In an Associated Press article published Dec. 18, Maine Republican Chairman Rick Bennett said, “Our government is built on the rule of law, and I think we can lose a lot of elements of our democracy. But the one thing that will surely undermine any remaining fabric we have left is going to be flouting the rule of law.”

It is ironic that he said this in the context of casting his electoral vote for Donald Trump, a man who flouts the rule of law at every turn, from hedging on how his financial holdings will be set up during his presidency in order to prevent massive conflicts of interest, to threatening to remove the First Amendment protections for the press that have helped hold every president accountable for his actions.

Donald Trump expects everybody else to follow the rules – in fact, he counts on it, and gains an advantage from the fact that people generally do – but he picks and chooses when to follow them himself. His attitude toward the rule of law is part of how he is showing us what he intends to do with the presidency.

Autocrats throughout history have held themselves apart from the rules that apply to others. It seems unlikely that the Republicans in Congress – who also flout the rule of law by, for example, refusing to hold confirmation hearings on their sitting president’s Supreme Court nominee for nine months now – will care about the ways Trump parts ways with the law, but I hope I am wrong.

I hope they and Democrats will hold him to the law. And if they don’t or can’t, I hope Democrats will learn quickly to play by the new rules.

Erin Murphy

Gorham

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