Power Players: FDR to Trump Redux

Failing to exercise power when it's needed is also an abuse of power.

1. A Grave National Injustice

In Thursday’s farewell address to his charges at the Justice Department, Merrick Garland neatly articulated the misguided philosophy that animated his disastrous tenure as Attorney General:

Although our Constitution and laws include important constraints on law enforcement, they nonetheless grant law enforcement considerable discretion to determine when, whom, how, and even whether to investigate or prosecute for apparent violations of federal criminal law.

To ensure fairness in the administration of justice, we must temper this grant of discretion with a set of principles that ensure we exercise our authority in a just fashion.

We must understand that there is a difference between what we can do — and what we should do.

That is where our norms come in.

For all his bleating about fear and favor, the guy had one job to do: ensure that the 45th President of the United States, who 1) led an attempted coup to overthrow the government, and 2) stole many boxes of highly classified documents on his way out the door, be held accountable for those high crimes, and, above all, legally barred from ever again taking the White House.

In this essential objective, Merrick Garland failed: mightily, tragically, catastrophically. Hundreds of millions of human beings in this country and around the world will suffer greatly because of his cautious, conservative, cowardly approach to the Attorney Generalship. In a flurry of Day One executive orders, Donald Trump has already made this clear.

Garland held “norms” above all else—even above saving our democracy. Here, he mainsplains his thought process, in order that we muggles understand how wrong we were to demand action:

Developed in the wake of the Watergate scandal, and formalized over almost half a century, those norms are our commitment to constrain our own discretion—so that our agents will begin investigations only when there is proper predication; and so that our prosecutors will bring charges only when we conclude that a jury will convict beyond a reasonable doubt and that the conviction will be upheld on appeal.

In short, that we will make our law enforcement decisions based only on the facts and the law.

I wasn’t at the DOJ last week, but Garland apparently said, with a straight face and nary a hint of irony, “Our norms are a promise to treat like cases alike—that we will not have one rule for the powerful and another for the powerless, one rule for friends and another for foes.”

Garland said this, despite his Justice Department patently refusing to deal directly with either Trump or his lieutenants. (Installing Jack Smith a year too late is not dealing directly with anything; it’s passing the buck out of fear.) He then seemed to want a pat on the head for preserving these “norms” at the expense of actual, you know, justice:

Those norms have been woven into the DNA of generations of DOJ employees, career and noncareer alike.

They are the commitments that ensure we will adhere not only to the letter of the law, but to the rule of law.

It is the obligation of each of us to follow our norms not only when it is easy, but also when it is hard — especially when it is hard.

It is the obligation of each of us to adhere to our norms even when — and especially when — the circumstances we face are not normal.

And it is the obligation of the Attorney General to insist on those norms as the principles upon which this Department operates.

It is the obligation of the Attorney General to make clear that the only way for the Justice Department to do the right thing is to do it the right way. That unjust means cannot achieve just ends.

The Attorney General must ensure that this Department seeks justice, only with justice.

No one was asking the MFer to do anything unjust, or to seek justice with any means other than justice. The fact is, the crybaby was too chickenshit to use the enormous powers granted him—what he called his “considerable discretion to determine when, whom, how, and even whether to investigate or prosecute for apparent violations of federal criminal law.” He was too weak, and too pusillanimous, to wield the Sword of Justice.

Then—incredibly, infuriatingly—Garland offered a laundry list of the accomplishments of the DOJ on his watch. At the end of the list, he proudly applauded the Justice Department staffers for their crowning achievement:

You protected our country’s democratic institutions from violence and threats of violence. You charged more than 1,500 people for criminal conduct that occurred during the January 6 attack on the Capitol, as well as in the days and weeks leading up to that attack.

You brought to justice those who kicked, punched, beat, and tased law enforcement officers who were protecting the Capitol that day.

And you pursued accountability for that attack on our democracy wherever it led—guided only by your commitment to follow the facts and the law.

