The Optimism of the
American Presidency
[Print version of this editorial]
Nov. 4—As this article goes to press, President Trump has just embarked on his twelve-day tour of Asia, a trip which will include participation in both the APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting and the ASEAN summit; visits to Japan, China, Korea, the Philippines, and Vietnam; and personal meetings with President Xi Jinping of China and other heads of state, probably including Russia’s President Vladimir Putin.
The most important component of the President’s trip will be his Nov. 8-10 visit to China and the discussions between the Chinese and American Presidents. These discussions will commence less than three weeks after the conclusion of the 19th Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), a Congress which incorporated the economic philosophy of the Belt and Road (or New Silk Road) Initiative (BRI) into the Constitution of the CPC. Under President Xi’s direction, China has now constitutionally dedicated itself to making the global development initiatives of the Belt and Road the foundation for all Chinese economic policy.
We are at an historic moment of great possibilities. Opportunities abound for the complete eradication of cold-war geopolitics in U.S.A.-Chinese relations, and the door is wide open for American participation in the projects of the Belt and Road. The combination of the decisions taken at the 19th Party Congress, together with new potential arising from the President’s Asia trip, anticipates a new era of global cooperation and the greatest world-wide physical economic development in the history of the human species. The opportunity for a breakthrough in relations between the two nations was clearly signaled by an editorial, “China, U.S. Presidents To Map Out Future Relations,” which appeared in the official press agency of the People’s Republic of China, Xinhua, this morning.
The era of trans-Atlantic triumphalism following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 is now crumbling. Even in the earliest days of his presidential campaign—in 2015 and 2016—Donald Trump was explicit that his intention was to end the sixteen years of Permanent War which our nation suffered through under the Bush and Obama Presidencies—to end the policy of regime change, to reject military adventurism, and to rebuild relations with both Russia and China. Since his inauguration, Trump’s friendly initiatives to both Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping have given proof that this stated intention was not mere campaign rhetoric. It is precisely the President’s determination to pursue such a dramatic strategic shift that has put him in the cross-hairs of the London-Wall Street trans-Atlantic oligarchy,—their rabid desire to remove him from office—and it is certainly no coincidence that the first indictments handed down by Special Counsel Robert Mueller occurred only four days before President Trump departed for Asia.
Understanding the American Presidency
Although it is often overlooked or misunderstood by many, a key ingredient which could lead to the success of President Trump’s current initiatives lies in the nature of the American Presidency itself. It might strike some as incongruous to interrupt a discussion of current strategic matters with historical observations on the Presidency; yet a properly understood strategic understanding of the constitutional American Presidency is crucial to appreciating the potential for victory in the current environment.
Unlike the leaders of many nations, the U.S. President is neither a partisan figure—representing only the program of one particular party—nor is he beholden to the dictates of any parliamentary or legislative majority. Constitutionally, the President has only one charge: to represent in his or her person the principles enunciated in the Preamble of the United States Constitution, and, by so doing, to lead the nation toward a better future. No faction, no special interest, no Congressional obstruction, and certainly not the news media, are allowed to prevent the President from carrying out that Constitutional obligation.
At the time of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, the majority of the delegates supported James Madison’s Virginia Plan that would have created a figure-head presidency, one elected by Congress and stripped of all but ceremonial power. Alexander Hamilton’s intervention on June 18 that year prevented this. Hamilton’s plan authorized the President to make all foreign treaties, to make all important executive appointments, to have broad powers to pardon anyone of a crime, to be Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, and to veto legislation. It also removed the state governments and the Congress from any role in selecting the President, establishing instead an independent Electoral College,—elected directly by the people—from which Congressmen and other public officials were strictly excluded.
In the closing days of the Convention, it would be Gouverneur Morris who would accomplish the inclusion of many of Hamilton’s proposals. On Aug. 31, Morris succeeded in overturning the proposal for Congressional selection of the President, in favor of establishing the Electoral College system. That same week, he successfully battled for the President, not the Senate, to negotiate treaties and appoint ambassadors and Supreme Court judges. He also overturned the restriction that the President would be limited to only one term.
