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Caesarism Comes to the Republican Party
Among a very long list of harms inflicted upon the United States by Barack Obama and his party, perhaps the worst was Caesarism. Obama relished the worship of millions in 2008. From his star turn at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, he was treated not as a political candidate, but as a savior. Progressives fell into a swoon, typified by Newsweek editor Evan Thomas’ 2008 comment, “I mean in a way Obama’s standing above the country, above — above the world; he’s sort of God.”
Now, a similar kind of unreasoning adulation is greeting (improbably enough) Donald Trump. Fred Barnes reports that a focus group of Trump supporters is swept up in a kind of worship, too: “He’s not just their favorite candidate. Their tie to him is almost mystical. He’s a kind of political savior, someone who says what they think.”
If Obama had accepted the reverence of the crowd but governed as a normal president, his sin would have been merely aesthetic. But he did not. Contempt for law and tradition has been the hallmark of his presidency. His lawlessness makes Richard Nixon’s look penny ante.
In addition to his blatantly illegal grant of legal status to 4 million illegal immigrants — a move Obama himself declared he lacked the authority to make — Obama has acted as an autocrat in dozens of other instances. Without any legal basis, he imposed a fine on BP after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and unilaterally suspended offshore drilling. He bypassed the plain language of Obamacare multiple times, whenever enforcing the unpopular or unworkable aspects of the law would be politically inconvenient. (The employer mandate, for example, was supposed to go into effect on January 1, 2014.) He attempted to make recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board when the Senate was not in recess. He waived the work requirements of the 1996 welfare reform law. Earlier this year, the Associated Press reported that the Obama administration “set a record again for censoring government files or outright denying access to them last year under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act.” His administration has ignored repeated congressional subpoenas, while his attorney general was found in contempt of Congress.
Obama perhaps calculated that he could get away with this lawlessness because of his uniqueness. The Constitution provides a remedy for lawless executives — but while Obama has arguably committed acts that merit impeachment, he knows that his status as the first black president gives him immunity. Impeachment would tear the country apart.
The courts have thwarted some of Obama’s power grabs. The Supreme Court has rebuked him several times. The NLRB appointments were reversed, and the immigration waiver has been judicially stayed for now. But much damage remains.
Obama’s legacy is a profound weakening of respect for law and tradition in this country. That Democrats are fine with this isn’t a huge surprise. They’ve long demonstrated that they are ends-justify-the-means types. Since the era of Woodrow Wilson, they’ve decided that if they cannot get their preferred policies through legislatures, they’re happy to see them imposed by courts — and if not by courts, then by executive fiat. They conveniently uphold a “living” Constitution — which is pretty much no Constitution at all but just the raw exercise of power by those in robes.
Conservatives and Republicans, by contrast, have traditionally stood for the rule of law — with all of its frustrations and inefficiencies. Respect for the rule of law is more precious than any given policy outcome. If we are not, as John Adams said, a “government of laws and not of men,” we will soon drift into the kind of despotism that characterizes nations without a strong legal tradition. Putinism is destroying what is best in Russia. Peronism devastated Argentina. Franco crushed liberty in Spain for half a century. The Castro brothers have imposed their tyranny on Cuba for longer than that. The list of countries that succumbed to Caesarism is very, very long.
The appeal of Trump falls into this category. Though one might suppose that his borderline pathological narcissism, his arrested emotional development and his nearly incoherent ramblings would exclude him from consideration for county clerk, he sits atop the GOP field. The message from a segment of the Republican Party is: “Okay, we’re an autocracy now. So let’s have this guy govern by fiat.”
Unless the rest of the Republican Party makes a different case — namely that the answer to Obamaism is a return to law — it may be game over for self-government in the world’s oldest democracy.
Published in General
The right has won on taxes. The right is winning on abortion. The right is winning on labor unions. The movement hasn’t been all in one direction.
I am forced to ask: are you advocating for a civil war?
I am advocating for bold action. Have a GOP President stand up and say, “Congress cannot legislate away its ability to make law to the Executive Branch. Therefore, all regulations not spelled out in statute are hereby null and void. Congress cannot create boards that answer to no one (NLRB). Therefore, all their regulations are null and void as well. Any attempt to enforce any of these regulations will be stopped by my Justice Department”.
