Emergency!---Really??

Of all the egregious things Donald Trump has done to the Constitution and to our society over the past two years, he is about to outdo himself by declaring an emergency at the southern border.  The founders of this nation wanted to protect against the despotism that comes from an executive with the power of the purse.  That’s why they constructed our government so that one person, the President, did NOT have the power of the purse.  Instead it was vested in Article 1 of the Constitution in the House of the People’s Representatives.

What he is going to try to do is clearly an abuse of power by any standard.  Most importantly, please realize that there is NO emergency at the southern border!  He is only declaring this emergency to circumvent Congress' constitutional authority, in order to fulfill his fantasy of building a wall (which he promised Mexico would pay for!)  

But circumventing Congress by false proclamations is not allowed in this game called America!  If it really was an emergency, why is he flying off to Mar-a-Lago instead of rushing to the ‘war room’ to manage the emergency?

The emergencies the country really faces can be listed in a worrisome list that includes massacres of innocents by crazies with guns and the worsening climate change effects.  Those are clear and present dangers to our society that will spiral into catastrophe without coherent action.  And the tragedy here is that a majority of Americans want faster action, but our government, led by the Republicans, is not interested in the real dangers.  They are only interested in not getting ‘primaried’ by Donald Trump.

Mitch McConnell is supporting this precedent changing action by Trump.  I have to believe he understands what he is unleashing in terms of future actions by a President.  What is his motivation?  Why does he want to pave the way for further abuse of power and the destruction of one of the foundational parts of our Constitution?  Mitch has gone around the bend!  If I were a true Conservative, it would boggle my mind!  

Clearly the only action that will put a stop to this immediately is if the House passes a measure to rescind  the emergency status proclaimed by the President.  The 1974 National Emergency Act provides that if one house of Congress votes to rescind the proclamation, the other house MUST vote on the same measure immediately.  My guess is that Republicans would be put in an untenable situation and would most likely break with the President on this issue.  That would put a stop to the 'Emergency'.

I keep hoping that the pendulum of rationality is swinging away from the madness we have had to endure since Trump became President, but it is a trial every day to understand and endure the sight of our crumbling democracy.  The only real way to oust this madman and his lemming like supporters is at the ballot box, but will there be a ballot box when the actual election opportunity arrives? 

And will the Democratic Party, which is the only mitigating force thus far in the march toward 2020, avoid self-immolation by creating their own personal errors and 'issue potholes' as they flex their newfound power in the House of Representatives.  Can Pelosi reign in the party to avoid handing the Republicans fodder for their re-election campaign, eg. the mess in Virginia, or the loudmouthed new progressives like Alexandra Ocasio Cortez, Ilhan Omar and  Rashida Tlaib?

The 2020 election is the Democratic Party’s to lose.  Unless they step up their game and be more strategic and less loose-lipped, they will fall victim to themselves!

BTW, has anyone listened to this Mayor from South Bend, Indiana?  I heard him on Colbert’s Late Show last night and he is an interesting candidate. 

It is really easy to dismiss Pete Buttigieg as ‘too young and inexperienced’ to be President.  Well, just a minute!  Here is a 37 year-old guy that has been a Mayor for the past 8 years.  He is a veteran of the War in Afghanistan(commissioned as a Naval Intelligence Officer), Phi Beta Kappa Harvard grad, Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, has worked in DC with former SECDEF William Cohen and Massachusetts Senator John Kerry.

In June of 2015 he ‘came out’ as a gay man, and that November he won re-election as Mayor of South Bend with over 80% of the vote. Do you think his fellow citizens in South Bend liked him??

But even more than those facts, he voiced an interesting perspective about who he is:  Pete Buttigieg is building a campaign on ‘intergenerational justice’.  Since he is the first ‘Millenial’ to run for President, he believes “that millennials are suffering from their elders’ short-term thinking on climate change, economics, and other issues.”  He also said, “I think the trick for us is there should be a way to make a generational case without this all being about generational conflict. And I think there’s a way to do it.' "

That’s a wake up call!

His point is that he is from the generation of kids that were in high school when the Columbine shooting happened; he is the generation that will have to deal with the effects of Climate Change and the avoidance of the rest of us in dealing with it; his generation will have to fix what is wrong with our democracy—he says, “we’ve got to repair our democracy. The Electoral College needs to go, because it’s made our society less and less democratic.”

These are simple truths that we must all admit are on target.  Do not count this guy out—he is a voice for our immediate future, and even if he doesn’t make it all the way around the track this time out, he and his generation are probably the ultimate salvation of America.  Ultimately they will clean out the rot that overtaken our current government because they will have to deal with all the horrors that we have created for them.

But I digress---so, back to the present.  The ‘emergency’ that Donald Trump is trying to foist on all of us will be a self-defeating moment.  If he actually follows this path, his despotic, self-aggrandizing action will further reveal his vileness….  There is no ‘character’ present in this man that is redeemable. 

We must endure this and more until 2020….and let us pray it ends there!