Everything that I’ve read about Donald Trump scares me and the closer we get to the election and the more vulnerable he looks, the more he scares me. The pandemic continues unabated and worsening significantly in several states. Even though the stock market is up, the longer-term economic outlook is not great, and will be potentially catastrophic if the country or parts of the country have to shut down again. Unemployment is still very high. The racial unrest and division in this country is only getting worse. The United States continues to cede its leadership role on the world stage and our adversaries are getting bolder and stronger. And we have a president who refuses to deal with reality, continues to spew divisive rhetoric and fans the flames of fear and hatred.
It is no secret that Trump is a ‘win at all costs’ kind of guy. In the upcoming election, his sole focus is on winning and staying in office. He has already shown his penchant for skirting laws or taking the position that he is above the law. He regularly tramples all over the constitution. That is bad enough, but he is trailing significantly in the polls and appears to be increasingly vulnerable and increasingly desperate. So, why is this scary?
Most people are not aware that the president can declare a ‘national emergency’ pretty much with the stroke of a pen. It does not require Congressional approval or anything else. “The moment the president declares a “national emergency”—a decision that is entirely within his discretion—he is able to set aside many of the legal limits on his authority”.1
I read an article in The Atlantic that discussed some of the emergency powers available to the president should he decide to invoke them. As emergency powers began to pile up over the years, Congress decided they needed to reign things in a little so in 1976 they passed the National Emergencies Act. While this seemingly imposes some oversight in that the President is required to report emergency expenditures to Congress every six months and the House and Senate are supposed to meet every six months to ‘consider a vote’ on terminating the emergency powers, the fact is, Congress has not met once in the 40 years since this act was passed to consider such a vote. And there are currently thirty states of emergency in effect today.1
According to the Brennan Center for Justice at the NYU School of Law, the president has access to 123 statutory provisions, should he declare a national emergency. And what exactly are these?
Theoretically, even under the mere ‘threat’ of war, the president could seize control of U.S. internet traffic, impeding access to certain websites and ensuring that internet searches return pro-Trump content as the top results. Obviously if Trump were to attempt something like this, there would be a flood of lawsuits – but lawsuits sometimes take time to get fully adjudicated. (And, of course, this is where packing the courts and having the Dept. of Justice on your side would be helpful to such a president)
In the event of a national emergency the president could, theoretically, impose sanctions against American citizens. The president could deploy troops domestically. The breadth of ‘tools’ available to a president in the time of a national emergency are staggering and frightening.
It was recently reported that Trump has ordered the deployment of two aircraft carrier groups to the South China Sea. So, all you need is a little belligerence on behalf of China and you have the ‘threat of war.’ (And, of course, you always have Iran as a backup.) You add the pandemic on top of that and you have all the makings of a ‘national emergency.’ If Trump chooses to declare a national emergency, it will unleash a monster who believes he has ‘absolute power’ (his words) to do whatever he wants! Postpone the election? Grab control of the internet or other media? ‘Designate’ certain individuals (read ‘political enemies’) as supporters of terrorism and thus have them sanctioned and investigated.
We Americans have been lulled into a sense of complacency based upon the assumption that whoever is occupying the White House is a rational person with the best interests of the country in mind coupled with the belief that Congress will act as a check on the Executive branch. We now have a man in the White House who has repeatedly demonstrated autocratic behavior and a complete disdain for any kind of oversight or control upon his behavior and a Republican led Senate that has shown a collective unwillingness to hold the president accountable for anything. And now Trump is desperate. It’s a very scary recipe.
We cannot get so complacent to believe that ‘this could never happen in America’ – it could. And Donald Trump is just the kind of person that could employ this kind of a power grab. He’s vulnerable and he’s desperate – that’s a very frightening combination. Putin is essentially president for life. President Xi of China is president for life. I have no doubt that Trump would like to join the club. Think something like that could never happen in America? Complacency and silence are the enemies of democracy and the friends of autocrats and authoritarianism. We all need to pay attention to what’s going on.
I have included two links below. The first is to the article in The Atlantic, which I would encourage everyone to read – as scary as it is. The second is a link to an essay written by Robert Redford which I thought was interesting – and right on point.
Scary. If Trump declares Marshal Law he has the power of a dictator and it is not clear if Congress can intervene to stop him. It might have to go to the Supreme Court for a resolution.