David Inoue
The past few weeks have been challenging for many of us as Americans. A series of sometimes baffling Supreme Court decisions culminating in the determination that the president of the United States has nearly unlimited immunity in taking actions considered official, even if they might contravene the Constitution that they, along with every government employee, has sworn to uphold. Ironically, while the president might enjoy immunity in ordering a government employee to break the law, that employee would have none.
Among some other key cases, the court eliminated the Chevron precedent, which presumes that federal agencies have qualified expertise to interpret the laws passed by Congress. The conservative court seems to argue that it is always seeking to return to the original text of the Constitution in determining cases such as this, or the most galling case of gun rights. There is a fervent belief that the laws must be followed exactly as written without context of modern times and technology.
Rather than using evolving case law and precedent, this court seems to think we can return to the original intent of the constitution or federal law as specifically written by Congress. Perhaps this view of the law would work if we had a Congress that could actually write new laws, but the Congress we have now can barely pass its annual spending bills to keep the government running.
Then a week before we celebrated the birthday of our nation, we saw our president seemingly incapacitated on national television. Neither candidate seemed to be able to put together a coherent thought for the better part of the 90-minute debate, President Biden seemed lost, and former President Trump had all the confidence of someone who doesn’t know they are lost, and doesn’t care, but still barrels forward. Despite the numerous lies told by Trump, President Biden didn’t seem to notice and failed to respond forcefully to rebuke Trump’s overbearing mendacity.
Just two years before we are to celebrate our country’s 250th birthday, one might question whether we will make it that far. It seems our country is a Boeing jet about to fall apart and with questions as to who is flying the plane.
Regardless of who the captain of the flight might be, it is just as important to consider who else is on the flight deck as co-pilot and anyone else who might be called upon to either step up to fly or run any other critical functions. In the case of the White House, this means the vp and the cabinet, as well as the many other White House staff.
Ultimately, if there is one thing the recent Supreme Court cases have highlighted, it is the reminder that our government is three relatively equal parts, seemingly with all three now descending into some forms of dysfunction, though with that dysfunction having varying levels of impact upon the country.
However, even as the Supreme Court might seem to be making the president an emperor who need not answer to anyone, as we see the court’s recent disregard for precedent, the same court could turn right around and override its decision and once again establish the president’s subservience to the laws of the land. Congress could also come together as it did almost exactly 50 years ago, also on the eve of our bicentennial, when we faced another crisis of the presidency with Watergate.
Our United States is so much more than any one person — we have survived a civil war, and, perhaps a little less dramatic, we survived the Trump administration. Similarly, we can survive the remainder of this Biden administration and a second Biden or Trump administration. We will survive this current Congress, and the scales of justice will once again balance. No matter how much the Supreme Court might try to subvert the Constitution, the one thing the Constitution makes clear is that we as a nation are greater than any one man.
E pluribus unum — “out of many, we are one.”
This was the precedent that George Washington sought to establish as our first president, and that is a precedent we should seek to follow and lift up as we near our 250th birthday as a nation, beyond the point in time we are experiencing now and through this year’s elections, regardless of the outcome.
David Inoue is executive director of the JACL. He is based in the organization’s Washington, D.C., office.
