Lee Camp, writing for Truthdig, pointed out that Democrats in Congress have no qualms about giving President Donald Trump the powers of a dictator. Instead of standing up for the American people, he said, corporate-owned Democrats have strengthened the president.
The Democrats have helped, voted for, and often argued in favor of all of the following:
- Giving Trump unlimited war powers.
- Giving Trump unlimited trade negotiation powers.
- Giving Trump unlimited surveillance powers.
- Giving Trump the power to lock someone up indefinitely without a trial or charges under the National Defense Authorization Act.
- Giving Trump the power to assassinate American citizens without a trial or charges.
- Giving Trump’s administration full control of our election system infrastructure.
If this is considered “resistance,” then I don’t want to be a part of it. I’d rather spend my time resisting the “Resistance” and thereby taking this dictator’s toolkit away from Donald Trump.
Source: Truthdig
Most of my Democratic friends are obsessed with Trump. Every discussion of politics veers to the most recent foolish thing Trump has said or done.
They hope and expect that Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller will prove that Trump is in league with the Russian government and provide grounds for impeachment.
Even if that works out, which I doubt, they’re then faced with President Mike Pence, who from a liberal Democratic standpoint is just as bad as Trump on matters of policy, but more effective.
On matters of policy, there’s little difference between Trump and the dominant faction in the Republican Party.
On fundamental questions of war and peace, Constitutional rights and economic policy, there is no fundamental difference between Republican and Democratic leaders in Congress.
That’s why some Democrats in Congress would rather allow Trump the powers of a dictator than to set limits on the power of a future Democratic President.
It’s true that, out of the six items, only the war powers and the surveillance powers were voted on during the Trump administration.
That doesn’t matter. When you vote to remove restraints on Presidential power, you have empowered all Presidents, present and future—not just to the one you happen to like.
LINKS
Six Ways the ‘Resistance’ Gave Trump a Dictator’s Toolkit by Lee Camp for TruthDig.
Russiagate, Trump, Putin, Mueller and Targeting Dissent by Matt Taibbi for Rolling Stone.
Tags: constitutional government, Donald Trump, Executive Power, Presidential Power
Phil Ebersole's Blog 
March 6, 2018 at 7:55 pm |
I’d add to that the broader theme of expecting the various security/intel agencies to rescue the US from Trump.
TV and other media repeatedly invite former intel/security figures to be the voice of authority. To play the part of experts/pundits, not on the police-type work their agencies are assigned to do, but on the subject of how democratic politics should work. On what is and is not proper behavior and speech in politics, etc.
This trains audiences to take the men and women from these agencies at their word, when the mass of US history says decisions about civil liberties should come from elsewhere.
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March 21, 2018 at 10:18 pm |
Like this.
See Thomas Frank in the April HARPERS & Michael Gerson in the April ATLANTIC Magazines, 2018 too.
FYI
Sent from Hal Bauer’s iPhone
>
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March 22, 2018 at 8:19 am |
I greatly admire Thomas Frank, and his current Harper’s article is particularly good. His argument is that in order to campaign successfully against Republicans for being the party of a minority of wealth, Democrats will have to stop being the party of a minority of education. I think that’s right.
Michael Gerson, an Evangelical Christian, criticizes fellow Evangelicals for being blind to Donald Trump’s moral transgressions. I think that’s right, too, but those of us on the left side of the fence have our own hypocrisies.
Here are the links to the two articles for the benefit of interested readers.
https://harpers.org/archive/2018/04/four-more-years-2
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/04/the-last-temptation/554066/
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