A president can do anything he wants, so long as a third of the Senate allows it.
Impeachment and conviction is the only check and balance.
High school civics textbooks need to be revised and corrected.
Trump ignores the War Powers Act in our war against Iran. The bill passed with bipartisan support in 1973, amid the public unease about the war against Vietnam. President Nixon vetoed the bill. The House and Senate overrode the veto, again with bipartisan support, making the War Powers Act the law of the land.
-- A president is required to give advance notice to Congress of a planned attack; Trump didn't.
-- A president is required to give a report to Congress within 48 hours of a war in progress; Trump didn't.
--A president is required to withdraw from a war if, within 60 days, he does not get affirmative approval from Congress for the war; Trump didn't.
There is a simple message coming from the president: "Make me." Congress doesn't make him.
Same thing is happening with tariffs. The power to levy taxes are central to congressional power. Trump imposes tariffs on his own authority and volition, using an obviously false pretext that a state of emergency is in effect. Then when his authority to levy those tariffs under that pretext was stuck down by the Supreme Court, he imposed new tariffs using a different pretext. The real message was "Make me." Congress does nothing.
Congress itself publishes formal descriptions of its power. It is irrelevant make-believe, the suitable to be assigned to 14-year olds, being taught ignorant patriotism.
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| Click: CONGRESS.GOV |
-- Trump cut whole programs and departments that Congress authorized.
-- He fires employees in contradiction to the Civil Service Act.
-- He ignores and breaks treaty obligations.
Much of Trump's illegal behavior is done openly, proudly, unapologetically. These are not arguable cases, open to interpretation, such as whether his giving pardons to people who buy his meme coin, enriching him personally, is an out-and-out bribe, or it merely stinks to high heaven, but cannot definitively be called a bribe because there is no document proving it was a contracted transaction.
In the past presidents edged around the boundaries of congressional, and judicial power, pushing the edges, but with a show of good-faith acceptance of the law. Sometimes they were hypocrites, but they were not open scofflaws. They demonstrated recognition of an obligation to "faithfully execute" laws.
Trump redefined rules-based international relationships. He said that the supposed constraints on powerful countries set through the Geneva Conventions, the United Nations, and treaties are just window-dressing obscuring what is really going on. The strong make the rules, period, he said. Trump does the same in relation to the institutions of government. Forget rules. Stop him, or let him do what he pleases.
There is one constraint on Trump, impeachment and conviction. As long as he has support of half of the Republican primary electorate in bright red states, he can do whatever he pleases. That is why the defeat of Thomas Massie is so consequential. It showed that even when a person confronted Trump on a weak spot -- Trump hiding the Epstein files -- voters supported Trump. This comes shortly after the primary election loss of Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy, who had voted to impeach Trump five years ago following the January 6 attack of the Capitol. Resist Trump and lose your primary.
Trump has leverage and uses it. Republican officeholders know that activist MAGA, Trump-loving party faithful -- perhaps 20 percent of the total voting population -- control their political fortunes. A minority of voters in Arkansas, Alabama, Oklahoma and other bright red states are the only power-politics constraint on Trump. If Trump keeps 37 senators on board, he can ignore Congress and do as he wishes. And he does.
Norms, tradidition, and respect for the law don't constrain Trump. He says "make me." He exercises hard power.
Hard power is the only power Congress has left.
[I am grateful for Herb Rothschild's excellent report on the War Powers Act in his column this week in Ashland.news, a nonprofit news organization that emerged to fill the vacuum in local news coverage in Southern Oregon.]
[Note: To get daily delivery of this blog by email go to Https://petersage.substack.com. Subscribe. The blog is free and always will be.]
3 comments:
Unfortunately for critics casting current events in black and white, Trump's undeniable excesses nonetheless represent a difference in degree, not kind, from his Democratic predecessors.
President Obama bypassed the War Powers Act on both the initial and the subsequent 60-90 day authorizations in his regime-change 2011 warmaking against Libya. President Biden's display of scorched-earth clemency--to include the purely self-serving--exploded all previous norms.
Analogously, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was duly warned in 2013 about employing the nuclear option to bypass filibuster traditions concerning judicial appointments. The predictable consequence was the Trump-era Supreme Court. "Pack SCOTUS!" is now the Democratic response...
Posted for Anonymous.
" Peter, In my opinion, he has done democracy a great service by truly stress-testing the separation of powers."
Yes, timid mice and bold elephants are both mammals. But as the anonymous commenter said, Trump has given a stress test to the separation of powers. There is enormous difference in my mind between a hypocrite over small things and a bold scofflaw. One observes the law, the other says the law is irrelevant.
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