The recent government shutdown, which came to a temporary end on Friday was idiotic, embarrassing, and completely meaningless.
After 35 days, President Trump completely caved and opened the government without one cent for a border wall. The Democrats spent 35 days ignoring the fact that they have voted time and time again to support border walls and have spent exponentially more in the past on walls than what Trump is even asking for.
Unless something dramatically changes, we know what the next few weeks will look like:
The Democrats will refuse to build structures because they believe it is the dagger in Trump’s political heart. Trump’s base of voters has never wavered, and while they are only about 35% of the voting population, they are loyal and motivated and they will show up for Trump in 2020. They, and just a few independents were all he needed to win in 2016, and they’re the key to re-election. The thing Trump’s base cares about more than anything is that wall, and the Democrats believe that if they can run in 2020 reminding people he built no wall, it will demoralize his base and render him impotent.
Trump knows all of this and will hold firm.
On February 15th, the government will either shutdown again (not likely after the toll this one took on everyone politically) or will stay open and Trump, in as disgustingly a motivated fashion as what the Democrats are doing, will put politics ahead of country.
If Trump declares border security a “national emergency,” he may as well tear the Constitution apart as he makes the announcement.
The National Emergency provision essentially allows for a president to override congress and divert money to whatever the emergency is, in this case, building a wall.
Legally, he seemingly has every right to do so. While it will be challenged in courts and the wall will be delayed, ultimately the Supreme Court will almost certainly recognize that the Constitution allows the President to declare anything he or she deems to be in the interest of America’s safety to be an emergency if he or she sees an imminent danger. Trump can make that case. While the majority of Americans do not support the wall (and never once have in any poll ever), they do overwhelmingly believe that we have a border security issue that must be addressed. In the wake of multiple high-profile murders and crimes committed recently by illegals and Trump’s successful highlighting of the MS-13 gang, there’s a case to be made.
There are also plenty of arguments against. This isn’t 9/11. This isn’t a smallpox outbreak. This is a 30-50 years-old problem that is no better or worse today than it was a year, 5, or 10 years ago. It just hasn’t been dealt with, and making the case that it’s now an emergency, is a stretch to many.
Most importantly, just because you CAN do something, doesn’t mean you SHOULD.
If Trump does this, it will fundamentally alter the future of this nation in ways no one is recognizing.
Imagine President Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders or Beto O’ Rourke in 2021 on the heels of the next Las Vegas massacre and/or school shooting. If Trump changes the baseline of a national emergency to being a policy-debate-disagreement with the other side over how to solve a problem, you can bet that a national emergency over gun ownership will be declared.
What about President Mike Pence? Planned Parenthood reported last week that it performed a record 332,757 abortions of the approximately 882,000 abortions that took place in the United States in the last year. That sounds to Pence like a national emergency over murdering babies.
Get the idea yet?
What about President Gavin Newsom declaring climate change a national emergency and immediately moving to shutter all coal plants without any sort of vote, debate, or discourse?
The statistics on porn usage in America and its effects on people, relationships, and children are growing and reaching hysterical levels. Usher in President Ted Cruz or President Mitt Romney or Huckabee or Trump Jr and have them declare our nation’s porn addiction a national emergency.
Trump can’t do this.
He can, but here’s hoping someone, somewhere, can talk him off this ledge. Ivanka? Are you listening?
The answer to this is simple; Trump must do what countless before him have done; go loud, be merciless, and pin every single illegal-immigrant related bad incident on the Democrats for the next two years. In speech and tweet and tweet after speech, tell the American public “I can’t build the wall unless you elect me and a ton of republicans in 2020.
And then, in a weird twist of American “democracy,” let the people decide. This is a decision for our citizens, not a person with an approval rate of 37%. And more importantly, the ramifications it will have on our nation will reverberate for the rest of the country’s existence.
During the Obama administration, Democratic Senate Majority leader Harry Reid changed the rules in the senate for confirming judges on lower courts so that more and more liberal judges could get on the bench. When he did, howls emerged from all sides that when Republicans took over, they would up the ante. Reid’s response? “That’ll never happen.”
Republicans control the senate and changed the rules so that Supreme Court Justices now needed the same lowered threshold as lower courts as deemed by Reid. Democrats angry at Trump’s nominees, Justice Gorsuch and Kavanaugh being on the Supreme Court, can thank Harry Reid.
Republicans who have their guns confiscated and/or SUV’s taken away in 7 years can thank Trump if he does this. It’s time to start howling.
