I‘m old enough to remember when conservatives excoriated an arrogant, petulant president vastly overstepping the bounds of his executive power to unconstitutionally subvert congressional authority in a histrionic tantrum after the legislative branch refused to give the crybaby in chief what he wanted.
Illegal immigrants who arrived in the country as children, colloquially known as “Dreamers,” are a uniquely sympathetic class of criminals. Most came here through no fault of their own, and under the DREAM Act, first introduced in the Senate by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., in 2001, would be absolved of any illegal status and provided a pathway to permanent residency or citizenship, depending on the version of the bill.
So when former President Barack Obama wanted to protect Dreamers, his intentions were sound and justified. He had two years of bicameral Democratic control. If he cared about the plight of the Dreamers as much as he said, he absolutely should have made passing the DREAM Act a priority in his first 100 days in office.
Instead, Obama waited until he was campaigning for re-election in the summer of 2012 to throw a tyrannical fit and craft the unconstitutional Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program via executive branch memorandum, effectively demanding that the government unilaterally cease to enforce federal immigration law.
The whole episode reeked of disdain for the Constitution and manipulation of Dreamers as political pawns. As an executive memorandum, Obama left the Dreamers at the mercy of whatever party came to power, using their tenuous legal standing to threaten voters to fall in line and re-elect Democrats.
The gambit obviously backfired, and Republicans took back everything in 2016, electing the single least libertarian candidate on immigration and giving him the popular mandate to strengthen border security and tighten our immigration process.
Now, nearly seven years after the president stamped his foot on congressional authority and respect for the law in the name of his immigration agenda, a different president is seriously considering stamping his foot on congressional authority and respect for the law in the name of his immigration agenda.
For strategic reasons alone, conservatives should immediately and vociferously rebuke the notion that President Trump should invoke a state of national emergency to use the military to build his southern border wall. First off, invoking a national emergency would absolve congressional Democrats of their duty to legislate, instead inviting a legal injunction and passing the blame onto the courts instead of Democrats. Then, as Philip Klein details, invoking a national emergency could result in the very real possibility of a lengthy legal battle that ultimately rules in Trump’s favor, but just in time for Democrats to use a vastly expanded executive authority to execute eco-fascistic policies or push government healthcare.
But beyond the game theory of it all is the perverse and disgusting irony of the same people whom we elected into power specifically to curtail the growing and grotesque overreach of the government now calling on the president to bastardize that power, spitting in the faces of the public after Republicans failed to fulfill their popular mandate and pass border security for the past two years. For example, look at Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C.
Democrats continue to refuse to negotiate in good faith or appropriate any money for border barriers. If they won’t compromise, POTUS should use asset forfeiture money or other discretionary fees to start construction. If not, he should declare a national emergency. It’s time.
— Mark Meadows (@RepMarkMeadows) January 11, 2019
For Meadows, the chairman of none other than the House Freedom Caucus, to call on the president to abuse both the powers of asset forfeiture and the declaration of national emergencies is beyond laughable. It’s political theater finally admitting that it’s a farce, that a generation of Republicans elected with the hopes and dreams of Tea Party conservatives don’t actually care about ending the catastrophe of big government.
Politics is a game. A national emergency, an unconstitutional executive memorandum, they’re all the same. Simply flipping over the game board in a rage because you can’t actually win with political acumen isn’t winning. It’s admitting defeat, and every congressional Republican encouraging the president to give up, let Democrats off the hook, and admit that he failed his voters ought to finally admit to themselves that they’re not conservatives.
They never were.
