Authoritarianism

Louis XIV of France famously said, “L’Etat, c’est moi” – “I am the state.” In an authoritarian country, the government answers to a single person, and he is synonymous with it. Here in the United States we are not authoritarian — at least not yet.

The president, however, does not seem to grasp this distinction. He declares the legal execution of a validly secured search warrant to be “an attack on our country.” He has even said that in the government, he’s “the only one that matters.”

Nowhere is this clearer than in his approach to Robert Mueller’s investigation and the Justice Department in general. He believes that the attorney general should represent him, not the interests of the people, and he repeatedly calls the investigation a “witch hunt,” as if he were entirely above the law.

All this violates a most fundamental principle of our democracy. He does not stand above the law, the country or its people; it is the checks on his power — the ones we all learned about in grade school, including the justice system — that allow our government to function.

An attack on him is not an attack on the state, because he is, as a public servant, subservient to the people. He serves at the will of the people of this country. His attack on the rule of law is an attack on this country, and all of us.

Jennifer Teffer East Troy