Hamilton and Morris were not done. In the Committee on Style, which was charged with putting the final Constitution into its finished form, they changed the wording of both Article I and Article II, drastically altering the relationship between Congress and the President. In the new wording, Congress was limited to “all legislative powers herein granted,” i.e., only to those powers specifically enumerated. At the same time, non- specific and open-ended “Executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States.”
America is a Presidential System, and the changes in the Constitution accomplished by Hamilton and Morris were not merely of form and not intended simply to make the government more efficient. On July 2, Gouverneur Morris said, “The rich will strive to establish their dominion and enslave the rest. They always did. . . they always will. They will have the same effect here as elsewhere, if we do not, by the power of government, keep them in their proper spheres.” The Presidency, as designed by Hamilton and Morris, was the means by which to accomplish this. They were also of the view that the greatest danger to the principles of the American Revolution would arise from within Congress; that Congress, by its very nature, would become susceptible to influence from factions and would become corrupted by the might of the rich and powerful. They acted to establish the institution of the Presidency to prevent those interests from taking control of the nation, creating instead an office answerable only to the people, their posterity, and the charge of the Constitution’s Preamble.
A President Speaks
For the purpose of elucidating how the American Presidency leads the nation, how it defines the purpose and future direction for nation, we provide here excerpts from George Washington’s 1796 Farewell Address:
Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be, that good policy does not equally enjoin it—It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and at no distant period, a great nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. . .
In the execution of such a plan, nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence, frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. . .
Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are recommended by policy, humanity, and interest. But even our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand; neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of commerce, but forcing nothing. . . .
Moral Challenge of the Presidency
It is the burden of the Presidency to lead the nation to a better future, a future of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” This is what we see in Washington’s final message to Americans; this is the mission he accepted and from which he never wavered. There is the quality of Joan of Arc in the concept of the American Presidency, and we see in the greatest of Presidents how they accepted that mission, how they “grew” into the Office, and how new qualities of moral leadership rose up: witness Lincoln’s struggle with slavery and with the heavy burden of war—and his ultimate glorious Emancipation; Franklin Roosevelt’s years-long struggle with polio, leading to his crusade on behalf of the Forgotten Man and the Four Freedoms; John F. Kennedy’s courageous American University address, proclaiming his intention to overturn the cold war geopolitics of Winston Churchill and Harry Truman; and Ronald Reagan’s endorsement of Lyndon LaRouche’s Strategic Defense Initiative, intended to end decades of the satanic policy of Mutual and Assured Destruction (MAD).
The American Presidency is not a political office. It is a mission—one to defend and further the principles and intention of the American Republic, as that Republic was established between 1776 and 1797. The quality of personal courage required to accept and shoulder that mission is perhaps best seen in Martin Luther King, Jr. On Jan. 28, 1957, King delivered a sermon wherein he described his experiences during the recent Montgomery Bus Boycott. King said:
I went to bed many nights scared to death by threats against my family. Early on a sleepless morning in January 1956, rationality left me. Almost out of nowhere I heard a voice that morning saying to me:
“Preach the Gospel, stand up for the truth, stand up for righteousness.”
Since that morning I can stand up without fear. So I’m not afraid of anybody this morning. Tell Montgomery they can keep shooting and I’m going to stand up to them; tell Montgomery they can keep bombing and I’m going to stand up to them.
All of the attacks on President Trump at this time are intended break him,—as the threats were intended to cow King—to drive Trump from office, to destroy the potential of the steps he is taking toward ending America’s subservience to British geopolitics. Many in Congress, from both parties,—and their friends in the news media—exhibit today precisely the profound corruption of which Gouverneur Morris warned, and against which an independent Presidency was designed to defend the nation.
The President has broad, awesome, constitutional powers to defeat those who are arrayed against him. He is not beholden to Congress or any other government agency for the initiatives he is now making. This is how the Presidency was designed.
Perhaps, as you are reading this, President Trump is deep in conversation with Xi Jinping in Beijing. The enemies of humanity howl and wail, but the standard of hope has been firmly planted. Trans-Atlantic British geopolitics must die, and a better future will emerge.
