Wayne Doubletree Resident ( 138.26.199.131) on 6/5/2017 - 3:42 p.m. says: ( 421 views , 12 likes )
"We are on the road to Imperial Presidency . . . "
Edited by Author at 6/5/2017 - 4:26 p.m.

We seem to only see it when our political enemies are in power.  As the character of those elected gets worse and the cabal that is his unchecked court does the same, the effects become obvious to at least a majority of those in the opposition (until they get a turn at the wheel).

It has been posited that a clear example of the road to the Imperial Presidency is the Plebiscitary Presidency . . . in this it is meant that once the POTUS is elected he becomes unaccountable to Congress, the press, the public except in the case of election or impeachment.   

Can anyone not see this is where we are?  Many of us thought we were there with Obama or even Bush . . . but these men at least acted with the expectations of a majorities of both parties.  And if you act in lockstep with the creeping traditions of the Imperial Presidency nobody barks to loudly I guess.

Trump has done nothing extra-ordinary even though one would not know that from reading this forum.  It is roiled daily (even hourly) with his latest never-before act of uncouth.  What you are witnessing is the character of the man unencumbered by the office.  It was supposed to be the other way around.

I invite everyone to read Schlesinger's book.  The office has been creeping toward this and Trump has done nothing alone to make the office what it is.  He only shows you why you should fear it.

Did you fear it when Obama claimed the right to drone bomb US citizens?  No, I was told that would never happen because . . . well . . . we expect the people in charge to have character.  What do you say now?

Did you fear it when Bush claimed the right to abduct people and take them to far away places and torture them?  

Did you fear it when Obama bombed Kaddaffi out of power and turned Libya into a terrorist haven without nary a glance at Congress?

I grow weary of hearing about Trump's protocol breaches, his tweets, his missteps, his shoving other world leaders . . . we care about all this because it makes us "look bad"?

Did you care when Bush said he could grab Jose Padilla (a US citizen) and hold him WITHOUT DUE PROCESS FOR-E-VER!  I guess he didn't twit-fart it so . . .

I'm not sure why those actions from Bush and Obama weren't hourly twitstorms . . . since they are far more grave and serious . . . yet Trump's verbal tirades against the London mayor are meltdown.  So much of a meltdown it brought Mudlizard into Lounge-suckitude with both feet.

What Trump exposes with his lack of character and "normalcy" has been apparent for a while . . . if only you were willing to see it.

ps.  Thank the purple farting dragon for the SCOTUS and Federal courts . . . the only entity capable of exercising a non-Plebiscitary check on the office (regardless of who resides in it).

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"The authority of government, even such as I am willing to submit to — for I will cheerfully obey those who know and can do better than I, and in many things even those who neither know nor can do so well — is still an impure one: to be strictly just, it must have the sanction and consent of the governed. It can have no pure right over my person and property but what I concede to it. The progress from an absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a democracy, is a progress toward a true respect for the individual. Even the Chinese philosopher was wise enough to regard the individual as the basis of the empire. Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in government? Is it not possible to take a step further towards recognizing and organizing the rights of man? There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly. I please myself with imagining a State at least which can afford to be just to all men, and to treat the individual with respect as a neighbor; which even would not think it inconsistent with its own repose if a few were to live aloof from it, not meddling with it, nor embraced by it, who fulfilled all the duties of neighbors and fellow-men. A State which bore this kind of fruit, and suffered it to drop off as fast as it ripened, would prepare the way for a still more perfect and glorious State, which also I have imagined, but not yet anywhere seen."