Defending the Rule of Law
To the editor:
For this child of a family that survived the 1930s and ’40s in Central Europe, the new Leader in Washington, D.C. and the Project 2025 forces he has unleashed have raised fearful memories.
Princeton Prof. Kim Lane Scheppele helps explain what we are experiencing now in the U.S. by describing what she calls a “dual state.” In Germany in the 1930s, the architects of the Nazi government maintained two parallel government structures: one, a “normality state,” aimed at maintaining a normal daily life for most of the population, where things seemed to work as usual, the law applied, there was daily news, and life went on. But there was also a consistently maintained but less acknowledged fear state, in which arbitrariness reigned and the safeguards of law disappeared. In Germany, that duality allowed the nation to move into a historic tragedy.
Aren’t we already experiencing a similar proliferation of fear, arbitrariness, danger, and disregard for law while much of America was preparing to watch the Super Bowl?
Scheppele’s duality metaphor could push us to think how the rule of law might be actively defended. In the short term, aren’t there any Republican members of Congress who would vote to save the nation from a coup against democracy and the rule of law? Looking at the coordinated anti-democratic presidential initiatives, surely a few GOP legislators must be thinking whether their short-term political comfort will, in the inevitable retrospect, be worth the knowledge that they facilitated national destruction when they could have stood up to save America.
A few shifts in votes in either or both chambers may be the only practical way to save democratic governance.
Zygmunt J.B. Plater
Provincetown
The writer is professor emeritus at Boston College Law School.
‘Shattered’
To the editor:
This is how our democracy died. The U.S. Constitution, adopted 236 years ago, established a republic based on the principles of separation of powers and checks and balances, designed to prevent the accumulation of excess power in any one branch of government. The country functioned, for better or worse, under these principles until Jan. 20, 2025, when Donald Trump returned to the presidency. In less than three weeks, he has shattered our system of government.
The stage was set when the Republican partisans on the Supreme Court freed the president from the threat of criminal liability for any act arguably related to his duties as president. Since assuming office, President Trump has asserted the right to withhold spending authorized by Congress, threatened to violate the Panama Canal treaty, ignored the law ordering the sale of TikTok, threatened to use tariffs to bully our closest allies and trading partners, allowed a man holding no office in the government complete access to the Treasury Dept.’s spending records, and allowed that same man to terrorize the federal workforce and threaten to abolish government agencies and departments established by law.
Through this, the Republican-controlled Congress has either yawned or cheered on the president.
With Congress supine and the Supreme Court giving President Trump a “get out of jail free” card, the checks and balances on presidential power have disappeared, and we now have government by a single individual. There is a word for that: authoritarianism.
Stephen Greenberg
Wellfleet
The Future of Wind Energy
To the editor:
Re “Future Is Unclear for Wind Leases off Cape Cod” [Feb. 6, page A6]:
President Trump’s pause on offshore wind development threatens the future of wind energy in the Gulf of Maine. The president’s shortsighted action, if successful, will forfeit U.S. leadership in renewable energy technology. It will also give European nations and China a competitive advantage in this growing industry. The U.S. is already behind the curve, ranking 28th in the world with 15.6 percent of its electricity generated from wind and solar, according to Ember, a global energy think tank.
In contrast, Denmark produces 67 percent of its electricity from wind and solar, and seven other European nations produce between 32 and 41 percent from these sources. While China now generates only 16 percent of its power from wind and solar, it plans to double its capacity by 2030.
To be competitive in the world’s energy market, the U.S. needs to increase its investment in offshore wind and other renewable energy sources. Let’s flood our federal representatives with letters and phone calls in support of the offshore leases in the Gulf of Maine.
John Devendorf
Milford
Evidence for Compassion
To the editor:
Deborah Ullman writes powerfully and beautifully about the scientific evidence of a more compassionate, cooperative side of human nature in her Feb. 6 letter to the editor [page A2].
She has a rejoinder to Mark Gabriele’s reference, in his Jan. 30 op-ed essay, to the dog-eat-dog nature of us humans — that such responses may be due more to our current economic and political systems than to some innate tendency. There are many overconfident self-promoters — and with Trump as president they get encouragement — who are only too willing to take over any situation or conversation, cast aspersions everywhere, and provide the rest of us with the answers.
As a former teacher, I am used to being told that what I did was not particularly valuable and that I was overpaid and underworked and quite lucky to have such a cushy berth. I wish I were better equipped to handle such potshots.
It was refreshing to read that our nature may be predisposed to kindness and compassion, in particular because these first few weeks of the new administration have been trying to get us to think along different lines. Thank you, Ms. Ullman.
Paul Murray
Eastham
Letters to the Editor
The Provincetown Independent welcomes letters from readers on all subjects. They must be signed with the writer’s name, home address, and telephone number (for verification). Letters will be published only if they have been sent exclusively to the Independent. They should be no more than 300 words and may be edited for clarity, accuracy, conciseness, and good taste. Longer pieces (up to 600 words) may be submitted for consideration as op-ed commentary. Send letters to [email protected] or by mail to P.O. Box 1034, Provincetown, MA 02657. The deadline for letters is Monday at noon for each week’s edition.