That is playing the game the way the other side is, without a civil war.
Labor Unions are getting direct support, right now, this moment, from the NLRB with their attack on contract and franchise workers. I have no confidence whatsoever than any of those gains we have made will hold, any more than I believe we will roll back Obamacare, or end Medicare, both of which are clearly un-constitutionanl.
Let’s see a GOP President say that! I propose that once elected, a GOP POTUS sends the text of a proposed amendment to Congress that authorizes Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Let’s have the conversation. That is Bold. That is taking real action.
Except none of that would happen even if Winston McReaganthatcher were elected tomorrow. That’s just not how American government works unfortunately.
Your advice to defeat leftist populist presidential fiat is with leftist populist fiat. Great idea…. Not! I guess I am going to have to go through a history lesson with you. The constitution was not the USA’s first governing document, the Articles of Confederation were. The Constituion was a reaction of need for a larger national government in terms of national defense. The Constitution wasn’t even technically legal given the rules of the Articles of Confederation nor by the powers given to the committee who were supposed to repair the Articles. Ever since Thomas Paine and his leftist ideals America has had large government groups. We had a national bank in the early 1800s and have had both state and federal market intervention since forever (an example is the story of Vanderbilt, who had to compete with government subsized businesses).
The Right and Left are locked in constant struggle. Even if we won every issue and got an ideal government entirely we wouldn’t be able to eliminate the ideas (you can’t destroy ideas; no matter how terrible they are) of the left and those who take up its banner. Its never over.
Your advocation for the President to become a dictator and decree law is exactly what the left does, in effect you are not advocating for conservatism but for big government to be used as you want it to be. Let congress take back the reigns on domestic law.
(To be continued)
Those loser Republicans you have so much disdain for also seem to have voted at least 56 times from 2011-2015 to either eliminate or limit Obamacare and that is according to leftists and we all know they hate trying to remove that law. Its also funny because I look at both right wing and left wing news sites and you rarely if ever see coverage of Republican Congressional attempts on right wing sites. 56 times is a large number of times in terms of congressional votes and most of those were killed by Reid and now are being killed by our lack of a super majority in congress.
If we had 66% of both houses we could technically slam any law down Obama’s throat but we haven’t won enough of the US populace to do that or not enough Americans who say they want conservatism are voting. Those defeatist Republicans haven’t stopped or given up, they having to govern now. This means that unlike the Democrats who just complained and did little if nothing to create laws or deal with budgets the Republicans are having to actually create a budget. We haven’t had a budget since 2007 when the Democrats took over. Let me refer you to the CBO January Baseline. Click on January Baseline and look at the Excel sheet on budget deficit and see the difference the Republicans have made in it. A difference of 800 Billion dollars.
(To be continued)
So in conclusion of viewing the facts the Republicans are mostly conservative. They have attempted to fight leftist laws and unfortunately have not always won. Afterall conservatism is only just seeing a rebirth as the left thoroughly dominated for nearly a whole century in terms of actual government action, regardless of how alleged conservative the population claimed it was. To judge the Republicans has being beaten is to view the world so narrowly that you miss most things that matter. Consider what I have already said, the left dominated for nearly a century and now we are seeing conservatism responding and winning in over 2/3rds of the nation.
The citizenry are beginning to see the merits of our classical liberal values and are electing change in our favor. But our system wasn’t designed for majority rule, it was designed for super majority rule with minority protections. We are witnessing the beginning phases of our new offensive. We are currently assaulting both national and state governments with success in both but more at the state level (the most responsive level aside from county government). We have won on important issues and staved off leftist counter attacks (mostly headed by Unions) against Scott Walker (4 reelections in 2 years or whatever). Assuming we win a super majority in congress with the Republican Party we will have the grounds to override any leftist in the presidency. With a Republican in the office it will be easier, then more change will come.
Jamie, it has nothing with how American government works, it has to do with how American politicians work. Nothing in how the government is set up prevents the President from handing power back to Congress that should belong to Congress in the first place.
CBA, that is a lot of text in service of attacking me in the wrong way.
