What are laws when the president can simply not follow them
posted on in: garret, graff, laws and lawlessness.
~368 words, about a 2 min read.
Garrett Graff's excellent essay is on the shutdown and Democrats last chance at using whatever little power they do have. The Democrats must ask themselves an important question: what are laws when they are not enforced?
If appropriations bills are not seen as enforceable contracts, why should any Member of Congress vote to fund any part of the federal government under Donald Trump? You're voting to provide money for lawlessness.
Currently the Democrats are winning public opinion, but not in terms of the above problem. Instead the Democrats went back to their safe topic: healthcare. However, this is one senator that is calling what it is, and that is Chris Murphy.
Meanwhile the media and Republicans are treating this is as politics as usual. Graff is arguing that we are not even remotely in that space.
We aren’t just outside the bounds of normal constitutional operations; we’re several standard deviations outside anything America has ever experienced before. We can clearly see what’s happening is wrong—illegal and unconstitutional—and the actors who can do something about that just … aren’t.
Actors include not just Senator Schumer and Representative Jeffries, but I'd argue Tim Cook who has been bending into a pretzel to avoid taxes on iPhones. Tim Cook is set to retire soon. He should push Apple's weight around and push the Trump administration.
How you may ask? What would Steve Jobs say and do? Maybe taking out one page ads in Wall Street Journal or flooding the social media market with ads demanding tariffs to lowered. I will go further: leak Esptein's iCloud account, with all the text messages from him. If corporate power is largest it hasn't been since the second gilded age, then let's encourage Mr. Cook to join the rebellion.
What can be said when facing such an extreme political climate? What is the point of laws when the President can just not follow them and the Republican Congress doesn’t do anything about it. We've blown passed constitutional crisis. We are instead in a constitutional nadir, flatlining as we argue extending ACA healthcare subsidies.