The American Political System: An inspiration for human freedom

By Steve Paterno

For many, the American political system is hailed as the standard for freedom and justice for humanity. The US 30th President Calvin Coolidge reaffirms this notion by saying that the American political system “is the greatest political privilege that was ever accorded to the human race.” The famous English born American writer, Thomas Paine is even metaphoric about it by asserting that “the American constitutions were to liberty, what a grammar is to language.” Even Alexis de Tocqueville, a French political thinker and historian agrees in his observation of America political system and culture that in its peculiar nature, America is indeed enjoying a great successful political system and culture.

With a powerful written constitution and intricate checks and balances of powers, American political system is flexibly stable that it passes all the tests, including the test of a perpetual time. Many argue that American Constitution is written for “perpetual posterity and time.” For the last recent two decades alone, several crises put the American political system into reality test, by which, the system on its own, improvised. For example, in March of 1981, during an assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan when he was barely two months in the office, a near power usurpation almost occurred on American presidency when President Reagan’s Secretary of State Alexander Haig declared he was in charge of America in the absence of president. As a result, the American Constitution was almost relegated into obscure history.

The whole incident unfolded in matter of hours. At a proximately 2:30 PM of March 30th, 1981, President Reagan was exiting a Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C., he and three others were shot by John Hinckley; an insane person motivated by Hollywood obsessions. As President Reagan was rushed into hospital, panic ensued on his staff. A meeting of high level cabinet members that included Secretary of State, Defense Secretary and National Security Advisor was convened on the Situation Room wing of the White House. Among the immediate issues discussed was the status of American nuclear weapons, the threats posed by Soviet Union submarines on US coasts, and the line of succession of presidency. The overly ambitious Secretary of State, Alexandria Haig, quickly took the opportunity and declared, “the helm is right here. And that means right in this chair for now,” pointing to himself.

As the events unfolded, the public were anxious and a press conference was set at the White House. At the press conference, a reporter was curious to know who was really in charge of the country, to which the deputy press secretary responded, “I cannot answer that question at this time.” Upon hearing this response, Secretary Haig rushed into the press room, appearing physically shaken and remarked:

“Constitutionally, gentlemen, you have the president, the vice president and the secretary of state, in that order, and should the president decide he wants to transfer the helm to the vice president, he will do so. As of now, I am in control here, in the White House, pending the return of the vice president and in close touch with him. If something came up, I would check with him, of course.”

By standard of many countries, this would have already amounted into a coup. For example, in Sudan, all they say for a successful coup to occur is to take control of Radio Omdurman, the mouthpiece of government, and broadcast the declaration of a successful coup. And then, the president and all the doctors who treated him will be detained or summarily executed. The vice president will also be detained or killed to eliminate any succession question. Many more citizens will lose lives and be detained as a result. The country will have a new president and will have to start from scratch with more possibilities that the country will once again face the same situation in the near future as that is usually the case in unstable countries.

However, thanks to American resilient political system and its powerful constitution. The American Constitution actually defines clearly the lines of succession for president. In an event that the President is incapacitated, the succession goes to the Vice President, the Speaker of the House, the President pro tempore of the Senate, and then Secretary of State, which is the fourth in the order of succession, not as Haig asserted. Haig was eventually fired from his position as Secretary of State. As President Abraham Lincoln famously said, the intention of American political system is “not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution” and another American added that because “most faults are not in our Constitution, but in ourselves.”

Another crisis in the recent history that challenged the American political system was the impeachment of President William Jefferson Clinton in 1998. Impeachment of Presidents through fair legal systems are so rare that in America there are only two presidents who got impeached and both are acquitted in the process of impeachment. President Clinton was impeached at the time when his approval rating was hovering over 70 percent, but despite the public support, the impeachment process was allowed to proceed smoothly without any hindrance, because it was the law, and no one is above the law, including the president.

And then there was the controversial presidential election of 2000, which was eventually decided by the US Supreme Court. If that election was to have been held in other countries, say like Kenya , millions would have gone into the streets, demonstrating the rigging, stealing, and disenfranchising of election. Nonetheless, in that election, Albert Gore, from the Democratic Party won the popular votes while George Bush, from Republican Party won the Electoral College votes. Ideally, one would have expected the person with a popular vote would have won the presidency, but American system is unique that Electoral College vote determines the winning for presidency. In the case of Gore vs. Bush, the court was able to easily decide the win in favor of Bush. This was easily decided because Americans believe so much in their laws that one political commentator remarks that “there is hardly a political question in the United States which does not sooner or later turn into a judicial one.”

Perhaps the genius that lies in American successful political system is in the virtue of American people and in their prudent nature. John Adams, an American Founding Father eloquently states, “the only foundation of a free Constitution is pure virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People in a greater Measure than they have it now, they may change their rulers and the forms of government, but they will not obtain a lasting liberty.” Or may be perhaps as Alexis de Tocqueville observed that “the greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.”

In the heat of yet another elections season in America, many from around the world cannot help but to eagerly observe with inspirations and perplexities American political system swings into play. With the conventions of both Democratic and Republican Parties to kick off in the end of the months respectively, some officials from Sudan opposition political parties are already invited as observers to the two conventions. Sudan is a country that has been at war with itself and never knew genuine democracy leave alone fair elections. Of recent, it has become a center of world’s attention, due to the brutal nature of the government that is controlling the country from Khartoum . However, the country will have an opportunity to experience first hand democracy in action through the representations of the opposition political parties at the Democratic and Republican Conventions. At least, members of Sudan People Liberation Movement (SPLM) will be represented at the conventions by delegations led by its Secretary General Pagan Amum and the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) will be represented by its founding leader Abdul-Wahid al-Nur. Hopefully, these Sudanese opposition political parties representatives will take into account John Adams words to inspire “pure virtue” into Sudanese people and also inspired by Alexis de Tocqueville observation of being prudent enough with “ability to repair the faults” of Sudanese political system and culture. After all, the SPLM and SLM have been waging real war in Sudan for the purpose of changing the Sudanese political system and culture, and they cannot be provided with a better platform for inspirations than to experience it up-close from those who practice a good political system and culture in the United States of America.

Steve Paterno is the author of The Rev. Fr. Saturnino Lohure, A Romain Catholic Priest Turned Rebel. He can be reached at [email protected]