President Trump’s declaration of a national emergency is beyond the slippery slope to dictatorship, it is over the cliff’s edge.
National emergency powers allow the President virtually unlimited power that includes suspension of national elections, suspending habeas corpus, suspension of civil liberties, and establishing martial law throughout the country.
Declaring a state of emergency was exactly how Adolf Hitler assumed the dictatorship of Germany in 1933. The emergency was declared as a result of the burning of the Reichstag for which the German Communist Party was accused, but many believed it to be a false flag operation conducted by Hitler’s own men to obtain popular support for suspending civil liberties.
The provision for a President declaring a state of national emergency is essential for the safety of the country. It is intended to be used to give the President authority to deploy the military in response to an imminent and immediate threat to the safety of the country to which Congress would not have time to react.
The situation on our southern border does not present either an imminent or immediate threat to the safety of our country. The migrants approaching our border are unarmed refugees, many of whom are women, children and babies, seeking safety from oppressive governments and violent crime in Central America – most of which can be attributed to drug wars and the unsolved drug problem in our own country.
Congress and the Court must intervene to halt the President’s grab for power. Allowing him to declare a state of emergency when there is no imminent or immediate threat to the safety of our country establishes a precedent for future Presidents that is extremely dangerous as it conveys the message to future Presidents that any pretext can be used to declare a state of emergency. Allowing Presidents to do so can lead to the loss of our Democracy over night. Anyone who thinks that our Democracy is safe and cannot be subverted has not read history and does not understand human nature. The greatest threat to our Democracy is not from outside, but lies within our own borders and is present all around us.