The Felon's Thirst for Crisis and Power

The felon has many reasons to want crisis and chaos not the least of which at the moment is to distract the American public from the Epstein scandal that shows no sign of abating (a new Pew poll shows 70% disapproval of the manner in which the Felon's regime has handled the Epstein files).  So far, nothing has truly worked as a distraction, be it masked ICE agents seizing people on the streets, the effort to take over Washington, D C, or the assaults against America's leading universities. A more sinister motivation is the Felon's desire to rule as an autocrat, unrestrained by the separation of powers under the U.S. Constitution - which the Felon would happily suspend - or two centuries of traditions that have circumscribed presidential power.  None of this, bodes well for America's future or the rights or safety of everyday Americans some of whom are belatedly waking to the reality that we are increasingly under fascist rule.  Much of this is in keeping with Project 2025's agenda of imposing a white Christian nationalism's dogma and contempt for minorities of any kind.  But time and time again, what we are seeing is the Felon's unrestrained thirst for ever more power ( he has now created a "loyalty rating" for corporations based on their support for his ugly agenda).  No one seemingly is safe. A column in the New York Times looks at where we find ourselves:

How did the president justify the “public safety emergency” he used to deploy the National Guard to Washington and seize control of its local police force?

He said there was crime — “bloodshed, bedlam and squalor and worse.”

“Our capital city has been overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged-out maniacs and homeless people,” said President Trump in a stark attack on the nation’s capital. The solution? Military force. “We’re going to put it in control very quickly, like we did in the southern border.” The president later described Washington as more violent and dangerous than some of “the worst places on earth.”

None of this is true. The Justice Department itself announced in January that crime in the capital is, according to data from its Metropolitan Police Department, “the lowest it has been in over 30 years.” The M.P.D. cites a 26 percent decrease in total violent crime so far this year compared with the same period a year earlier. . . . . there is no evidence to support the president’s hellish depiction of the District.

But his claims are less reason than pretext. Trump is simply enthralled by the image of a crackdown, especially on those he’s deemed deviant. Recall that he wanted to use the Insurrection Act during the protests of the summer of 2020, asking his secretary of defense, Mark Esper, if soldiers could shoot protesters “in the legs or something.” In addition, and perhaps more than anything, he wants to appear in charge, whether or not he’s accomplishing his goals.

The president’s action in the capital — the first time a president invoked the D.C. Home Rule Act of 1973 to take over the city’s police — is just the latest in a long list of so-called emergencies he has conjured up to claim unilateral authority over the American people.

In January, alleging an “invasion” of the country, Trump declared an emergency on the border as pretext for the use of federal troops for immigration enforcement. In March, he invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 with the claim that a Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua, was conducting “irregular warfare against the territory of the United States,” a definition of “warfare” that cuts against legal precedent and the plain meaning of the word. Trump used this emergency to unleash immigration authorities on anyone deemed a “gang member,” removing them to the brutal CECOT prison in El Salvador.

And in April, he announced a theretofore nonexistent national economic emergency, invoking the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 to “address the national emergency posed by the large and persistent trade deficit.” With this, Trump claimed the power to impose broad tariffs at his absolute discretion, beginning a trade war with much of the world.

None of these were real emergencies. There was, and is, no external crisis facing the United States. But for reasons of both personality and political ambition, Trump needs a crisis to govern — or rather, to rule. And if the actual conditions of reality will not give him a state of exception, he’ll create one himself.

Congress has, throughout the nation’s history, permanently vested the president with “vast discretionary powers to be exercised in time of war or other national emergency, usually to be determined and proclaimed by himself.”

This accretion of emergency powers continued well past the postwar period and into the present — a steady concentration of power in the person of the president. . . . By this view, Trump represents a difference of degree — albeit an extreme one — and not a difference of kind from predecessors who ignored the law, denied constitutional protections and abused presidential authority under the guise of national security.

To the extent there is a limiting force on the use of emergency or crisis powers — before, during or after the 20th century — it is a president’s commitment to the constitutional system itself.

In a nation made supposedly of laws, we have gambled on the discretion of men to keep the use of crisis authority in check. With Trump, we played a bad hand. Rather than treat emergency powers as a dangerous tool to be wielded with care and caution, this president has used them with reckless abandon as a toy — a means through which he can live his fantasies of strength, domination and authoritarian control.

Beyond the psychological impulse, there is a practical reason that Trump has embraced emergency powers and crisis government through pretense: He can’t do anything else. Look past his boastful claims of deal-making prowess and you’ll see a president who struggles to hold his own in a negotiation of equals and is too acutely solipsistic to persuade a skeptic of his own view. Even his much-vaunted (by subordinates and admirers) trade deals and agreements with institutions of higher education are less exchanges than a form of extortion, in which he uses threats of pain, punishment and legal action to impose a settlement.

The president’s [the Felon’s]most famous attribute is that nothing, for him, is ever enough. He has never had enough real estate, or enough wealth, or enough praise, adulation and worship. We should have realized, after his attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, that he couldn’t have enough power, either. He still can’t. And only time will tell what that means for our efforts to govern ourselves.

I suspect that, as Trump inevitably works to extend his personal dominion over the entire country, we’ll find renewed value in the insights of our revolutionary forbearers. We may even decide to put them to use.