Donna Brazile, the super-genius who couldn’t figure out why her insurance premiums were going up after ObamaCare slammed into the market, is back with more Twitter entertainment, delivering this President’s Day message to His Majesty King Barack the Magnificent: “Enjoy President’s Day. With Congress on recess, this is action day! Let’s move America forward.”
Alas, her fun was somewhat spoiled by a mob of killjoys who pointed out that Congress being on recess is not an invitation for the despotic banana-republic El Presidente to sneak into Capitol Hill and write legislation. She responded by babbling her “move America forward” catch phrase about sixty thousand times, apparently under the impression it’s a magic spell that crushes dissent, erases the Constitution, and shames people out of insisting on the rule of law. You insist on the Constitutionally-mandated separation of powers? You actually think the legislature plays some role in crafting legislation? Why don’t you want to “move America forward,” you reactionary H8R?
You may rest comfortably assured that people like Brazile won’t be writing any mash notes to, say, President Scott Walker in 2017 urging him to ignore Congress and “move America forward” by usurping its rightful powers. They’ll suddenly lose their enthusiasm for the despotic-President model (“unitary executive,” the old term of art, doesn’t quite cut it when King Barack is rewriting legislation and daring someone to stop him with a bill of impeachment.) If President Walker uses magic powers to declare Congress in recess even when they aren’t, these lefties won’t blow it off as a trivial bureaucratic snafu.
At the moment, these shameless Democrat hacks are getting pretty close to openly advocating despotism, limited by the ostensibly supreme ability of voters to get rid of a President who abuses his absolute power. They mutter about living Constitutions and gridlock. We’ve even had the Democrat minority in the House helpfully drafting executive orders Obama can use to illegally seize the power of the body they sit in. They’re begging the despot to overturn the results of the last few elections and strip the Republican majority of its powers.
But of course, we know all of this will instantly evaporate as soon as a Republican takes the Oval Office, especially if the Democrats are also the minority in one or both houses of Congress. And I do mean “instantly,” as in less than an hour after the Democrat concedes the presidential race. I’ll put my money on the first lengthy screeds – from both left-wing bloggers and supposedly solemn, impartial media commentators – lecturing the Republican President about the urgent need to respect the loyal opposition and Congressional minority prerogatives will appear before that worthy’s acceptance speech has been delivered.
I have to chuckle when I hear pundits issue solemn warnings to the Democrats that they’re setting dangerous precedents by supporting Obama’s illegal usurpation of powers, because they won’t like it when his Republican successor uses the same illegal techniques to grant waivers to taxes and mandates he doesn’t like. Anyone who doubts the Democrats will not instantly, unanimously, and with the energetic support of 99% of the media scream for all the Obama super-powers to be stripped when a Republican enters the White House needs to take a deep breath, maybe bathe his face in icewater to clear his head, and try that punditry again. There will be no “precedents” set here.
The media will be scrubbing our historical memory of every Brazile-style “go get em, tiger” statement of support for the despotic executive in no time flat. In fact, any conservative commentator who dares to dredge up their comments from 2009-2016 will be blown off the TV set by gale-force charges of hypocrisy: “You objected to Obama’s use of illegal orders, and now you want to say it set some kind of precedent, that it should be OK for President Cruz to do the same thing? You must go through a lot of breath mints, talking out of both sides of your mouth like that!”
There’s something repulsive about what Donna Brazile said, something distinctly – yes, I’ll say it – un-American. The American political tradition is not to elect a despot every four years, or wave aside Constitutional procedures because some motivated group of operatives and activists really, really, really wants to get something done. Oppose a President or congressional caucus all you like, make all the supremely opportunistic complaints about “gridlock” you need to make, but nobody should ever be openly rooting for the American system to be overthrown. You can denounce the dickens out of someone’s agenda without advocating a coup.
So here’s another reason to vote Republican for President in 2016: it’s the only way to make the Democrats love democracy again.
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