Political Crossfire Forums

it's kinda meta you were just looking at first sentence and ignored the larger point and thought we were liking that piece of the post. maybe that was some of it, but i thought the likes were for the larger point -- consolidation of power in the executive should be actually resisted.

while philly calls it bipartisan (and it has been as republicans are complicit and have become increasingly enamored with it), leading the charge for increasing executive power have been the democrats since FDR. they seem unwilling to question the basic premises if a president should posses the power, even when someone so very unfit for the office gains power. when obama was promising to "take steps without legislation" he made good on it and significantly expanded regulations and use of executive orders over his predecessors over lots of things, from increasing minimum wage of federal contractors to allowing sale of contraceptives without prescription. it doesn't matter if you agree with the policy or not. that's very myopic, and really dangerous. lots of those things -- from DACA to Paris -- have been undone by the current president, but still they don't question if a President should have the ability to do those things in the first place. instead, they just want their guy with the power to right all the wrongs of trump and rule by fiat. and philly is 100% correct that this makes the entire #Resist thing laughable. a real #Resist movement would center on constraining executive power, no matter the occupant of the white house, not trying to crown a new emperor

also i will state there is another argument (not just about the consolidation of power) against executive orders. ruling by executive proclamation with a fickle populous who ends up voting in someone who promises to undo whatever the last guy did leads to instability. the legislative branch has consistently been giving up power to the executive for generations and now they don't even do their basic jobs. we don't have a budget, we have a series of continuing resolutions. we go for years without budgets and it makes it very difficult to plan things like repair of military vehicles, or to provide training, as things are day-to-day. legislation is hard to pass, sure, but that means it's hard to undo, increasing stability. by giving it to the executive we are increasing our own instability