Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Doug Israel's avatar

I state again as I have so many times here that it is a crying shame and a terrible pity that the first president willing to challenge these things that upset us so much is so undisciplined, so unlearned, so unwilling to defer to the judgment of wise people and so generally reckles sin his language and actions. I wish Ron DeSantis was president.

Expand full comment
DAVID DEMILO's avatar

I love me some Ron DeSantis, but what would Ron DeSantis have done differently? He has never been afraid to challenge the conventional wisdom of Florida's courts and federal courts (the so-called "don't say gay bill").

I have read many analyses of why Trump's tariff gambit was legally questionable (and this is the clearest), but I have yet to read a single, practical, clear alternative plan of action from a conservative for breaking the stranglehold that China has on our supply chain for critical supplies and materials. The US cannot fight a war with China, Russia or its allies without an interruptible supply chain for metals, semiconductors, energy and pharmaceuticals - and yet the CCP has veto power over three of these four.

Simply arguing that Congress has the power is kind of lame, since Congress has delegated so much of its power to the executive branch and quasi-executive agencies so they can avoid tough votes that might cost them elections... let alone the fact that half of Congress is controlled by an anti-American party.

If Bill is legally correct, it doesn't bode well for the country, since the modern Congress is incapable of even passing a yearly budget. Ask Congress to tie its shoes, they will muck it up.

When I listen to lawyers, what I hear is that the President is powerless to stop the CCP from flooding our country with fentanyl - a sort of modern, inverse Boxer Rebellion - and I also hear that the current President is powerless to deport 10M people whom the former President allowed to enter the country simply by ignoring existing law. POTUS may as well stick to making speeches and cutting ribbons.

As Bill points out, Trump is not the first President who has chafed at these limits. Since the creation of the administrative state and the modern judiciary, every reformist President has.

Trump (and Stephen Miller) no doubt have a list of legal approaches to deport illegal immigrants and impose tariffs on China, which has ignored the terms of existing trade agreements for three decades.

Put yourself in the shoes of a post-pandemic President who knows that if we do not manufacture certain things at home, the US cannot survive as a world power. What's the best plan? My guess is that there are many plans, and this is one of them.

Action provokes action, words provokes words.

George Will used to argue that prosectors are "athletes of the law" - pushing the law to its limits in order to lock up people they believe to be criminals. Perhaps now it is the President who is the athlete of the law, trying to find ways to do what must be done for the US to survive - not in decades, but in a few years.

Expand full comment
3 more comments...

No posts