By Philip Drucker
Remember the date, June 1, 2020 for it is a day that will live in infamy. It will be remembered as the day a sitting US President placed his remaining cards on the table, for the most part five different versions of the Ace of Racism, and sealed his legacy and his fate. He is now officially and forever a one-card trick monte racist phony pony. He is also an out of the Mussolini closet full-on frontal fake news fascist.
For today, in the Rose Garden, he announced for all the world to hear and see he was indeed, a dictator, not only in name but also in deed. By threatening to retaliate with violence against the Antifa, literally a shortened name for Anti-fascism, well, what else could Herr Trumpf be? He’s openly identified his perceived enemy and it is us, the American people. We, the People are decidedly anti-fascist, aren’t we? We certainly were.
We the People fought WWII in an effort to defeat fascism. Don’t be fooled by what despots and dictators call themselves. Socialist this, communist that, those are economic theories meant to appease the masses into thinking they are somehow part of the equation in the minds of a madman bent on usurping more and more power. The People’s Democratic Socialist Greenback Party of Trumpistan. Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?
But in the end it’s still the same third world banana republican world where the anointed by celestial intervention or perhaps occasionally grounded in guerilla warfare one man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist righteous indignation, eventually claiming the upkeep of their lavish and by now wholly corrupt, almost surely immoral life-styles as the proper reward of their “benevolent” rule and get this, a sure sign of the overall prosperity of the country.
Speaking of pesky rules and regulations, one of the perks of being employed as a despot is the ability to place oneself above the law. In many instances the individual becomes the law itself. All it takes is to put the power of judge, jury and executioner in one person. Or, at a least rig the court system by appointing inept and unqualified judges to the judiciary whose only true mission in life is to affect the will, not of the people, but of the one.
The singular, as in singular executive, American sounding code words for dictator. For denouncing the rule of law, suspending and then doing away completely with the balance of power among the no longer even pretending to be co-equal branches of government. No oversight, checks or balances. These doctrines of democracy antithetical to the far more efficient and superior rule of the one. The leader, and more often than not, the butcher.
His enemies are your enemies, often expressed as the enemies of the state. The state of what? Unity? Insanity? Sometimes it is hard to tell. But really, the enemy are those who would deny the divine emperor his role as pseudo-deity. His (or her) place as a matter of right at the feet of Zeus in Valhalla. This of course is complete nonsense meant to impress and repress the masses at the same time. Singularity of church and state. Get it?
What happens when treason and sedition are one in the same with blasphemy? Talk smack about the monarchy and you are sentenced to death, with an extra special sauce sentence of excommunication to spend eternity in purgatory hell. Consecutively, not concurrently. Hey, it worked for Henry VIII. Does it work for you? Probably not. But for someone like Trumpf, the bottom line is after all power.
Power for power’s sake. The ends, more authority and control, or at least the illusion of it, justifying the means. Any means. All means without qualification. Death, destruction, torture, atrocities and violence in general are all acceptable, at times even desirable. The lesser the potential hands and voices of those who would rise up the better.
In fact, the more the merrier. Murder is no longer murder when it is part of a genocide. The dead become a number. Soon, numbers become statistics. Nameless, and faceless, the body count is what counts and consequently rises and falls with no more effect on morality and outrage than what could reasonably be expected as the result of an up or down arrow on a probably intentionally mislabeled chart constantly changing, could ever hope to account for.
Now, let’s talk about US Army tanks rolling through the streets (but not K Street of course) in Washington DC. But first, a word from our sponsors, history, law and the US Constitution.
With his Rose Garden speech including words to the direct effect of unleashing the US military upon protestors without regard to their First Amendment rights, health, safety or welfare, Trumpf has crossed the line of even pretending to be a legitimate Article II president as defined under the US Constitution.
His action further undermined the right of the states as the primary sovereign responsible for the health, safety and welfare of its citizenry and their right to law enforcement without interference from the federal government within their borders.
This is what happens when you unilaterally invoke the power to roll American military tanks into Washington DC to quell what appears to be a routine matter of mostly peaceful protests going a bit bad due to the actions of for the most part outside agitators, mostly of the rightwingnut persuasion. Make no mistake, that is what he did. You don’t believe me? Well, then let’s just break it down, shall we?