The truth is, the House of Representatives did a more thorough job of investigating and calling to account the prime mover of the January 6th coup attempt than did the DOJ. Not only did Garland let Trump slither free; he never bothered to charge the lieutenants! Are we to believe that the Department’s high-minded quest for those responsible for “that attack on our democracy” did not lead to the doors of Rudy Giuliani, Alex Jones, Roger Stone, Mike Flynn, Sidney Powell, Patrick Byrne, or any number of members of Congress?

Witness to the Insurrection (with Sandi Bachom)

In the event, the signature accomplishment of Garland’s tenure at DOJ—as he said, the charging of “more than 1,500 people for criminal conduct that occurred during the January 6 attack on the Capitol, as well as in the days and weeks leading up to that attack” and the bringing “to justice those who kicked, punched, beat, and tased law enforcement officers who were protecting the Capitol that day”—was undone in the first few hours of Trump Redux, with one stroke of the presidential Sharpie:

A PROCLAMATION

This proclamation ends a grave national injustice that has been perpetrated upon the American people over the last four years and begins a process of national reconciliation.

Acting pursuant to the grant of authority in Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution of the United States, I do hereby:

(a) commute the sentences of the following individuals convicted of offenses related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, to time served as of January 20, 2025:

• Stewart Rhodes

• Kelly Meggs

• Kenneth Harrelson

• Thomas Caldwell

• Jessica Watkins

• Roberto Minuta

• Edward Vallejo

• David Moerschel

• Joseph Hackett

• Ethan Nordean

• Joseph Biggs

• Zachary Rehl

• Dominic Pezzola

• Jeremy Bertino

(b) grant a full, complete and unconditional pardon to all other individuals convicted of offenses related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021;

The Attorney General shall administer and effectuate the immediate issuance of certificates of pardon to all individuals described in section (b) above, and shall ensure that all individuals convicted of offenses related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, who are currently held in prison are released immediately. The Bureau of Prisons shall immediately implement all instructions from the Department of Justice regarding this directive.

I further direct the Attorney General to pursue dismissal with prejudice to the government of all pending indictments against individuals for their conduct related to the events at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021. The Bureau of Prisons shall immediately implement all instructions from the Department of Justice regarding this directive.

All of that hard work gone up in smoke, all for naught, because the AG was afraid to use his power.

That is what failure looks like. Ignominious, unequivocal failure.

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2. The Exercise of Power

To be fair, this is not all on Merrick Garland. Joe Biden could have fired his useless ass at any time in the last four years and failed to do so. Not only that, but even after the Supreme Court granted him full immunity from any crimes committed during “official acts,” Joe did bupkis. (On these pages, I suggested 16 bold things he and the Democrats could have tried in the dying days of his administration; unsurprisingly, he did none of them.)

Instead, Biden entertained Trump beside a roaring White House fire, as if things were totally normal, as if democracy was not about to be strangled by Orange Hitler’s baby-hands. Instead, he participated in all the inauguration activities, even as Trump trashed him. Instead, he waved his predecessor and successor into the West Wing, saying, “Welcome home.”

In his Farewell Address last week, Biden spoke about power, noting that “the idea of America, our institution, our people, our values that uphold it, are constantly being tested.” He went on:

Ongoing debates about power and the exercise of power. About whether we lead by the example of our power or the power of our example. Whether we show the courage to stand up to the abuse of power, or we yield to it. After 50 years at the center of all of this, I know that believing in the idea of America means respecting the institutions that govern a free society—the presidency, the Congress, the courts, a free and independent press.

This more or less echoes what Garland was pontificating about.

What Biden failed to understand is that the refusal to exercise power when it’s called for is also abuse of power.

Joe was given great power, he chose not to use it, and here we are.

