The dangers of it.
I’m as unhappy about it as I am with all the other “national emergencies” that have been declared by other presidents (many of which are still in effect). I notice, though, that (as usual), many people are only about things that all presidents do when Trump does them.
As for why the next D president couldn’t do that, I fully expect (s)he will (and would regardless of the faux “precedent” that Trump is supposedly setting). The only legal way to rein in a president (as opposed to what Obama’s Justice Department was illegally doing to Trump prior to the election, in what the guy who was fired for lying to the FBI is now admitting was an attempted coup) is impeachment. It has been used far too seldom, which is why the president has accumulated too much power.
…constitutional structure aside, why is presidential unilateralism bad? Because our system was designed to make major shifts in government policy difficult, and that’s a good thing because it lowers the stakes of politics. We had experience in 1861 with what happens when a significant part of the country believes that the national government has become arrayed against it, and it’s not an experience we should want to repeat on any scale.
But the Left seems determined to do that, even though we have the guns.
“We had experience in 1861 with what happens when a significant part of the country believes that the national government has become arrayed against it, and it’s not an experience we should want to repeat on any scale.”
Which was the position of three of the four major party candidates (Bell, Breckenridge, and Douglas). A view that was held by the geographic majority of the country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1860_United_States_presidential_election#/media/File:PresidentialCounty1860Colorbrewer.gif
What mattered in the end was the electoral college, which is why Lincoln won the country even with his home state divided. Ohio, New York, and Pennsylvania carried him into office with their massive electoral votes.
Next time it will be California, Oregon, Washington, New York, Pennsylvania, and Florida.
Impeachment at all levels (i.e., federal, state, local) should be a regular occurrence, not a rare one. This failure was a major error by the Founders.
You shouldn’t need impeachment in a relatively homogenous society where only people with skin in the game can vote. Which is what the founders had.
As some dead white guy once said, democracy can only last until voters realize they can vote themselves other people’s money; we passed that point in most of the West maybe fifty years ago and it’s only the checks and balances to limit the power of those democratic governments that have held society together since.
But those are pretty much gone now, too.
You need impeachment in any system in which humans are involved. The president’s power cannot be absolute.
As something to use in extreme cases, yes. But not as a regular occurrence.
And, if you have limited government and a homogenous society where voting is restricted to those who are going to end up paying the price of electing an idiot, they tend not to elect idiots.
I’m curious; if it’s unilateral and bad for a president to spend a few billion protecting our borders via a state of emergency (a power created by congress) then how is it not unilateral and bad for a president to send a few billion (including literal planeloads of cash and bullion) to a terrorist regime whilst keeping it secret from Congress and the American people, without even bothering with the state of emergency route?
The whole thing is a mess–the border issue is at least colorable–but the checks and balances in general are totally out of whack.
When testing out Presidential powers granted by congress or the constitution, a better approach is the judicial system. Impeachment is political in nature and will tell us very little about where the actual limits to power are at.
When their is clear evidence of a President breaking actual laws, impeachment is a remedy but it relies on a congress that agrees. Democrats were no more likely to impeach Obama for his crimes than Obama’s DOJ was to investigate or prosecute.
We have some blindspots in our system. It relies on ethical people to run it. In turn, we need an ethical populace to supply the people. The loyal opposition has spent decades destroying public/private institutions and social norms. They even think the founding of the country and our ecconomic system are illegitimate and need to be replaced.
Can we have a functioning civil service made up from this populace? Some might see some hope in Democrats suddenly attacking socialism but fascists and socialists always fight over control of the left.
–As for why the next D president couldn’t do that, I fully expect (s)he will (and would regardless of the faux “precedent” that Trump is supposedly setting)–
Dems aren’t constrained by “precedent” or even laws.
The argument that now, dem will do it, is utterly foolishness.
But if future Dem president doesn’t defend the US borders, (s)he will be blamed for not declaring a national emergency