I just heard that #doughfacedonny has gone ahead with declaring a national emergency to fund his stupid wall. I have to keep this brief with just a knee-jerk reaction.
Why didn't he do anything while his supposed party was running everything?
Doesn't he realize this is an impeachable abuse of power?
Will media figures actually step up to refute his phoney emergency?
Is this simply the latest step in the utter subversion and repudiation of democracy?
Will so-called conservatives finally admit that they hate America as it is and want authoritarianism?
American government has basically been broken, functionally, since 1993 when Bill Jeff took the reins. Despite his New Democrat/Centrist credentials, the republicans rejected his legitimacy and waged war on him despite his election victory and reelection. Nixon tested the waters for authoritarianism and barely escaped with his freedom. Reagan buzzsawed the foundations of the New Deal configuration of the federal government and got away with it, leaving the government hobbled by debt. Dubya Bush simply extended what the Reaganites were doing and amplified both the authoritarian nature of republican ideology and that so-called party's open contempt for democracy.
The first thing: "I didn't need to do this." #doughfacedonny's own words. Mother Jones leads their story on it by writing "Merriam-Webster defines an emergency as an 'unforeseen' event that requires 'immediate action.'" So there is, by definition, no merit to #doughfacedonny's actions. He has pushed this asinine story of a crisis on the southern border. All Americans that are not republican automatons know that this isn't true, or would know that it isn't if the media did more than carry water for liars and authoritarians.
Second thing: this is exactly what the republicans want; to "prove" that normal governance is impossible and rule by decree is the only way to control this roiling society of malcontents. It's all nonsense of course, the only problem that is intractable in America is the fact that the republican party is treated as a good faith actor in our politics and not forcibly removed from power as the terrorists and traitors that they are.
Third thing: by continuing the normalization of anti-American authoritarianism, decreeing a national emergency where one does not exist will join every broken rule and violated taboo perpetrated by this death cult of human suffering. Again, there is no daylight between what #doughfacedonny does and what republicans want.
Finally: this is just the man on the bicycle continuing to pedal forward lest he fall over. Stop thinking of each travesty of justice, abuse of power, or blatant lie as covering up or distracting from something else. This is one unbroken line of chaos from the moment #doughfacedonny came down the escalator until now.
Don't for a moment believe that there is some kind of silver lining in all of this. This is not setting a precedent for a future Democratic president to get actual progressive action on public safety, climate change, income and wealth inequality, or anything else. The hypocrisy of the so-called republican party knows no limits, they do not accept any opposition as legitimate, and will not compromise or work in good faith on anything. Until they are beaten to a pulp, nothing will function normally. Bill Clinton tried to get a market-based health insurance reform through congress, he was crushed for it. He tried to balance the budget, republicans simply lied that the debt was bigger than ever. He would have been impeached on flimsier grounds than lying about an affair if that had not landed in the death cult's lap.When Dubya ramped up the tax cuts, ladled on the gravy for defense contractors, and lied us into a disastrous war, his party responded by denouncing any critics as traitors. Barack Obama was treated the same way.
Normalizing this emergency decree will only smooth the road to dictatorship even further. This is the hill worth dying on, metaphorically speaking. This is what abuse of power looks like. Democrats respond timidly to their own peril.
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