Let’s list the following I would imagine all agreed on points. America is:
A DEMOCRACY with the one person, one vote ideal for expressing what we feel is the best way for our society to move forward.
A REPUBLIC, meaning we elect officials to represent our interests at various governmental levels of authority.
A nation of DUAL SOVEREIGNTY, meaning we have a two-sovereign system with the State and Federal governments, both sovereigns within themselves, playing a dual role in the effective administration of the laws of our land including domestic law and order, on the inter and intrastate levels, accordingly.
Protests are not new.
If the above bullet points are true, and they are, what exactly did Trumpf do to upset the entire balance of power from We, the People, all the way up to the highest levels of state and federal government? He invoked the Insurrection Act of 1807 (IA).
Written into Federal law by Congress at the request of Thomas Jefferson, the IA was originally meant as a means to define the roll of state and federal power at times of domestic disturbance and discontent leading to violence rising to the level of insurrection. For our purposes, we will use the common definition for insurrection from Dictionary.com
“an act or instance of rising in revolt, rebellion, or resistance against civil authority or an established government.”
From day one, the Founding Fathers anticipated there would be acts of revolt and rebellion in their new land. Shays’ Rebellion (1786-7) and The Whiskey Rebellion (1794) are early acts of civil disobedience in the land of the free and the home of the brave, but mind you, not too free and not too brave.
These earlier skirmishes helped lead the developing nation to re-think and revise what dual sovereignty meant particularly at times of dissent and the probability of what might happen when you give a bunch of people the right to assemble and bear arms.
First and foremost, the IA was an attempt to place the State clearly as the sovereign most responsible for quelling insurrections within their own borders, Putting the federal sovereign in a what can best be described as the in case of great emergency only backup. To ascertain the requisite level of immediacy and potential harm from non-intervention is a multilayered list of requirements evaluating the state’s consent and ability to effectively quiet the situation. Currently, NONE of these standards have been breached.
In short, the Feds could step in if and only if 1. Consent by the state is given or 2. Consent is not practical, and to control an already escalating out of control, and beyond the ability of the state governor or legislator’s ability to respond to acts and threats of violence. In a nutshell, if requested, or in case of a dire situation, the president could in essence, take command of the local state militias and augment their numbers with federal troops.
Can we agree on the following? No consent has been given and we are nowhere near those levels of imminent harm to life and property to render the state incapable of dealing with a mostly peaceful protest within their jurisdiction and authority. And to escalate the events of late to the level of “insurrection” with no remedy or end in sight is simply absurd.
Against this background, let’s take a moment to investigate the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 (PCA), another act originally intended to limit the use of Federal troops in matters of civil unrest between the State and their citizenry.
“Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.” 18 U.S.C. § 1385
For further clarification, the PCA is also known as the Act prohibiting the president from deploying the military in domestic law enforcement situations. It does in practice do that, but with two notable exceptions notably in play.
The PCA only applies to persons not authorized by the Constitution or by the express will of Congress in the form of statutory law. I’m afraid we will have to further agree there is at least some legitimate question as to whether the president is authorized as part of his Article II powers under the Constitution or by an Act of Congress in this case the Insurrection Act, to intervene in the as we speak ongoing protest across the country.
Of course, any rational or logical reading of the situation says no. At best, any show of federal power would be too much too soon and certainly without consent. But when has that stopped our Fascist Dictator in Chief? Do any of you sincerely think, as does Susan Collins, Trumpf has learned his lesson? Any lesson, ever?
An American president would not do what the illegitimate despot illegally occupying the Oval Office has done. But then again, Trumpticus Leaveusaloneicus can no longer realistically be considered a viable constitutionally recognizable president for in no other reason a responsible, honorable president would not have tanks in Washington, DC.
What do you think your average tin-pol pot in this case tinfoil-hatted dictator plans to do when they roll tanks into the Capitol? It’s usually not due to good intentions and importantly, doesn’t end well.
If as Trumpf said, it’s him against us, is it going to be him? Or us? I know what side of the American silver spoon in his butt dollar coin I fall on. You?
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