The authoritarian

The threat to democracy is from within. Benjamin Franklyn famously said we had a republic, if we could keep it (we can discuss the differences between our republic and more direct democracy at another time), well suggesting both the fragility, and our responsibilities as citizens, therein. The examples of these threats are many and include Putin’s neo-tsarism, the so-called “managed democracy” favored by a majority of Russians if we are to believe the polls; the Hindu nationalist threat to India’s multicultural pluralism; and Berlusconi-style media control. Closer to home we have the revived Gilded Age, where money in politics usually wins, and those with wealth largely control the discourse, write the laws, and getter richer still. Meanwhile, there’s the unending assault on voting rights; the purposeful effort to disgust people out of voting at all; the apathy and the complacency of a citizenry only too happy to forsake their citizenship.

And then there’s Cheney. An unabashed authoritarian, Cheney has total contempt for the necessary transparency of democracy. The lesson he took from his master Nixon is that Presidential power must trump all. The so-called “unitary executive” is his gift to the American body politic. In this theory of dictatorship, the President isn’t the Commander in Chief of the armed forces, as per the Constitution, but of all the land. It’s the rule of one man, and of course the evil little dwarf behind the throne. Secret prisons, abductions, torture, domestic spying, declarations of Congressional laws as null and void… Nixon must have a boner in his tomb.

And now this. After all these years of claiming “executive privilege,” Cheney’s just come up yet another attack on our tripartite checks and balances. Now, because he's also President of the Senate, he claims he’s not a part of the Executive. (Nothing, of course, is inconsistent in the struggle for power.) Unfortunately, we have such a fragile, largely Potemkin-village style democracy that he’s gotten it away with it so far and probably will get away with until his richly deserved final heart attack. His party stands behind him, for their principle remains power; the loyal opposition is precisely that, loyal, like a beaten puppy; the media bows before him, with softballs from Brit Hume, caresses from Jim Lehrer, and a refusal to follow-up by Juan Williams; and the majority of the population either doesn’t know or doesn’t care. At heart, we get what we deserve. If we can keep it indeed!