President Trump continued to ignore the norms of how a functioning democratic government works by finding ways to make changes without seeking approval from congress. His latest maneuver was to pull his nomination of Anthony Tata from the GOP-controlled Senate, when it became obvious that they were not going to appoint him as the new undersecretary of defense for policy. Instead Trump circumvented Congress by appointing him as “the official performing those duties.”

Many of Trump’s appointees, reflect his own behavior of acting outside the norms of how public officials respect each other regardless of their political differences. They are treated as enemies of the public. Conservative columnist David Brooks describes this trend as moving our political norms from emphasizing our common humanity to politics that emphasizes having a common enemy. He points to Trump as the lead offender saying, “Donald Trump has smashed through the behavior standards that once governed public life.”