That's Peggy Noonan, pictured. She is currently best known, I think, as a columnist for The Wall Street Journal. Click the link to her name for more information about her background and accomplishments.
The title affixed to Noonan's recent column, published in the Saturday/Sunday, October 25-26 edition of The Journal, referenced one of the most famous observations of Benjamin Franklin. Here is the title to Noonan's column:
Franklin, when responding to a question about whether our 1787 Constitutional Convention had provided the nation with a monarchy, or with a republic, told his interrogator, Elizabeth Willing Powel, that the Constitution provided us with "a republic, if you can keep it." Note the "you." Franklin was properly letting Powel, and all of us, know that what kind of government we have will depend upon our own, personal, involvement, and our own, personal, actions.
Noonan discussed the destruction of the East Wing of the White House in her column, pretty much bemoaning its loss along the lines of my own observations, as posted in my blog entry published on October 24th. Noonan is a Republican, and was a speechwriter for former president Ronald Reagan. Patti Davis, the daughter of former president Reagan, has also lamented what our current president has done, unilaterally, to destroy a beloved part of one of our nation's most historic buildings, a building that belongs to us all.
I don't like to highlight the "partisan" nature of our government, because it is pretty easy to start thinking that a representative's party affiliation is more important than the representative's personal qualities, and more important than his personal relationship to those who can vote that representative in or out of office. I do not think that a government based on "party" is kind of government we either want or need, and I also think that it is particularly dangerous when our elected "representatives" begin to believe that their primary allegiance is to the "party" to which they belong, and not to the people who elected them, and who have the right to, and might, cast them out of office. An elected representative's primary allegiance must always be to those whom they (are supposed to) "represent."
The only real solution to the abuses of the Trump presidency must come either from the replacement of Republicans in the House of Representatives with person allied with the Democratic Party (which is how things are most commonly portrayed in the press, reflecting what I think is a mistaken idea that "party" is the key to our government), or by the effective use of the power of the people, in the districts in which they live, making current Republican (and other) officeholders pay attention to what their constituents actually want and need (affordable medical care, as one example).
The current House Majority Leader and Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, has been helping to protect the president from actions by the people, by keeping the House of Representatives shut down. But, to be honest, are the people represented by Republican members of the House ready to throw those representatives out if they keep allowing our current president and his accomplices in the Executive Branch to do the opposite of what they want and need (providing affordable medical care, as one example)?
I hope the answer to that last quetion is, "yes," because if we want to "keep" a government that allows us - "we, the people" - to be in charge, we need to demand, and insist, that our elected "representatives" actually represent what we want and need. Allegience by our elected representatives to the people they represent is what our system depends upon. Let us hope that those people who are currently represented by those supporting the president on the basis of "party" loyalty come to understand that the president is not their boss, and that our elected representatives in Congress are actually the boss of the president (the boss of the president on behalf of the people who elected those representatives to "represent" them).
I do not believe for a moment that a majority of those citizens who elected each and every member of the Republican Party in the Congress really, in every case, want their representatives to cut back their health care benefits, and to allow the current president to bulldoze down the White House for a ballroom, without debate, and without an opportunity of the people to be heard.
Am I wrong about that? Well, as Benjamin Franklin let us know how to answer the question. We have a "republic," not a "monarchy," if WE can keep it.
It's up to us, and if we don't reallocate how we spend our time, and start taking back our own power over the representatives who are supposed to represent US ("US," and not the "party" or the "party leader"), then we will end up with what amounts to a modern day "monarchy."
Take it from Ben! That "No Kings" slogan would make sense to him!
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