The Strongest Democracy?

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings should be made for everyone, for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity.

1 Timothy 2:1-2 New Testament, The Bible

We have been in the US since the beginning of the January on grandparent duties. Consequently, we have had a ringside seat as President Trump began his second term as president. It has been like watching a horror show – deeply disturbing yet fascinating at the same time! He has already done many things that have left us open-mouthed,  but the  most disturbing was the very first thing he did on taking office: the pardoning of those who had been convicted and sentenced for their actions in the January 6^th attack on the Capitol building at the beginning of Biden’s presidency.

I was astonished to realise that an American President apparently has untrammelled powers of pardon. Previously, I had assumed there were strict conditions on who could be pardoned and that this only happened rarely. But President Trump in an unceremonious flaunting of untrammelled power set aside mass convictions and sentences that had been imposed after due process of law. What we see here is the unravelling of the rule of law. The law is not perfect but it ensures that everyone is held equally accountable (in principle) before it. This was severely undermined by the Supreme Court ruling that a president cannot be held legally accountable for actions taken in the capacity of president and now, Trump, by overturning convictions he doesn’t like, has made the law subject to the personal whims of the president and there is nothing that can be done about it.

This seems to me to be a major turning point in American democracy. Americans have delighted in boasting about the strength of their model of democracy. But now we see that, at its core, it is weak and, perhaps, now is crippled. Unspoken convention has been the thing that has held American democracy together, but now there is a president who pays no heed to unspoken convention and who is supported by a Congress that likewise has abandoned convention. The consequence is the crumbling of democratic rule. In it’s place we have the rule of a dictator – although I suspect Trump would prefer the title “King”. Which is ironic given the history of the US.

Christians are commanded to pray for kings, governors and governments. This is sometimes read as simply praying for the well-being of the ruler(s). It is, in fact, a holding to account of all human rule. We ask that they be held to account and conformed to the standard of the heavenly court. Certainly, this is a time for prayer for Americans.