Is Trump a solution to the Post-Constitutional Presidency?
President Obama has been acknowledged as the first Post-American president. The book The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War on America by Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer explains in great detail the many transformative and notably un-patriotic actions taken by Obama. One in particular stands out: Obama's Royal Decree - Executive Amnesty for Illegal Aliens. While it was not a formal executive order, but rather a simple implementation of a series of DHS memos, an action of this magnitude subverts Constitutional intent and separation of powers as established by the Founding Fathers.
We would hope that the next President would recognize this Constitutional overreach and act immediately to undo extra-constitutional actions while avoiding similar overreach. Yet some fear that as President, Trump might implement the former while continuing down the dangerous autocratic path.
Rich Lowry articulates this concern in his article The Right's Post-Constitutional Moment, Politico, December 23, 2015 that:
... Trump exists in a plane where there isn’t a Congress or a Constitution. There are no trade-offs or limits. There is only his will and his team of experts who will figure out how to do whatever he wants to do, no matter how seemingly impossible.
The thought you can't do that never occurs to him...
Could Trump defy the law as written and give Congress the back of his hand in order to impose a new immigration system more to his liking? Obama has already done it. A hallmark of Obama's governance has been to say that he lacks the power to act unilaterally on a given issue, and then do it anyway...
John Hayward assuages these concerns in the article Trump and the Post-Constitutional Presidency, Breitbart, December 27, 2015, pointing out that:
Some conservatives say that Donald Trump is a menace to the Constitution, because he seems intent on picking up Barack Obama’s D.C.-approved extra-constitutional powers and using them for his own Trump-ian purposes, maybe even going further down the path to executive-order dictatorship than Obama did.
This aspect of the Trump campaign should be welcomed by constitutional conservatives.
Trump is the lens through which liberals can see the magnitude of what Obama has done, and understand why it's wrong. They won't rediscover the virtues of divided government until they're scared to death of the alternative.
The U.S. Constitution is a pretty good thing - indeed, it's the best in the world - ever. Hayward recognizes our Constitution's timeless endurance in his article:
My appreciation for the beauty and wisdom of the American Constitution has only grown as I've seen it shredded, trampled, bypassed, and defaced with progressive graffiti. Some claim the Constitution is inapplicable to modern life because the Founders couldn’t have foreseen our world of technological marvels; on the contrary, I am increasingly impressed by their foresight – or more properly, their ability to express timeless principles, rooted in eternal truths and an understanding of human nature that no current scientific advance has invalidated at all...
Hayward continues:
Obama’s final steps toward post-constitutional dictatorship were also meant to create the sort of national electorate that will never elect a sincere small-government reformer again. The Left has been using their power to reshape the electorate to their liking, with instruments ranging from immigration policy to expanded dependency on government programs...
For all of these reasons, Obama Democrats were willing to bet there would never be a Republican President using the powers Obama seized – not one completely hostile to the Left’s interests, at any rate... No Republican could ever get away with discarding laws he didn’t like, rewriting legislation on the fly in the Oval Office, treating Congress like a minor obstacle to his ambitions, or using executive orders to circumvent the law...
It turns out that Trump is quite capable in that arena, which at this juncture in history makes him a particularly strong and immensely popular candidate.
Would Cruz make an equally strong candidate? Brent Bozell III thinks so, writing in the article Bozell: It’s Time To Rally Around Ted Cruz, Breitbart, December 24, 2015: "On every issue of crucial importance to conservatives... ending the Obamacare nightmare, reducing the size of government, opposing amnesty—Cruz is not only with conservatives, he’s led the fight for conservatives."
In the absence of Trump's candidacy, Cruz would be a fine and capable choice. But we're at an existential crisis. Many believe that the next Presidential election will mark a turning point for our nation. Either we will return to the path toward a Constitutional form of government or we will continue down the path of business-as-usual with both Democrats and Republicans conforming to the wishes of the plutocracy in order to facilitate the end-game of socialism.
Diana West writes in the article It’s Time to Rally Around Donald Trump, Breitbart, December 26, 2015,
To be honest, if these [Bozell's] were the only issues under discussion in this GOP presidential primary season I would hardly be able to make myself pay attention. It’s not that they are unimportant issues. Personally, I support every one of them. But they are not existential issues. They are not the issues on which the very future of the Republic hangs. They are issues that a responsible Republican House and Senate, if they were loyal to their oath and to their constituents, could today begin to rectify all by themselves...
It’s really quite incredible: soon, maybe even before it’s too late, GOP primary voters will have a clear choice on walls, borders, immigration, even Islamic immigration (and, I would hope, the related issue of Islamic law), all because Donald Trump plucked these crucial issues from the void where the politicians, including good conservatives, have been eager to leave them.
I think West is spot on. And so is Trump.