A president can be dictator if he claims it’s for national security

By David McElroy · February 15, 2019

Donald Trump is a liar.

He’s always been a liar. Anybody who pays attention knows he’s lying. He was a liar as a businessman. He was a liar as a television personality. He’s a dysfunctional narcissistic who has absolutely no respect for the truth. He’s a bully who simply wants his way.

But because of the political system which you were brainwashed into believing is holy, he’s also the most powerful man in the world — and your political system has given him unlimited power over your life, just as long as he claims whatever he does is for “national security,” even though we all know it’s another lie.

This makes him a dictator — and he’s starting to seize more power.

On Thursday, the White House announced that Trump plans to issue a declaration of “national emergency” at the U.S. border with Mexico and he’s going to spend more than $8 billion — without congressional approval — to seize private land and build barriers. Even if you think it’s a good idea to build such a wall, you should be terrified at what Trump is doing — especially if you’re a conservative.

There is no emergency at the border. Anybody who has paid attention to migration patterns understands this. Even if you believe it’s a bad thing for peaceful people to move back and forth across political lines looking for honest employment, the truth is that the flows of people into the country are way down.

But Trump is going to lie — claim there’s an emergency — because this lets him invoke a 1976 congressional action called the National Emergencies Act. According to a 2007 report from the Congressional Research Service for members of Congress, this legislation allows a president to “seize property, organize and control the means of production, seize commodities, assign military forces abroad, institute martial law, seize and control all transportation and communication, regulate the operation of private enterprise, restrict travel, and, in a variety of ways, control the lives of United States citizens.”

How is that any different from the powers which any dictator takes upon himself?

Oh, but this is different, you say. Congress voted to give this power to the president, so that makes it just fine. The German parliament voted to give Adolph Hitler the dictatorial powers which he exercised, too. Hitler and the German politicians of the day also made up lies about emergencies. Does that make everything Hitler did OK — since his own government said it was legal?

If you call yourself a conservative but support Trump building a border wall by declaring a “national emergency” and grabbing the money unilaterally, you are an unprincipled partisan with no ground to complain the next time a Democrat seizes such dictatorial powers.

The Imperial Presidency has been growing more and more powerful for many decades and this is the next level of power grab. If you cheer when Trump does something which Congress has never given him the power to do, what are you going to do when the next Democratic president declares that lack of access to free medical services constitutes a national emergency — and he (or she) seizes the medical industry in the name of solving this emergency?

What are you going to do when the next Democratic president declares that climate change constitutes a national emergency and outlaws fossil fuels or decrees a huge tax on energy consumption in the name of saving the country?

What about when a Democratic president declares that gun violence is a national emergency and decrees sweeping bans on certain types of weapons?

If you support Trump in this enormous power grab, how can you reasonably protest when a future Democratic president becomes a dictator and does the things you hate — no matter what they are?

The political system is evil enough as it is. The political elites have decided that you must obey their whims — hand over the money they demand, obey their rules and die in foreign wars in they order you to do so.

All of that is bad enough, but the few limits which were placed on the U.S. government through the language of the Constitution have been absolutely and completely ignored. That document — which you were taught protects your freedoms — is a dead document, because it now means anything which politicians decide to say it means.

But as bad as all of that has become — ever since the beginning of the Progressive Era, during which the federal government seized more and more power — what Donald Trump is doing right now goes beyond even that.

Up until now, it was assumed that a president had to get Congress to go along with whatever power grab he wanted to pursue. Now, we’re told that a president can just tell a simple lie — claim there’s an emergency — and then do pretty much whatever he wants.

Those of the libertarian or voluntaryist point of view obviously hate what’s been going on (from both sides of the mainstream). Democrats hate what’s going on right now because they don’t want a border wall built.

But the people who should be absolutely terrified are conservatives. Those of you who still lie to yourself and say that you’re “constitutional conservatives” — but manage to cheer Trump for this insane power grab — are setting yourself up for the next power grab.

When that day comes — and some Democrat does things which you know are wrong and unfair — don’t blame that president. Don’t even blame his follow Democrats.

Blame yourself and your weak-minded fellow conservatives — who failed to stop a madman from showing Democrats exactly how to forge ahead with whatever dictatorial madness they want. You are to blame.

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