There are two attributes that President Jackson and President Lincoln shared, though personally different in so many ways. First, both were representative of the fledging democratic Republican Party of the 19th century rather than devout Federalists like many of the early founding fathers. Secondly, each of them flourished amidst factious political turmoil, ambitious office seekers, and the threat of those “unprincipled men” that President Washington warned could “subvert the power of the people and . . . usurp . . . the reins of government.” While Lincoln often used humor and explicitly pointed rhetoric to cut through the maze of dissent and argument, Jackson was blunt and threatening. And each of these men painstakingly sorted through the crush of office seekers at the outset of their Administrations to select public servants who best mirrored their interpretation of America’s founding ideals and eliminate those who did not. Jackson, for example, supported his distinctive interpretation of the spoils system (“to the victor belong the spoils”) as a fundamental expression of democracy. During his inauguration speech he said, “the task of reform . . . inscribes itself on the list of executive duties–’reform’ being a brief way of saying, ‘Turn the rascals out.’”¹ Lincoln, for his part, began a multi-state tour on the 4th of March, 1861—the very day he assumed the office of the Presidency—to urge Governors and elected officials to join his new Administration in maintaining the Union. His message reflected both his campaign rhetoric and his electoral mandate: “I think you would do well to express, without passion, threat, or appearance of boasting, but nevertheless, with firmness, the purpose of yourself, and your state to maintain the Union at all hazards. Also, if you can, procure the Legislature to pass resolutions to that effect.” ² Both men, one a “populist,” the other a “Constitutional unionist,” formed Executive Administrations dedicated to the mission for which voters elected them rather than serve their own self-interests or those of office seekers, of a powerful banking system, or of separatist slaveholders. They both served the principals outlined in our founding documents and opposed those Washington termed as “unprincipled men” who would “subvert the power of the people” to serve other interests, including their own rapacious self-interests. 

 

As Arthur Schlesinger stated so appropriately in referencing Jackson’s definition of reform, “The spoils system, whatever its faults, at least destroyed peacefully the monopoly of offices by a class which could not govern, and (instead) brought to power a fresh and alert group which had the energy to meet the needs of the day.” ³ Those words could not be more relevant to America’s recent Presidential election that exposed the demise of conservative Republicanism and replaced office holders convicted of crimes and the twice impeached former President Donald Trump as clearly unfit to govern. The “spoils” the previous Executive Administration sought were not the dignity of public office and service to the American public, but rather the power of office to enhance their wealth, careers, and influence—even to the extent of criminal activity. This more common definition of “spoils” is the mantra of the rapacious public servant who exploits public service for personal gain and/or for the benefit of a specific campaign donor class, of a single-interest faction, or of unhindered and unaccountable minority Party rule. Rather than the general welfare of all citizens in a democratic republic, they seize power for their own benefit and that of their wealthy campaign donors and single-issue supporters. The latter include antiabortionists and gun enthusiasts but are bolstered by the disaffected whose generic grievances can be easily redirected against government itself—an odd contradiction in a democracy where people rule and elect those sworn to serve their interests.  

 

Former President, Donald Trump, and many of his appointees embodied the definition of rapacious public servants. 4 The word “rapacious” is derived from the Latin rapere, “to seize.” According to the Webster Dictionary, the common usage of “rapacious” implies excessive grasping, covetous, even unscrupulous plundering. Trump’s endless grifting more than meets this definition and usage. While President, he welcomed foreign dignitaries to rent whole floors at his hotels and to spend exorbitantly for special events and services. He horded gifts received from foreign dignitaries as his own, rather than gifted to the office of the Presidency as the Constitution’s emolument clause (Article II, Section 1) prescribes. He charged the Federal Government exorbitant fees to house his Secret Service agents at his resort—even when they were not onsite. Moreover, he raised hundreds of millions of dollars from his supporters. But was there ever accountability for how these dollars were spent? For example, his inauguration party spent over 100 million, but could only account for 26 million. His Party raised over 250 million to overturn his failed reelection, but never accounted for how this money would be, could be, or ever was spent. The Republican Party has admitted to paying for Trump’s lawyers. But it has never reported to donors how much money was spent on Trump’s multiple legal cases, including both criminal and civil, embodying felonies, misdemeanors, and liabilities. Nor has the domestic or foreign sources for millions of dollars of so-called “dark” money campaign contributions ever been disclosed. Recently, it has been reported that there exists both tape and written evidence that Trump with his lawyer/stooge Rudy Giuliani conspired to sell individual pardons for two million dollars each. Since he granted 143 pardons, how many of these pardons were so illicitly bought? 5  

 

Trump’s enablers and appointees to public service also participated in his or their own grift. Both Steve Bannon, his chief Presidential advisor, and Paul Manafort, his Campaign Manager, for example, were convicted of fraud crimes in which they made millions. But both were pardoned by Trump, who also pardoned Michael Flynn his National Security Advisor (NSA), also a convicted felon. In addition, Flynn, while NSA, was also under the employ of a foreign power and had previously received reimbursement from the Kremlin to attend a presentation while seated next to President Putin—a rare privilege granted to heads of state or Putin’s chosen guests. Trump’s Attorney General travelled to Italy, England, and Australia to participate in his Special Prosecutor’s bogus investigation into alleged FBI and DOJ mishandling of its investigation into and subsequent prosecution of Russia’s interference in the 2016 Presidential campaign. When does an Attorney General (AG) leave the country to “supervise” his appointed and independently functioning Special Prosecutor rather than manage the Department of Justice? What can justify these trips and the AG’s travel expenses?  

 

The spoils sought by rapacious public servants, like Trump and his enabling cohorts, mirror the plundering of totalitarian regimes like Putin and his oligarchs not so long ago. In 1991, many Muscovites faced down tanks that threatened to overturn their fledgling democracy. They resisted a return to the totalitarian rule of the Communist Party. (My graduate school college professor was among those who stood in the way of those tanks.) But the subterfuge of designing men, such as Putin, subsequently took advantage of this unrest and political divisiveness to usurp the reins of power from the fledging Russian democracy. Nearly a decade after that 1991 conflict, the Kremlin sponsored Unity Party successfully overturned Russia’s short-lived democracy and installed Vladimir Putin as President. He had been well positioned to assume the Presidency. As head of the KGB (now the FSB) and then Prime Minister, his appointment to the Vice Presidency was uncontroversial, both arbitrary and yet seamlessly predictable. Thereby placed next-in-line for the Presidency, he immediately assumed the office upon his predecessor’s forced retirement. Three months after this bloodless bureaucratic coup, he won a contested election under suspicious circumstances (reference the ninth paragraph in “Is War in Europe Inevitable?”). To divert public focus from his rigged election, he misdirected attention to alleged Chechnya atrocities, veritably enacted by his FSB operatives. It cannot be determined whether he ordered the FSB to stage these pretexts for escalating the conflict with Chechnya, but, as Karen Dawisha states in her book, “it is not plausible that Putin, as prime minister and former chief of the FSB, would not have been aware of these actions, particularly since he was their main beneficiary.” 6 Twenty-two years later, he still holds the office of President as the most rapacious “public servant” ever, for he has amassed 20 palaces, a 6-million-dollar yacht, and secret bank accounts around the world where many billions secure his future should he ever be deposed. The gang of thieves he had assembled from his Ozero dacha cooperative, from his KGB operatives in Dresden, and from his supplicants in St. Petersburg’s government are now his billionaire oligarchs, many of whom receive millions annually to run key sectors of the Russian economy. 7  

 

Given Putin’s success in amassing wealth, power, and well-rewarded sycophants as his own rapacious public servants, is it any surprise that Trump would and does admire Putin. They both amass wealth and procure government power by boasting only they can make their country great again and by securing sycophant stooges to protect and extend the power they gain by their deceit. Both men assumed office without winning a popular vote. Both attempted to hold onto office by illegal means—either by a conspiracy and insurrection initiated by Trump or by a rigged election ordered by Putin. And both men used the power of office to fill their own coffers to the tune of hundreds of millions grifted by Trump and untold billions stolen by Putin. Although neither of these men replicated Hitler’s rise to power by reducing their nation’s parliament to ashes, both instigated violence to hold onto office as demonstrated by the January 6 insurrection against the US Capital and the alleged Chechnya atrocities that Putin used to insure his rise to power. Whereas Trump excited violence, “you must fight like hell, or you will not have a country anymore,” Putin was more graphic in his call and response, “V sortire zamochim”– “we will wipe them out in the outhouse and that will be the end of it.” 8 Neither insurrection or coup was beyond the pale for such men. Both Trump and Putin were and are rapacious by nature, meaning they will seize whatever power, wealth, or fame they desire without regard for any legal or moral code. They have no concern for the lives and suffering of those who become victims of their unconscionable actions. 

 

But the oddest thing about Donald Trump is not his brutishness, lawlessness, or “in-your-face” infantile narcissism. No, the oddest part of his Trumpism is its ability to attract supporters. Among these are some traditional Republicans who merely want to ride the Trump wave. But many more seem to believe his “deep state” myth or admire his reckless abandonment of norms and laws. It is saddening to witness how some Americans mistake insolence for outspokenness, recklessness for courage, narcissism for self-righteousness, and blatant stupidity for a childlike honesty. Except for this last characteristic, they may be mistaking Trump for Clint Eastwood’s performance in one of his early “spaghetti westerns.” If so, they can be entertained, while still missing the satire of an underlying intent (a clue: Eastwood’s character did not depict a real hero we should admire, but an American archetypical conceit that can entertain as self-deprecating humor). Trump is not a hero to be emulated, but more like a cartoonish superhero who believes he can break all the rules and never lose regardless of the odds. Remember when he promised Americans that he would make us tired of winning for he was the supreme winner who would make us all winners. The problem with that promise was its implicit message that we should identify with his promised victories, rather than our own general welfare—that is, identify with his fiction, rather than our own reality. His appointment of sycophants to govern the institutions of our government was not in service of our interest—that is our general welfare—but of his own selfish pursuits. His appointments to the DOJ and the IRS, for example, protected his malfeasance and grifting both in business and in office. He used the legal protections of the Presidency to secure his invulnerability from the normal strictures of law and decency. As a result, his Presidency never intimated public service, but rather a rapacious grasp of fame, power, and wealth without any personal accountability or regard for the general welfare of the American people or our democratic institutions. Donald Trump is a virus on the body politic that has weaponized one of our two political parties against the core values of our democracy.  

 

While President Jackson fought what he termed the excessive influence of a central bank and its reckless issue of paper money not backed by hard money such as gold or silver, Trump obtained loans from banks not backed by the actual worth of his properties. Jackson abhorred wealth not guaranteed by hard money or property earned by the fruits of labor. As evidence of this conviction, on his last day in office, he signed the Specie Circular Act requiring all government lands be paid in gold and silver (as referenced in “American Exceptionalism Revisited”). If it were possible for Jackson to confront Trump today, he would have caned him as he promised his Treasury Secretary for failure to sign his proposed legislation. (The threatened Secretary escaped through a window as Jackson stormed through the Treasury Department, his cane in hand.) And President Lincoln who led Americans in a Civil War so that America could “have a new birth of freedom,” would have abhorred Trump’s divisiveness and willingness to incite an insurrection against the seat of America’s government. How out of place would Trump appear at Gettysburg, where Lincoln exhorted his audience “to be dedicated here to the unfinished work . . . that this nation . . . shall have a new birth of freedom . . . and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” Both Jackson and Lincoln led America in wars of liberation against England in the war of 1812 and the Confederacy in the Civil War, respectively. Both fought to maintain our independence, the integrity of our union, and, as a judge and lawyer, respectively, the fairness of our Constitutionally based legal system. Like every President before and after them, these two Presidents took an oath to our Constitution. And that oath defined their words and actions. Simply put, they were true public servants. History defines them as patriots—a word that could never be attributed to Donald Trump. Hence the absurd irony that Trump won the domination as the Presidential candidate of a Republican Party that Lincoln made famous and then mounted a portrait of Andrew Jackson in the President’s oval office. 

 

But it must not be Trump’s legacy that defines our nation’s fate. Both America and its allies are now caught in the whirlpool of world power conflicts with Russia and China. Unlike past clashes of monarchies, empires, and totalitarian states, humanity is now on the brink of a cataclysm much greater than a singular genocide or another world war. Instead, the Western allies are on the cusp of a nuclear Armageddon. Both Putin and Xi Jinping have vowed to re-incorporate what they considered their lost provinces of Ukraine and Taiwan. They both used financial interdiction and subversive conspiracies, but only threatened invasion—until now. For Putin has since unilaterally attacked and invaded Ukraine, thereby violating its territorial sovereignty and negating Russia’s commitment to the United Nations’ charter. Further, he has commissioned a level of atrocity not seen since Hitler, specifically, genocide, rape, abduction of children and the merciless bombing of non-combatants such as women, children, hospital doctors and nurses, and the infrastructure that supports them all. While Xi Jinping provides limited support for Putin, he continues to voice support for a nation’s territorial sovereignty. But what will be his position if Putin succeeds in demolishing Ukraine’s identity in a land grab of its mineral/coal deposits and fertile soil. If Ukraine falls, will China be enticed to invade and acquire Taiwan?  

 

What future will our human posterity face then—perhaps, a face-off of nuclear-powered adversaries? Will it then suffer global warming under the threat of a nuclear cloud? The answers to these questions reside in a future not yet determined by nations, their leaders, and, within the purview of democracies, the determination of voters. We already know the positions taken by the respective leaders of nations like China, Russia, and the Western allies. But the American voters have a muted voice that yet must be heard. If President Biden does not receive the massive support that President Roosevelt had during World War II, then his ability to lead the Western allies will be diminished. His decades in public service have shown him to be a dedicated public servant, in contrast to the false allegations of corruption made by Trump and his cohorts over the past three years. Instead, they use the tools of autocrats to diminish their opponents and create the illusion of self-righteousness and the false promise of glory, fame, or conquest. But their real mission is their own self-aggrandizement exhibited by a rapacious grasp of power, fame, and wealth. 

 

How is it that autocrats like Hitler, Putin, or “wannabees” like Trump can attract cult-like followers? Is it their ability to identify with collective grievances and scapegoat selected groups, organizations, or nations for all perceived problems? Or is it their promise of greatness in the subjugation of those so scapegoated? Their inflation of self-worth at the expense of others is at the root of racism, elitism, and all forms of subjugation. Such men (yes, they are always men) have a limitless need to fill a personal vacuum in self-identity—that is, their lack of authenticity. They fill that vacuum by the rapacious acquisition of power, fame, and wealth—the trilogy of conceit designed to attract the superficial admiration and support of followers. They create a tribal cult feted on their personality and bonded by shared grievances. Such cults are based upon a belief system that cannot be justified by reason, but by other mechanisms. When we witness autocrats suppressing a fact-based press or supplanting its coverage with self-aggrandizing propaganda, they are monopolizing what is read. When they flood the airwaves with their words and actions, they are simulating that persuasive space occupied by ad men and sales pitches. Former President Donald Trump, for example, makes the internet and broadcast news media his personal megaphone. The real danger here is magnified when they begin to control that private space between our ears. You will know that heinous objective when you see them extending their reach into our children’s classrooms, as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has done. When you witness civics classes removed from curriculums, books of literary or historical merit removed from school libraries, and political indoctrination being introduced in their stead, then you will know our country is on the path to a totalitarian state. Moreover, the surest sign that our democracy is in peril is witnessed by the advent of such rapacious public servants. These miscreants will have switched places with the patriotic citizens of a democracy and assumed all the power of governance for themselves and in service of their interests, exclusively. They may identify with a democratic political Party, but only with the intent of transforming it into a cult. 

 

Cults are not political or religious entities, though they may assume those identities. Their primary goal is not the introduction of cultural/religious values into society but control over the minds and actions of their supplicants. Their sole purpose is to control behavior in support of objectives that cannot be justified by reason. Rapacious public servants reflect an oxymoron wherein public service becomes self-interest. A political party under the control of such rapacious individuals must support candidates for office who adhere cultlike to party positions that prescribe behavior that supports its monopoly over governance. Its only rationale is self-interest, not the public good. Its sole objective is power, not service.  

 

In my lifetime I have been a member of both political parties but am now “unaffiliated.” Finally, I have come to appreciate the warning of our first President about the risks of political parties becoming dangerous factions that can “usurp the reins of power” to serve their self-interests instead of the general welfare of all Americans. Today, one of our two political Parties harbors the very threat that Washington foresaw four centuries ago. It is time to vote the Republican Party nihilists out of office. And, as this blog has argued since 2015, it is past time to reform our political campaigns and parties to eliminate corruptive influences and, specifically, the influence of corporate a/o special interests’ money. 9 Unless we initiate effective reforms, we will continue to suffer these self-serving rapacious public servants in our democratic Republic. 

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1 Marquis James, “Andrew Jackson: Portrait of a President,” p. 186.  

2 Carl Sandburg, “Abaham Lincoln: “The Prairie and The War Years, Vol. 1, p. 200. 

3 Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., “The Age of Jackson,” p. 47. 

4 On 2/9/2017, shortly after Donald Trump assumed office, I wrote a blog that was eerily predictive of the Trump Presidency, namely “Competency and the American Presidency.” Therein I addressed the qualifications and prejudices of the Cabinet and senior positions in the Trump administration. (But if the role of America’s “Cassendra” had unwittingly fallen to me, then I hope to be like Aeneas who escaped the fall of Troy to lay the foundation for the Roman Empire. Though, in my humbler circumstance, I only want to assist in rebuilding the American democratic Republic.) 

5 A list of these pardons can be found in a footnote to “A More Perfect Union, or Not?” 

6 Karen Dawisha, “Putin’s Kleptocracy: Who Owns Russia?” p. 223. 

7 Ibid., “Table 6, Who Owns Russia? Direct Control and Ownership of the Economy by Putin’s Cronies, 2014,” p. 338. 

8 ibid., p. 209. Putin spoke these words to the Russian people shortly after he issued his decree to renew combat in Chechnya. The day before, on September 23rd, 1999, President Yeltsin had officially signed such a decree. But the Governors preempted his broadcast, supported Putin’s decree, and demanded Yeltsin to relinquish the Presidency to Putin. At that point in history, the die had been set for Putin’s eventual coup.  

9 On the cusp of the 2016 Presidential Election that ushered Donald Trump into the Presidency, I wrote a blog entitled “American Revolution 2016,” in which I proposed the following pledge: 

“I pledge to vote for candidates who promise to support voting rights legislation consisting of universal voter registration, Federal fair election guidelines, and populist regulations governing Federal campaign funding and candidate debates.” 

It was too late in the cycle of that election to advance the regulations proposed therein. But, if that were not the case, I doubt the anomaly of the Trump Presidency would ever have occurred.