By Douglas V. Gibbs
The lawfare against President Donald Trump has extended into his presidency. Using the courts to oppose the policies of President Trump is nothing new. According to Fox News the number of injunctions against Trump in each of his two terms in office exceed the number of injunctions applied individually to any of the other Presidents of the United States since the launch of the new millennium, and more than half of the entire total since 1963. Why? Because the purveyors of the slow march towards an authoritarian nationalistic centralized communitarian government bent of centrally engineering the lives of Americans over a period of more than two hundred years believes its goals of fundamentally transforming America into something the Founding Fathers never envisioned is finally within reach and Trump poses as an existential threat to their destruction of American Liberty and greatness.
A separation of powers exists within the text of the United States Constitution. While the words “separation of powers” are not present in the Constitution’s language, the concept is laid out at the beginning of each of the first three articles through the use of the word “vested.”
- All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States.
- The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.
- The judicial Power of the United States shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.
The word vested means:
- To be legally transferred
- Exclusionary
- Irrevocable
In other words, all legislative powers belong to the legislative branch, executive powers belong to the executive branch, and judicial powers belong to the judicial branch. That means that each of the branches of government possesses their own powers, and may not interfere with the powers of the other branches. There are some exceptions and rules that apply in order for our system to properly operate and for checks and balances to be applied (Advise and Consent powers of the Senate, Vice President as President of the Senate, and the Exceptions Clause powers which allow the Congress to serve as a check against the Federal Courts – to name a few); but none of those things include allowing the courts to dictate to the other branches how they operate, any enforcement powers possessed by the courts, nor for the courts to operate as if it has any powers as a final arbiter over the functions or actions of the other branches.
Even if the courts did have a say over President Trump’s operations as head of the executive branch, with their rulings challenging his policies they have repeatedly even violated their own rules that they have historically operated under. Those three keys to judicial activities in the mind of even the most leftist-minded jurists in the legal system have historically included:
- Justice is blind (jurists must operate apolitically)
- Consistency
- Applying existing law
In the Trump Era the judges have been ruling based on ideology, they have operated inconsistently with past rulings and the willingness of the courts to even accept or not accept certain cases, and they have been ruling against Donald Trump even though the actions by the President have been consistent with laws on the books.
The problem is that leftist judges see themselves as the final arbiters of everything, therefore they believe they have the authority to interpret law and the Constitution any way they wish and that since the ends justify the means all three of those keys can be thrown out the window. They are a judge, so in their minds even the President of the United States must bow down at their feet. In the process they are attempting to support the narrative that Trump is some kind of dictator. Democrats have claimed President Trump is a threat to democracy, and an authoritarian who seeks to lead America into some kind of fascist nightmare; so, the courts are picking up the baton to continue that ridiculous narrative.
If they can convince the people that he’s “violating the rule of law” by “defying the courts” which allegedly makes him “lawless,” they think they can turn the tide against President Trump and regain their footing in the game of power.
The American People, however, are not buying it. The evidence stands against them. Since when do dictators seek reducing the power of the government they hold an office in? Dictators don’t do what they can to reduce federal spending, return control over a number of issues back to the States and/or We the People, and then donate his salary to charity. His accomplice, Elon Musk, who the Democrats claim is in it for power and money is operating without pay for his services, and he’s losing hundreds of millions since his attention is on government efficiency at the moment rather than having a direct hand on his various enterprises. As for the “giving breaks to their billionaire friends” claim, reduced federal spending and cutting spending on non-essential federal expenditures means less subsidies by the federal government – and subsidies is one of the ways people enrich themselves through government giveaways. If Musk and Trump were trying to enrich their buddies, wouldn’t they be increasing subsidies?
From a constitutional point of view, President Trump has been operating perfectly constitutionally, while the federal courts and the Democrats with their antics are the ones who are violating the Constitution.
Fortunately, the court of public opinion realizes exactly that.
— Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
