Congressional Power Surrender

By Jack Purser
Posted 9/20/19

There is an area where the president has a lot of authority simply because Congress threw it away. It is the power to decide on war and peace and on issues of national security. There were those …

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Congressional Power Surrender

Posted

There is an area where the president has a lot of authority simply because Congress threw it away. It is the power to decide on war and peace and on issues of national security. There were those worried that Donald Trump who has no national security policy experience would when elected mindlessly blunder into new wars and haphazardly use our nuclear arsenal to impose his whim of the moment in the same reckless fashion he had conducted his financial, political and personal affairs. This has not proven to be the case. What has occurred because of his inexperience, lack of knowledge and inability to listen or learn from either his mistakes or rare successes is his tendency to surrender any and all interests of the United States of America whether fundamental or not to every passing dictator from Vladimir Putin to Kim Jong Un to Muhammed bin Salman. Clearly he is not fit to be commander in chief.

The Republicans in Congress are simply the enablers of Donald Trump and are not going to do anything about this. Without them it will continue as long as he is president. If something good happens in the election the nightmare will end but not until then.

Should a Democrat be elected in 2020 and take office in 2021 there is every reason to believe the prevailing view will be we now have a responsible president so there is no reason to make any changes. I would suggest that a far better policy would be for Congress to reclaim its constitutional responsibility to decide on war and peace.

The nation did know when it elected him that the president was a leader of birtherism, indulged in racially divisive language, enjoyed talking to men about sex, was a climate change denier, bullied anyone he could, was financially irresponsible and had truly a minimal capacity to speak the truth on any subject. We were however surprised he would not take his constitutional duty to defend the United States of America seriously. Next time the surprise may not be a president who travels the world under the white flag of surrender but one determined to impose his or her will on every other nation or bomb them back to the stone age.