The U.S.’s Slow Slide Into Tyranny

The U.S.’s Slow Slide Into Tyranny

Is the U.S. heading toward totalitarianism?

During the earliest days of our country, we didn’t have the constitution yet, instead, we had the Articles of Confederation from 1777–1787.

Interestingly under this document, we had no president at all. The executive branch’s powers fell to Congress. This reflects the concerns of the founding fathers, and the populace in general, of giving too much power to a single figure in government.

After escaping the harsh rule of the king of England, and fighting the Revolutionary War, none of the Founding Fathers wanted to recreate what they had just escaped.

Initially, there was debate whether the constitution should include a singular president, or multiple people acting in this regard. Eventually, the Federalists won out and got their singular more powerful president.

Over the years the country has seen the president go from being a position of mediation between the people and Congress like under Woodrow Wilson, to a figure like FDR who was extremely popular, but gained a lot of power during wartime, and used his power to pass programs like the New Deal, a mix of executive orders and laws passed through congress, but also used his executive orders to put citizens of Japanese ancestry into internment camps (Executive Order #9066).

This particular executive order was challenged in “Korematsu v. U.S.: internment of people of Japanese descent” but sadly the Supreme Court ruled in favor of racism and xenophobia stating it couldn’t screen every person of Japanese descent to see if they were loyal or not.

For some reason, they didn’t use this same reasoning against those of Italian or German descent…I wonder why? This ruling has still never been overturned but was somewhat symbolically ruled against finally in 2018 with Trump vs Hawaii, with Trump’s “Muslim ban” (Presidential Proclamation 9645) being deemed unconstitutional.

Even with this stain on his record, and likely due to the racism and xenophobia of the day, FDR was so popular that he won a third term and ended up dying in office. This caused the passing of the 22nd Amendment to prevent any future president from staying in office past two terms, prior to this it had only been followed as a tradition set by George Washington.

George Washington could’ve easily gotten elected for a third term but chose not to, and by some accounts possibly even become a Monarch of the newly founded country. But he opted instead for, “living and dying a private citizen on my own farm.”

Both of these are good examples of how easily the populace will opt to have someone strong in power and will decide to choose “safety” rather than worrying about the liberties it may cost them in the long run.