WILL WE EVEN HAVE AN ELECTION IN 2020?

If Donald Trump declares a National Emergency, will we even have an election in 2020? In theory, at least, Presidential Powers under such a declaration are so sweeping he could postpone the election indefinitely, thus effectively becoming what he already said to Kim Jung Un he would like to be – President for Life.

In the past two years, it has become something of a national pastime to compare Donald Trump to Adolph Hitler online. He is clearly autocratic and mingles more comfortably with others of his ilk such as Vladimir Putin, Kim Jung Un and Xi Jinping than he does with the leaders of free, democratic nations. Moreover, until this month, after being elected by only a minority of voters, he combined the “Unified Executive” with one-party rule in D.C. to act with impunity despite his actions being unpopular with “the people.”

Now that his absolute authority has been challenged by the Democratic takeover of the House of Representatives, he is about to take another step down the path of autocracy and announced that he may declare a National Emergency, and thus seize the power to unilaterally act on his border wall. If this were merely another Trump tantrum, it would be disgusting, and still leave hundreds of thousands of federal employees out of work, but temporary and nothing more. Unfortunately, it isn’t.

In 1933, in response to the burning of the Reichstag and Hitler blaming terrorists for the act,  Gesetz zur Behebung der Not von Volk und Reich (“Law to Remedy the Distress of People and Reich“), was passed giving the new Chancellor, Adolph Hitler, emergency powers. We all know that the next election was never held.

Today, Donald Trump threatens to invoke emergency powers as a remedy to his political crisis of not being able to convince any but his staunch supporters that a wall is needed. Frankly, if that were the end of the story, we would need not be worried, but it isn’t. With that declaration comes enormous power that, in the past, was only constrained by presidential self-control, patriotism, and dedication to maintaining our democratic republic. There has been no evidence, to date, that Mr. Trump possesses any of these personal traits, so there is no reason to expect presidential constraint.

A declaration of National Emergency carries with it the potential effect of unifying the powers of all three branches of our government (albeit less the Judicial branch) into a single branch – the Executive. In short, it nearly gives the power of dictatorship to a president under the guise of emergency necessity. Moreover, although such powers can last no longer than a year, under the National Emergency Act of 1976, it can be renewed by the President each year, indefinitely. It even allows for the suspension of Constitutionally guaranteed rights (Lincoln suspended Habeus Corpus during the Civil War).

It is now time for Congress to act. It is time for Mr. McConnell and Ms. Pelosi to re-assert Congressional power as an independent branch of government and circumscribe presidential powers before it is too late, and the United States, in 2019, goes the way of the Weimar Republic in Germany, in 1933. Anything less should be thought of as tantamount to treason.