There's clearly a conservative legal case to be made against President Trump sidestepping the purse-strings-holding co-equal legislative branch by declaring a capricious national "emergency" to build a border wall that Congress won't fund. But there's also a conservative political case.
"Every one of you 'conservatives' gushing about the abuse of emergency powers owns it when a Democratic president declares a national emergency on Day 1," Republican strategist Rick Wilson tweeted Thursday, be it over "guns or abortion or climate or LGBT issues" or to build "the Dr. Atheist Von Clinton Celebrity Abortion Center and Vegan Advocacy Farm." At Politico, Matt Latimer, a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, took a specific contemporary example, arguing half-seriously that Trump's national emergency "is great news for future President Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez," as it likely "just made a Green New Deal inevitable in 2021."
Of all Trump's "nutty ideas" he's hatched "to undermine the basic norms of our democratic institutions," his "plan to declare a national emergency is by far the absolute worst," Latimer writes. "Shame on any 'conservatives' who roll their eyes, shrug their shoulders, and let him take this path because they are sick of arguing with him. (You know who you are.)" House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is already talking about gun violence being an emergency and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is talking about the national emergency of climate change, Latimer says, adding:
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But maybe I'm missing something. Maybe Trump has a plan to stop all of this, too. Maybe we are only a couple of months away from Trump donning a scary robe, declaring another "emergency" and postponing the 2020 elections. If Emperor Palpatine can do something like that, why can't he? Is there anyone with the courage to stop him? We will find that out very shortly. And I'm not sure we are going to like the answer. [Matt Latimer, Politico]
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