Many Port Washington Times readers are probably, like me, old enough to remember when Nassau County was widely known as a virtual exemplar of political corruption. The Mangano administration and before that the Gulotta administration, the municipal government of the Town of Oyster Bay and State Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos all drew headlines, legal prosecutions and even prison sentences.
The political reaction to those revelations was direct and fairly simple: “Throw the rascals out.” Many voters, who were and remained convinced of the merits of conservative political and economic principles, voted for Democratic candidates even if they had to hold their noses while doing so—or perhaps chose to stay home rather than to vote for candidates of the disgraced Republican Party, even those who had hadn’t been involved in government and had absolutely nothing to do with the scandals. Of course, those voters retained and later exercised their rights in subsequent elections to cast their ballots for new Republican candidates.
My reason for citing this historical perspective is to offer a suggested framework for what we have recently seen in headlines, newscasts, and TV political commentary: a parallel example of political corruption, but in an order of magniture immeasurably greater, with the primary purpose not so much for personal financial gain but, more insidious and threatening to our nation’s concept of democratic (small “d”) government, with the goal of retention or enhancement of political power.
Among the seeming flood of revelations emerging recently from Washington, we have learned that many of then-President Trump’s closest aides and associates, including his son Don Jr. and his chief-of-staff, Mark Meadows, KNEW that the proposals to overturn the 2020 election results were plainly illegal and, in all probability, unconstitutional. It’s even been found that many of Trump’s advisers, as well as members of the Republican congressional leadership, had urged him by email and phone to take some action to stop the disorder and to urge the rioters to leave the Capitol.
It should hardly surprise anyone to learn that such admonitions were ignored. Mr. Trump has been well known, during his entire business career and then—unexpectedly for some of us who had expected him at least to respect the principles of the office—even during his presidency to bend rules, evade laws and exploit loopholes for his own personal advantage.
But we’d have thought, perhaps naively, that elected members of Congress and other senior government officials, who had sworn to uphold the law and the Constitution, would have had the courage to resist instructions from their “boss” that they must have recognized as being morally unacceptable (e.g., to assert that the presidential election was “rigged” and “stolen” when they KNEW that those claims were false) and either refused to obey or submitted their resignations.
One of the most flagrant examples was that of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who made a nationally televised statement from the floor of the House immediately following the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol in which he clearly and emphatically placed the blame squarely on the shoulders of still-President Trump, and who subsequently told other members of the Republican leadership that he planned to call Donald Trump to tell him he should resign or, perhaps, face the prospect of being removed from office, whether by impeachment or by employment of the 25th Amendment. He then had the temerity to deny publicly to interviewers that he had ever said or done any such thing– until taped recordings of those comments came to light.
Similarly, Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and many other members of the presidential entourage were in public consistently ardent supporters of the “big lie” of a stolen election, but who were then revealed by recordings or transcripts of e-mails that they had personally recognized the fact that the election had been lost and had told the president so. But they nevertheless remained publicly committed to supporting the Trump fantasy that he had actually “won” in November and even would soon be “re-instated” in office. In other words, they were perfectly willing to perpetrate what they KNEW to be a lie in the vain hope that somehow they would be able not only to turn the factual tide of the actual election but that somehow their fictitious “results” would win the day and restore them to their positions of power and authority.
Such falsification or manipulation of readily determinable facts (citing instead what Trump aide Kellyann Conway referred to as “alternative facts”) for the clear purpose of maintaining their proximity to high office and the associated political power is, in my opinion, readily definable as corruption– and, by its nature, may be considered even more dangerous and damaging than the relatively common, straightforward case of exercising political favors or influence in return for cash or other financial gain.
The intent to override the results of an election, simply because one’s preferred candidate has lost, would override the very basis for the form of government that has proven to be the bedrock of our nation and the solid support for our growth and prosperity. It’s my conviction that those who promoted the corruption, and the Republican Party that encouraged and sustained them, have well earned the political reaction of ignoring the philosophical differences between liberal and conservative, between “red” and “blue” parties, and adopting instead the approach of “throwing the rascals out.” Those voters who remain convinced of the merits of Republican principles of small government, fiscal conservatism, etc., can resort temporarily to the old plea of the former Brooklyn Dodgers: “Wait till next year!”
Robert I. Adler
Port Washington
