Not since the Second World War has the world been in graver danger because of what I would describe as the breakdown of political executive leadership around the world.

By this I mean there has been a steady erosion of trust between political leaders and followers which has undermined the legitimacy of institutions that should uphold law and order and give citizens a belief that there can be a collective hope in the future for the good of society. This breakdown is both systemic and institutional and is characterised by a growing failure on the part of political leadership to make pragmatic political decisions which can inure to the well-being of society.

Nowhere is this erosion of trust between citizens and their leaders more evident than in the United States of America. It is easy to bundle this up and lay it at the feet of President Donald Trump, but any truthful analysis of the political character of America over the past two or three decades will reveal a country in decline as a result of a growing distrust between the governed and their governors. And this has been so on both sides of the political divide.

What Trump has done, and is doing, especially in his second term, is to brazenly exploit every loophole and vulnerability in the system that were long assumed and largely observed by other presidents as necessary for good order in the country. We are witnessing an abuse of presidential power on a scale that we have not seen in recent times, largely to satisfy certain narcissistic and autocratic propensities of one who seems to believe that he was appointed by God to carry out a particular mandate.

The American system was built on certain assumptions, buttressed by gentlemanly agreements that there are certain thresholds of decency that no well-thinking president or citizen would allow to be trespassed upon. The foundational principle for many who have held the office of president was shame — the ability to feel embarrassed by one’s actions and the consequent reprimand of the citizens. Thus, presidents by and large stepped cautiously, observing the guardrails of decency for what they were. The Richard Nixon crisis represented a violation of this norm, but even he, under pressure from his own party, saw it fit to resign rather than put the country through political trauma and chaos.

President Trump has clearly demonstrated that he is no Nixon, and he certainly is not willing to walk the path that he did if things should ever come to the point of him having to resign from office. He would fight the notion with every sinew in his 80-year-old body.

For one, he never does anything wrong for which he feels obligated to apologise, perhaps not even to God. As the argument would run, those who want him to resign are part of a political cabal, the deep State, who are bent on malice and want to visit a vendetta against him. This is the essence of what he defined as the “weaponisation” of the institutions of government against him that resulted in his many legal battles from which he obviously is still smarting, and which still enrage him more than anything else.

What we are witnessing in the second iteration of the Trump Administration is that political outcomes are largely influenced by a leader’s behavioural and personality traits. When these become dysfunctional, as in apparent narcissism, authoritarianism, and impulsiveness imbued by a messianic complex, society has a problem, for this quality of leadership can only but deteriorate to abysmal levels.

Couple this with the weakness of institutions which should check and balance the excesses of this kind of political leadership and you find a country that is in deep mortal peril. The founding fathers recognised the democratic society they hoped to build and last well into the future was, at best, very fragile. This was at the core of what Benjamin Franklin purportedly said at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 when asked about the form of government that was created. His response was, “A republic, if you can keep it.” What Franklin was underscoring in this pithy remark is that a republic based on constitutional principles would only survive if citizens strive to preserve it.

I believe that important institutions are failing America in this hour. The first is the Republican Party that has demonstrated a level of weakness and supplicancy not seen by any political party in recent memory. The party has control of the Congress, but it has failed to rein in the worst excesses of the president, and in many instances, have allowed him to trespass on norms and principles, and skirt laws in fealty to him.

We can start with the president’s Cabinet. The Republican Senate, that has responsibility for vetting and voting for the president’s nominees for the various Cabinet and other important posts, has foisted upon the American people, and by extension, the world, the dumbest, or as we would say in Jamaica, the “duncest” Cabinet in living memory. The evidence of this is all around for all to see.

Trump has apparently vowed he would never repeat the “mistakes” he made in his first term by appointing people who would oppose him. He wants unadulterated loyalty from those around him. The Republican Senate was glad to oblige even though they knew some of the nominees, by character, personality, and competence, were not suited for the positions to which they were appointed.

Similary, the thing that has emboldened President Trump more than any other in his second term is the indemnity he has received from the Supreme Court. In redefining judicial power, the court has made it harder to stop presidential policies quickly and has shifted more power to the executive branch. This, obviously, has led him to believe and act in a way that the Department of Justice (DOJ) must function as his own personal law firm. This has become apparent through the chaos that obtains in the DOJ as Trump’s tentacles tighten around the neck of this important institution meant to deliver justice for the American people.

And we could go on, but the signs are many that the American experiment in democracy is under serious threat. That, indeed, the midterm elections in November, if allowed to be fairly conducted, will be the litmus test of whether the country survives as a democracy or will be plunged into unmitigated chaos that may herald martial law. Fearing impeachment or the staunching of his policies, it is clear that Trump will spare no effort to ensure the Democrats will not prevail in even one chamber of the Congress. If there was ever a time when the vigilance of citizens was needed, it is now.

And the country never had to be here. More than any other president in living memory, Trump has been given more leverage and power to do right and advance the well-being of the American people. But true to his characterological make up, he has chosen to do otherwise.

He has got the country in a war with Iran that is proving to be a big factor in the affordability crisis facing the US, all on a platform of hubris fuelled by the notion that might is right. Those who aid and abet his actions, whether out of fear or they are deriving great benefits from things as they are, are doing the country a disservice. By supporting the president’s worse impulses, they are not doing him a favour either.

But to what end? There is something really sordid, repulsive, and odious about seeing an old man hallowing out the core of his soul to gain more of the world’s goods when the matter of his own mortality should be a daily preoccupation for him. As a fellow human being, but especially as a priest, I pity him in this respect. It recalls for me the question addressed by Jesus to his disciples and the crowd that followed him: “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?” Or the follow-up question, “What can a man give in exchange for his soul? These are questions worth pondering, Trump, as you enter the twilight of your life.

Dr Raulston Nembhard is a priest, social commentator, and author of the books Finding Peace in the Midst of Life’s Storms; Your Self-esteem Guide to a Better Life; and Beyond Petulance: Republican Politics and the Future of America. Check out his podcast — Mango Tree Dialogues — on his YouTube channel. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or stead6655@aol.com.

Raulston Nembhard