The trauma and eminent danger to our unique Republican Democracy, brought about by the elevation of the disreputable Donald J. Trump, may have demonstrated that the antiquated American adage, “One rotten apple spoils the barrel,” was not merely, aphoristic, but constituted an empirical truth. The prospect that such an impaired entity returns to the office of the Chief Executive is chilling to the “core.” [Apologies]
In our view, yet more perilous to our democratic polity is the remarkably numerous, populist support for said egotistical, immoral, and autocratic charlatan. He was shockingly and appallingly, elevated to the Oval Office once, and despite two Congressional impeachments, 91 felonies, and multiple indictments for major crimes, the latter, spanning the spectrum from pay-offs to prostitutes with whom he conducted brisk business, tax, and voter fraud, to fomenting a violent insurrection against the United States of America, and demonstrated, acts of actual treason. Notwithstanding his egregious record, this racist, egocentric, autocratic felon, according to the current political polls seems to be well assured of candidacy in the next Presidential election.
We, presumably, together with other mainstream Americans are understandably, apprehensive concerning the empirical possibility that Trump may once more be elected; a result that political science experts have declared would predictably imperil the continuance of our Democratic Republic. Donald Trump has shown himself to be a great admirer of Putin, Xi Jinping, Kim Jung Un, and Viktor Oban, and has publically declared that he will be a (“Dictator for one day”).
Because we are in the apprehension of such a nightmare, we have availed ourselves of the opportunity to reprise a previously articulated theme, which, nevertheless, in harmony with democracy, provides a pragmatic solution to the nation’s conundrum, as reported by the political pollsters, that our fragile democracy is in peril, due to the wide profusion of populist, ill-informed, Trump cultists.
Our previously articulated and now championed panacea for the resolution of the dilemma has its fundamental and contextual basis in the sage, prescient, and circumspect admonition of Thomas Jefferson: “For a democracy to succeed, it is required to have an educated and well-informed citizenry.”
It is an unhappy and empirically perilous fact, that we have a large population of inadequately educated and poorly informed citizens, each of whom, in consonance with the dynamics of our Democratic Republic, possesses the inalienable right to vote. Accordingly, it would appear, in our view that the sole, pragmatic solution, is to vet (“police”) the prospective candidates, to filter out the danger of future “bad apples.” If the prospective candidates (albeit of diverse opinions on the prevailing issues) were previously accorded acceptability, under some form of bi-partisan or academic evaluation, the “apple barrel” would not suffer the danger of spoliation; contrary to today’s hazardous situation.
It is truly bizarre to observe, in this context, that with the sole exception of the selection of candidates to run for the august and historically impactful office of the American Presidency (“finger on the nuclear trigger, etc.) it is routinely mandatory regarding an application for the most mundane employment to require an employer interview, or, a reasonable vetting to determine acceptability. An application for a job in a shoe store, Macy’s, or a retail job at Walmart is normally dependent upon the applicant’s approval by a representative of the prospective employer. An aspiring shoe salesman, insurance broker, or an employee at a beauty parlor is required, initially, to be vetted; but bizarrely and in a grossly irresponsible fashion, not the candidates for the highest, most powerful and historically, impactful position on the Globe.
The nation would be eternally enabled to reliably retain its admirable and well-functioning democracy, despite its disappointingly large sub-section of somewhat lesser “Jeffersonian” (population-determined), standard of success, by the assurance that all, legally approved, Presidential aspirants are, at a minimum, reasonably acceptable.
We would confidently assume that the non–partisan (mixed partisan?) examiners in their vetting of aspiring Presidential candidates, will be motivated by the exercise of pragmatic wisdom as is appropriate to knowledgeable, competent, and politically neutral experts.
-p.
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