A parallel legal regime
I read the opening of a piece by Elizabeth Goitein at the Atlantic on Trump and emergency powers the other day, and found it so alarming I stopped reading. Now it appears we’re being dragged over that threshold…which could be game over. It was for Germany, and it could be for us.
Trump has long signaled his disdain for the concepts of limited presidential power and democratic rule. During his 2016 campaign, he praised murderous dictators. He declared that his opponent, Hillary Clinton, would be in jail if he were president, goading crowds into frenzied chants of “Lock her up.” He hinted that he might not accept an electoral loss. As democracies around the world slide into autocracy, and nationalism and antidemocratic sentiment are on vivid display among segments of the American populace, Trump’s evident hostility to key elements of liberal democracy cannot be dismissed as mere bluster.
It would be nice to think he couldn’t, but guess what, he can.
Unknown to most Americans, a parallel legal regime allows the president to sidestep many of the constraints that normally apply. The moment the president declares a “national emergency”—a decision that is entirely within his discretion—more than 100 special provisions become available to him. While many of these tee up reasonable responses to genuine emergencies, some appear dangerously suited to a leader bent on amassing or retaining power. For instance, the president can, with the flick of his pen, activate laws allowing him to shut down many kinds of electronic communications inside the United States or freeze Americans’ bank accounts. Other powers are available even without a declaration of emergency, including laws that allow the president to deploy troops inside the country to subdue domestic unrest.
You see the problem.
Best assume the worst: Trump’s laying the groundwork for a coup, via ‘emergency powers.’
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2019/jan/04/trump-latest-live-news-updates-shutdown-democrats-pelosi-ocasio-cortez
Sometimes I wonder… do articles like these tip off his crew of incompetents to a cool new trick they can try? We know for a fact that Trump’s inner circle has no real legal or civic knowhow, because his inner circle is staffed via nepotism and sycophancy rather than merit. Now that an article has been written by someone that has such knowledge, there is the very real possibility that the Fox And Friends crew will read it and discuss it on air, which Trump is most certainly watching.
It scared the bejeezus out of me too. Just as frightening is the question, “Then what?”. Put our heads down and just try to survive and hope we don’t around the unwanted attention of the police or neo-brownshirts? Roundups of immigrants, liberals, and journalists? A counter coup? By whom? Bloodless or not? And if the coup leaders succeed will they restore civil society or establish martial law? Or will there be insurrection and anarchy? Things I recently thought impossible now seem possible, and I’m surely not alone.
This is Trump negotiating. He is telling the Dems to submit.
He won’t do it. He is essentially a coward.
I hope Jared Kushner enjoys being in talks with Nancy Pelosi. Just thinking about how she will chew him up and spit him out gives me great pleasure.
All those people who wanted Trump to disrupt things have got their wish.
I cans only hope our diversity here in the US dilutes any attempts at lock-stop obedience like the “good Germans.”
(Not that I believe there was anything inherently “German” about the horrors of 80 years ago. That’s racism. I see it as an example of human bad.)
Learie, you have a point and I hope you’re right. Empty bluster is often his style. As for Pelosi v. Jared, yeah, I’d love to be a fly on the wall.
I wonder the same thing. Left to their own devices, Trump and Co.’s efforts often end up making the Keystone Cops look like a model of grace and dignity. If some Evil Genius with actual Knowledge and Competence, who doesn’t mind working with or even under a complete idiot were to slip into the White House, that would mean real trouble. Does Pence fit the bill?
YNNB: Pence is evil; I’m not sure he’s a genius. He has demonstrated the willingness to work under a complete idiot, and he certainly has at least some level of knowledge and competence. I don’t think it requires a genius; I haven’t seen a lot of dictators that I thought were geniuses, only competent and knowledgeable about how to use the system to their own advantage. So, yeah, even without genius, Pence is a threat. But I doubt he’s as gung ho about the wall – he mostly wants to put uppity women in their place and illegalize all attempts to allow women control of their own reproduction.
Yes, for Pence, the “Evil” part is understood; the “Genius” part is comparative, given the rest of the administration. Is he a ‘power behinf the throne’ sorta guy?
Unknown to most Americans? This is exactly the same scare story* that was being yelled from the rooftops by everybody on the Right from the conspiracy mongers on the internet to Fox News during Obama’s last year or-so in office. He was going to declare a National Emergency and have elections cancelled and declare himself Leader for Life any day now…..any day now…..won’t be long…..any day now. Any American who didn’t know of this couldn’t have been paying attention, or dismissed the talk 5 years ago as mere paranoia from the Right with no basis in fact.
*almost the same, except this president is deranged enough to give it ago.
AoS; but with Obama, the right-wing-o-sphere would have claimed he was going to do this whether there was any actual legal basis for him to do it. Ask Ted Nugent, who was neither in prison or dead during the Obama administration’s second term, but claimed he was going to be one or the other if the O-man were to be re-elected. I’m guessing that these fear-mongering conspiracy nuts would claim that Obama failed to go through with his evil plans for a National Emergency because fear of all those righteous, gun-totin’ white KKKristian Ammurrakinz kept him honest. But the plans were there, legal or not.
Obama was the Antichrist. It’s just how he rolled.
Well, it worked. He’s talking national emergency.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jan/06/donald-trump-government-shutdown-border-wall-concrete-steel
And video https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2019/jan/06/i-may-declare-national-emergency-says-trump-us-mexico-wall-video
We know that someone with the Trump’s ear is working for Putin. If we don’t know who, it’s both because Mueller is keeping his cards close to his chest and because there is such an embarrassment of possible candidates.
Putin is an evil genius any way you look at it. There is no way he hasn’t known of this massive loophole in US checks and balances for a very, very long time. All he needed was a candidate who was stupid, easily flattered, vain and self-centred enough both to run for office and happily do Putin’s bidding once he got there.
I still think that Putin has files on Democrat members of the electoral college and that is why Trump ‘won’ despite losing.
Except the genius part. I read a tweet by someone Russia-knowledgeable the other day, I forget who except it was a woman, who said don’t overestimate Putin just because Trump is in his thrall, he’s just a very average KGB guy who got lucky.