“Who runs the country?”

I’ve been hearing variants of that question a lot over the last  few weeks, mainly in forms like “given Joe Biden’s age and apparent mental decline, can we trust him to run the country for another four years?”

For the last eight or nine years, I’ve also heard it a lot, in slightly different forms, about Donald Trump.

I visited Google Trends to find out if I’m just imagining increased frequency of that annoying question. Turns out my perception is correct: After a brief spike in 2004, the phrase “who runs the country” took a long vacation, only beginning to rise to prominence again a decade or so ago, and recently peaking at its highest point since 2015.

It’s a really dumb question … and a pet peeve of mine.

Donald Trump did not “run the country” from 2017 to 2021.

Nor has Joe Biden “run the country” since then.

Whoever wins this November’s presidential election will not “run the country” starting next January 20.

What are you doing today?

Whatever that might be, did you ask Joe Biden for permission to do it? Next January, will you start running your daily calendar by Joe Biden or Donald Trump for approval?

Almost certainly not.

The president is just one of more than 330 million Americans. He (or, someday, she) may be more powerful than most of us, But not so much more powerful that he “runs the country” in any meaningful sense.

At MOST, the president “runs” one of three branches of the federal government … and the federal government is not “the country.”

Economics isn’t everything, but it’s a useful thing. US Gross Domestic Product (the value of all goods and services produced) in 2023 topped $27 trillion, of which the federal government spent $6.13 trillion. That’s a lot. It’s WAY too much. But it’s hardly “running the country.”

That $6.13 trillion was appropriated by Congress, not the president.

His only power over that is to sign or veto the appropriations bills (in the latter case, Congress can override him), then spend the money as Congress directs.

Increasingly “imperial” presidents since World War 2 have tried to get around such strictures with “executive orders.” Sometimes that works. Other times Congress or the courts say “nope.”

Outside the purely economic arena, the president gets to negotiate treaties (but the Senate must approve them) and act as commander in chief of the armed forces when they are “called into the service of the United States,” which should only happen when Congress has declared war (it hasn’t done so in 80 years).

The president doesn’t “run the country.” He only “runs the government” to a limited extent, if Congress and the courts allow it (they allow it far too much).

The country is “run” by those of us who produce that $27 trillion in goods and services every year … or don’t .. and who go about our business with or without a president’s permission.

We should stop fantasizing so much power into the hands of politicians. They’re just wasteful parasites. We’re the productive hosts.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter:@thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

Joe Biden and Donald Trump are both old men. We already knew that.

Neither’s brain can be honestly characterized as hitting on all the key cognitive cylinders. We already knew that.

They’re both compulsive liars. We already knew that.

Did listening to the two geezers argue about their golf handicaps in CNN’s June 27 “presidential debate” tell us anything we didn’t already know about them? Nah.

On the particular night in question, Biden came off as more dazed/confused and Trump as more fever-dreamy/hallucinatory but in any given week we can expect each of them to display characteristics of both mental status sets.

They’re both decrepit. They’re both deranged. They’re both demented. They’re both dishonest. Neither adds up (or seems to have ever previously added up) to much beyond the sum of those characteristics.

Even if  someone, anyone, could plausibly be “qualified” to “serve” as President of the United States, neither of these two would come close to making the list. If sanity, competence, and morals were the criteria, we’d be safer picking a random name from the Elizabeth Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane’s patient roster than choosing between Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how one looks at it, we don’t have to worry about “qualifications” — because it’s impossible for anyone to be “qualified.”

If you don’t believe me, maybe you’ll believe Abraham Lincoln: “No man is good enough to govern another man without that other’s consent.”

In 2020, only about 47% of Americans voted for president of the United States.

About 90 million  weren’t allowed to vote. How can they have been said to have “consented” to be ruled by the winner?

Another 82 million chose not to vote. How can they be said to have “consented” to be ruled by the winner?

As for the 158.5 million Americans who DID vote, they hardly displayed unanimity. Can those who voted for Donald Trump, Jo Jorgensen, Howie Hawkins, et al. really be said to have “consented” to be ruled by Joe Biden?

Biden only knocked down 51.31% of votes actually cast … and because so many Americans chose not to vote or were forbidden to vote, fewer than one in four Americans could plausibly be said to have “consented” to his rule.

This time around, instead of arguing over which incompetent liar should rule us, let’s start thinking about how to do away with a system that allows anyone to rule us at all.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter:@thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

As a former mayor of Portage, Indiana, James Snyder will forever remain known for three things:

First, steering $1.1 million in city business to Great Lakes Peterbilt for the purchase of five garbage trucks in 2013.

Second, receiving a $13,000 “consulting fee” from Great Lakes Peterbilt in 2014.

Third, getting the Supreme Court to pretend the “consulting fee” wasn’t a bribe.

The extent of Snyder’s “consulting” appears to have been showing up at Great Lakes Peterbilt and telling its owners “I need money.” Dealership employees denied any “consulting” ever took place, nor could Snyder produce any contracts, invoices, or work product to back his “consulting” claim when federal investigators started sniffing around. The dealership’s controller testified that the money was a reward for “an inside track.” Snyder stood convicted of violating 18 U.S. Code §666 — “theft or bribery concerning programs receiving Federal funds.”

On June 26, the US Supreme Court reversed Snyder’s conviction.

In a bizarre majority opinion authored by associate justice Brett Kavanaugh, the court held that payment for “consulting” that never happened wasn’t a “bribe” in violation of §666, but a mere “gratuity” not covered by said statute.

Let’s have a look at that statute. It applies to:

“Whoever … being an agent of an organization, or of a State, local, or Indian tribal government, or any agency thereof …. corruptly solicits or demands for the benefit of any person, or accepts or agrees to accept, anything of value from any person, intending to be influenced or rewarded in connection with any business, transaction, or series of transactions of such organization, government, or agency involving any thing of value of $5,000 or more.”

Snyder secured $1.1 million in business for Great Lakes Peterbilt.

Then Snyder “solicited” a “reward” and tried to cover it up with false “consulting fee” claims.

Seems like an airtight case … but the majority opinion uses worries about the absence of a set of bright lines to distinguish “innocuous” or “obviously benign” gratuities from “criminal” gratuities  to justify overturning Snyder’s conviction.

Writing in dissent, associate justice Ketanji Brown Jackson notes that “§666 was not designed to apply to teachers accepting fruit baskets, soccer coaches getting gift cards, or newspaper delivery  guys who get a tip at Christmas. … We know this because, beyond requiring acceptance of a reward, §666 weaves together multiple other elements (that the Government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt), which collectively do the nuanced work of sifting illegal gratuities from inoffensive ones.”

Why the perverse majority ruling? Your guess is as good as mine, but my guess is:

After getting caught accepting millions of dollars worth of bribes … er, “gratuities” … and “forgetting” to disclose them, certain among the justices would like to get the most lenient possible precedents in place versus their own potential future comeuppance.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter:@thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY