Trump exposed the weakness of governing by norms. But the answer to abusive power isn’t timid power. It’s power made accountable to the people.
Marcus Aurelius wrote: “External things are not the problem. It’s your assessment of them.” He wasn’t writing those words for us. He wrote them for himself.
Marcus Aurelius was the Roman emperor and arguably the most powerful person in his world. He commanded legions, governed an empire, and possessed authority most of us can barely imagine. And yet, in his private writings, we repeatedly find him reminding himself to control his judgments, manage his reactions, resist his ego, and remember what kind of person he wanted to be.
Donald Trump’s relationship with power often seems to begin from a very different question. Not Should I exercise this power? Not Would using it this way violate an important boundary? But something closer to: If I have this power, why shouldn’t I use it?
What happens when someone holding enormous political power stops recognizing “voluntary restraint” as a virtue?
More importantly, should a democracy ever depend upon that personal level of restraint in the first place?
So, let’s dive into that... in this episode of Afterthoughts!