Nothing I proposed was making the President a dictator. Please re-read it. I proposed a GOP President give up tremendous power, and hand it back to Congress. It is the exact opposite of rule by fiat.
As for your telling me that we are really winning, I find it unpersuasive. The Senate and House cannot defund anything despite having majorities. Use the control of the purse to make a difference. Stop being afraid all the time. Do something to stop the Left from moving forward. The NLRB’s overtime rules will destroy jobs. Congress doing anything to stop it? Where are all the bills forcing Obama Vetoes we were promised? Oh, we don’t control enough of the Senate. Oh, we cannot use reconciliation to undo Obamacare. Heck, that law should not have used reconciliation in the first place to get passed, but the GOP does not have the stomach for that fight.
Nope, the strong horse does not cower, and he does not constantly promise one thing, and do another.
The very concept of Executive Order is extra-constitutional. If you truly view it as wrong then you wouldn’t support its use for anything. You would instead support election of congressional candidates and members that represent conservative ideals and would act on those. The Executive Branch was given those powers by Congress and only Congress will take away those powers permanently.
The Republicans only have 54 in the senate. Considering how polar opposite most Democrats are we won’t get the votes necessary to even come to cloture (60 votes). You literally can’t get a bill to Barack with the exception of Reconciliation and the Republicans have been working at that for several months now. Even with Reconciliation you have the Byrd Rule which has 6 separate criteria that can be used to attack a Reconciliation Move and all that has to happen is one lone senator objecting that the move is extraneous on any one of those 6 criteria.
Then you have to consider those on the Senate Finance and Senate Health, Labor, and Pensions Committees that would have to create the reconciliation bill (which includes Sanders and Warren; they are troublesome as is). Even then you need the Budget Resolution allowing for the Reconciliation Bill to happen in order to get Reconciliation started (that needs the 60 votes to hit cloture then a simple majority and the left doesn’t want that either).
(to be continued)
So you still have those constraints from the congressional design and procedures in the way of changing funding that will ultimately get shut down by Barack Obama. You still need 60 votes for the Budget Resolution in the Senate.
However, what if I told you (just a guess) the reason Republicans haven’t yet used Reconciliation or pushed as hard on the budget is because of timing. The American populace unfortunately has a very short memory on events in congress and the left wing media continually hides congressional action by the Republicans so that Americans either forget about important events or view them in the negative. If the Republicans attempted to use Reconciliation method or even the regular method now then most Americans would forget about it by the time of election.
If you push for change within a month or two of the Presidential Election then you can bring it to the attention of the American populace and the Media will be less able to ignore it and no doubt both Presidential candidates will be making comments on the budget action thus forcing left wing media to cover it. This will show the Republicans attempting to govern and repeal or limit Obamacare while the Democrats are trying to defend it. It will result hopefully in a landslide victory for the Republicans in both congress and the Presidency. From there Obamacare will be repealed in full and you get another victory to witness; the smart horse always wins.
A testable claim. See you back here in Spring of 2017 for the glorious victory of the GOP over Obamacare.
As Governor, Jeb! could not completely throw open the borders and sign comprehensive amnesty reform for illegal immigrants.
No, but he could, and did, increase border security, integrating state enforcement resources with the Coast Guard. Although he’s wrong on amnesty and on the fence, he’s got a pretty good record on other border enforcement issues, and has been talking about it as a priority for longer than anyone else in the race.
Wrong on Amnesty is wrong on a show stopper for me.
Do you think it is realistic that 12million people will be deported? If so how?
Being against Amnesty does not mean I think 12 million people will be deported. I am against making them citizens.
Granted, any time an illegal gets caught, he or she should be kicked out, but we don’t have to go on pogroms to find them.
What we should do is stop the flow in from the south with a wall, use EVerify to stop them from working most jobs, and stop having H1B Visas. Also, tax all money being sent to Mexico at some high rate.
If they can’t get jobs or welfare, they will most likely deport themselves.
I agree that amnesty is bad. I’m not saying “don’t attack Jeb!” I’m saying that he’s not opposed to border security, and has taken steps to improve it, unlike most in the race. Many amnesty folk pretend to like border security, but we ought not to lump Jeb! in with them simply on the basis of disagreeing with both.