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3. The Incurable Malady of Emperors

In my historical novel Empress: The Secret History of Anna K., the narrator, Anna Komnene, daughter of the Byzantine emperor Alexios Komnenos, derides an inept previous emperor for being, in effect, too nice:

What can be said of the tenth Emperor Constantine, of the House of Doukas? Let his beloved friend, chief advisor, and eventual biographer Psellos speak on his behalf (I’m quoting here from the Chronographia): “He controlled his temper, did nothing by instinct, always followed the dictates of reason. None were put to death by him, even where the most dreadful crimes had been committed. None suffered mutilation at his command. He rarely uttered threats, and even those were forgotten soon, for he was invariably more inclined to shed tears than resort to cruelty.” By way of example, Psellos relates the story of a failed coup, an attempt on the Emperor’s life. When the nefarious conspirators were rounded up, Constantine did not have them beheaded, or blinded, or maimed in any other way, as I certainly would have. Rather, he flaccidly condemned them to exile. And even that punishment was too severe for him to dispassionately mete out. The night the miscreants were sent away, he remarked at dinner to Psellos, “What a shame our exiles cannot share in this fine meal. I cannot possibly enjoy myself when others are in distress.” Can you imagine! Reading that anecdote, I assumed the obsequious historian simply made it up, to validate his claims of Constantine’s vaunted piety…but no, Maria herself assured me that, while she could not vouch for the veracity of the story, it was certainly consistent with his character. “A finer Christian I never knew,” she affirmed. Constantine X was described by both Psellos (in his book) and Maria (in conversation with me) as meek, patient, kind, sensitive, compassionate, and merciful. He was, apparently, such a good man that he could not conceive of anyone else being evil.

Ah, but the selfsame qualities that made him a lovely father-in-law and a model Christian made him a bumbling and ineffectual Augustus. I know that there are heinous human beings who lust for blood and derive sick pleasure in the slicing off of ears and the lopping off of heads. Men of this stripe are infidels, for none who love Christ would revel in the infliction of pain. No true Christian wants to condemn another to death. Nevertheless, an Emperor must not shirk the responsibility of his office. He must take it upon himself to enforce the law, however unpleasant that enforcement might be. This, after all, is his primary function. If “the most dreadful crimes” have indeed been committed, retribution must come. If the law requires the guilty to lose his nose, his nose should be cut off, or his hands, his eyes, his testes. And if, in those rare cases, the law mandates a man to die, then die he must. To execute the law, the Emperor must execute the murderer, the conspirator, the rapist, the deserter, the traitor. Anything less is anarchy. Even Jesus Himself came to bring the sword! Anyone unwilling to discharge this sacred duty has no business taking up the purple. Psellos proffers that the tendency to ignore the sage advice of counsellors—which is to say, the counsel of Psellos himself—is the “incurable malady of Emperors,” and the cause of the decline of the Roman Empire. Fie. The cause is weakness. Weak men like Constantine Doukas unable or unwilling to exercise their full power.

Good leadership requires strength and bravery, especially with regard to tough choices. That was true when the real-life Anna Komnene was writing in the twelfth century, it was true during all of Biden’s presidency, and it remains true today.

Say what you will about Trump, but he has never been unwilling to exercise his full power. That quality, I think, is what his ardent supporters like the most about him. True, he wields that power for evil, not for good, and for himself, not for others, but power in this sense is the same as electrical power or solar power: it is a resource, and knows not the difference between right and wrong.

“Power is essentially amoral,” writes Robert Greene in The 48 Laws of Power, a book popular with the “red pill” set that Trump is likely familiar with (even if he has almost certainly never read), “and one of the most important skills to acquire is the ability to see circumstances rather than good or evil. Power is a game—this cannot be repeated too often—and in games you do not judge your opponents by their intentions but by the effect of their actions. You measure their strategy and their power by what you can see and feel.”

(There’s a reason the show is called Game of Thrones.)

The Democrats don’t think of it that way. Garland blathers on about “the norms,” which are essentially an arbitrary system of morals. Biden, too, regards power in those terms, offering self-help-book platitudes about “the example of our power or the power of our example.”

None of them regard power as a game, and this is why they—why we—lost, are losing, and will continue to lose.

