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| When it comes to executive overreach, Trump is standing on the shoulders of giants. |
As Gene Healy of the Cato Institute and author of The Cult of the Presidency noted:
"[The President's] constitutional vision is, in short, sharply at odds with the text, history, and structure of our Constitution, which authorizes a government of limited powers."Oh wait. My bad. That quote was from Cato's 2006 White Paper "Power Surge: The Constitutional Record of George W. Bush." It was an essay I referenced when, as a blogging toddler in 2006, I was alarmed at the ever expanding Unitary Executive claims made by the Bush/Cheney administration.
Later, in 2008, I was gratified to see candidate Barack Obama run on a promise of reversing the executive overreach in the GWB administration and returning the United States to core constitutional principles:
"I taught constitutional law for ten years. I take the constitution very seriously. The biggest problem that we're facing right now has to do with George Bush trying to bring more and more power into the executive branch and not go through Congress at all, and that's what I intend to reverse when I'm president of the United States of America." - Sen Barack Obama - Townhall in Lancaster, PA, March 31, 2008But I digress. Lets return to what the ACLU has to say about our President's overreach:
"... there is a very real danger that the administration will enshrine permanently within the law policies and practices that were widely considered extreme and unlawful during previous administrations. There is a real danger, in other words, that the administration will preside over the creation of a "new normal."Oh wait. My bad. That paraphrased quote was from the 2010 ACLU Report "Establishing a New Normal" documenting the Obama administration extending, expanding and institutionalizing the executive branch overreach of the Bush/Cheney administration. The ACLU fears were borne out with later revelations of the Obama administration's widespread warrantless surveillance, continuing indefinite detentions, Presidential ordered drone kills, and of course Obama's infamous "phone and pen" executive orders on climate, immigration policy and the ever expanding regulations by presidential fiat.
The Cult of the Presidency
Abdication of congressional authority to the executive branch did not start with the last three administrations. It's part and parcel of a long term trend that has waxed and waned (mostly waxed) since the founding of the republic. It was Franklin Roosevelt that put the notion of POTUS as Cult Leader into high gear. Every president since has stood on the shoulders of previous executive power abusing giants. At least when FDR issued presidential edicts based on a National Emergency, there really was a national emergency (Great Depression, WWII). We also learned from FDR that even if there is a real national emergency, presidential orders can be misguided, racist, immoral, unconstitutional and contradict American values.
