World must cope with a king above the law

Donald Trump, a convicted felon, an unashamed racist, an unapologetic misogynist, a habitual liar, a climate change denier, and a twice-impeached former President, returned to the White House through democratic elections, fair and square.

- NARESH KOIRALA

Donald Trump, a convicted felon, an unashamed racist, an unapologetic misogynist, a habitual liar, a climate change denier, and a twice-impeached former President, returned to the White House through democratic elections, fair and square. Trump's victory shocked many, but this is not the first time a malignant personality has been elected to a high office.

Hitler also rose to power through a legitimate democratic process. He convinced German voters that the Jews were behind the humiliation Germany suffered under the Treaty of Versailles. He blamed the Jews for collaborating with the enemies in the First World War and called them "vermin." The strategy worked. He got elected, became a dictator, and killed an estimated 6 million Jews. Emulating Hitler, Trump blamed immigrants, particularly illegal immigrants, for all of America's woes, from crime to economy to housing to health care, and threatened to expel the estimated 11 million "illegals." Like Hitler, the president-elect called his opponents at home "vermin." It worked.

Pundits, professors, pollsters and significant newspaper columnists, who until a day before the election were predicting a close election, are now in overdrive dissecting the unexpected result - what Harris and the Democrats did wrong that culminated in Trump's triumph and what will be the impact of the four years of the Trump administration domestically and internationally. Surprisingly, these analyses do not explore the deficiencies in the United States Constitution that enabled an unrepentant felon to rise to unchecked power.

The US Constitution is the world's first national constitution, ratified in 1788. A product of a compromise among various warring colonies, the slave owners in the South, and antislavery citizens in the North, it was a remarkable document at the time and is still in force.