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4. The Future of Essential Democracy

It was not always this way. The best president of the last century and a half was a Democrat. Franklin Delano Roosevelt well understood how power operates. Not only was he not afraid to use his power, he tested its outer limits.

In his First Inaugural Address—everything that yesterday’s Rotunda embarrassment was not; indeed, we might call the distance between the quality of the two speeches the “Gulf of America”—FDR made his understanding of power and his intention to use it quite explicit. “I assume unhesitatingly the leadership of this great army of our people dedicated to a disciplined attack upon our common problems,” he said, adding (boldface mine):

It is to be hoped that the normal balance of executive and legislative authority may be wholly adequate to meet the unprecedented task before us. But it may be that an unprecedented demand and need for undelayed action may call for temporary departure from that normal balance of public procedure.

I am prepared under my constitutional duty to recommend the measures that a stricken nation in the midst of a stricken world may require. These measures, or such other measures as the Congress may build out of its experience and wisdom, I shall seek, within my constitutional authority, to bring to speedy adoption.

But in the event that the Congress shall fail to take one of these two courses, and in the event that the national emergency is still critical, I shall not evade the clear course of duty that will then confront me. I shall ask the Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the crisis—broad Executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.

For the trust reposed in me I will return the courage and the devotion that befit the time. I can do no less.

In short, FDR promised an American public suffering through the Great Depression the courage to use his power. And then he did what he said he would do. Almost a century later, we still benefit from his courage and vision (although Trump and his Project 2025 policymakers will do their level best to change that).

Trump, as shall become abundantly clear in the coming days and weeks if it isn’t already, will take rather the same approach to the presidency—only in his version, it will be to enrich himself and his cronies; to plunder the public coffers; to denigrate and harm women, minorities, trans people, immigrants, and undocumented residents; and to perform deeds of vassalage to his malefic whoremaster, Vladimir Putin.

The political climate in which Roosevelt took the oath of office could not be more different from the devil wind that blows during Trump Redux. FDR did not require Elon Musk’s arcane knowledge of Pennsylvania’s vote-counting computers to eke out the narrowest of victories. He gave the incumbent, Herbert Hoover, an asskicking for the ages, winning 42 of the 48 states, the Electoral College by 472-59, and a whopping 57.4 percent of the popular vote.

That, my friends, is a mandate.

I got up this morning a little before four AM, with the sudden inspiration to read FDR’s First Inaugural Address. Almost immediately, it moved me to tears, as I came to the sad realization that not only will we be denied a change agent as beneficent as FDR, but we must endure four years of national arson by an orange cacodæmon all too eager to use his ample power for ill.

Here is how Roosevelt’s speech ends:

We do not distrust the future of essential democracy. The people of the United States have not failed. In their need they have registered a mandate that they want direct, vigorous action. They have asked for discipline and direction under leadership. They have made me the present instrument of their wishes. In the spirit of the gift I take it.

Here is a passage in the middle that could not be more relevant to the here and now, as the American oligarchy begins to ossify:

The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.

Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. The joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. These dark days will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow men.

Recognition of the falsity of material wealth as the standard of success goes hand in hand with the abandonment of the false belief that public office and high political position are to be valued only by the standards of pride of place and personal profit; and there must be an end to a conduct in banking and in business which too often has given to a sacred trust the likeness of callous and selfish wrongdoing. Small wonder that confidence languishes, for it thrives only on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection, on unselfish performance; without them it cannot live.

That hits hard, this morning.

And, to circle back to the beginning, here is the oft-quoted opening of the Address, a passage I will turn to often in the next four years:

This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory.

The power belongs to the people.

Our mission now is to take it back.

That’s the name of the game.

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Photo credit: Architect of the Capitol. This inauguration ceremony for Franklin D. Roosevelt on March 4, 1933, was the last ceremony to be held in March. All subsequent inaugurals have been held in January.

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ICYMI

A little Five 8 counterinaugural, with our guests Ernest Owens and Rosanna Arquette: