An Imbalance of Power

A danger to democracy

Power. How humans allocate it, manage it, and confront its ability to corrupt is at the heart of the history of government, whether that be a monarchy, an autocracy, or a democracy. 

The founders of this nation were obsessed with reallocating power away from what they saw as the despotic model of King George III. But at the same time, they put great limits on who could vote and enshrined the tyrannical abuses of slavery. Ever since, our nation has lurched and recoiled along its contentious journey over who has power and how they are allowed to use it. 

We have made progress over the intervening centuries. But we have a long way to go. And the strides we’ve made are under immediate threat. 

As news of the adult film star Stormy Daniels’ testimony in Donald Trump’s election interference trial hit yesterday, we once again saw, in vivid and searing detail, how the former president  weaponizes power imbalances for his own benefit in ways that define his moral depravity and unfitness for office.

The story Daniels told of her sexual encounter with Trump, while legally consensual, echoes the experiences of scores of other women who have come forward with allegations of assault and harassment. Trump uses the power of his position and privilege to take advantage of whatever his perverse whims desire. In the infamous Access Hollywood tape, he boasted of misusing the power of wealth and celebrity: “When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.”

Now we face a moment in our nation’s history that is all about power, its imbalances, and misallocations. It manifests itself at many levels. 

An unelected Supreme Court, stocked with justices appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote because of the antiquated Electoral College, has done almost everything in its power to shift political and economic power to its right-wing allies. They have assaulted voting rights, expanded gun rights, appeased the demands of corporations, and aided Trump’s delaying tactics in other criminal cases. 

The most naked example of these outrages is the decision to take away the power women had over their bodies and health. President Biden, in his last State of the Union speech, looked directly at the justices and called them out for what they did. Using their own words, he framed his denunciations around questions of power:

In its decision to overturn Roe v. Wade the Supreme Court majority wrote “Women are not without electoral or political power.” No kidding. Clearly those bragging about overturning Roe v. Wade have no clue about the power of women in America. But they found out when reproductive freedom was on the ballot and won in 2022, 2023, and they will find out again in 2024. 

The promise of democracy, as Biden indicated, is that power resides with the people and when the actions of those who govern are at odds with the will of the governed, elections can rectify the imbalance. Indeed, we have seen in the wake of the abortion decision a groundswell of electoral victories for abortion rights initiatives and candidates who support them. 

At the same time, however, we have seen an increased embrace of authoritarianism by the Republican Party in service to Trump. The former president has not hidden the fact that if he returns to office he will use the presidency to accumulate power for himself and run roughshod over the checks and balances of our government. We saw in his first term and all that followed that many of the supposed safeguards on the misuse of power in our government were based on norms that Trump shamelessly and gleefully ignored. 

Thus far, the most dangerous abuse of power we have witnessed is Trump’s attempts to destroy American democracy by ignoring the voters and holding on to power despite losing the 2020 election. The Senate could have voted to convict him for those actions and thus bar him from holding future office, but too many Republicans — whether driven by craven loyalty or cowardice — voted to acquit. 

And since that moment, it’s only gotten worse. Last week, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, clearly auditioning for the vice presidential spot on the Republican ticket, went on Meet the Press and refused to answer multiple questions from host Kristen Welker about whether he would accept the results of the 2024 election.

Scott and all those who refuse to embrace peaceful transfers of power do as much damage to the future of this nation as those who ransacked the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021. Democracy doesn’t only die in violent insurrections. It also can die in climate-controlled television studios. 

James Madison once said, “The essence of Government is power; and power lodged as it must be, in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.” It was a sentiment that embodied the fears of the founders, including Madison, who as a young man wrote much of the United States Constitution. It explains why our system so assiduously separates power among branches of government. 

But for the sake of our discussion today, it’s important to understand the context of Madison’s quote. It is from a speech the 78-year-old former president gave on December 2, 1829 to a constitutional convention for his home state of Virginia. The convention was called by residents of the western part of the state who felt political power was not being allocated equitably because it was based on property, including enslaved people, which was concentrated in the eastern half of the state. 

Madison was a slaveholder from the east as well as another former president and slaveholder in attendance, James Monroe. They represented the side with the power and they set the terms of the convention to ensure that the status quo prevailed. But the geographic fissures only intensified. Ultimately, West Virginia would separate from the rest of Virginia and join the Union as its own state in 1863 during the Civil War. 

We are at a point once again where the nation feels as if it could fracture. And once again it is due to an imbalance of power. Trump has been able to weaponize misplaced feelings of grievance into a political movement. He has used intimidation and outrage, the same playbook he used in business and his personal life, to take over the Republican party. But he couldn’t have done it alone. He has been abetted by allies in Congress, the courts, and state governments who leveraged their outsized holds on power to do the bidding of a would-be autocrat. 

Imbalances of power are inherently unstable. The foundation of democracy is that pressure can be lessened at the ballot box. Balance can be restored. 

A nation with a just and equitable allocation of power is the dream of a more perfect union, a fervent hope that is very much at stake this November.