Democrats’ histrionics over President Donald Trump’s use of executive power conflicts with their history. Numerous Democrat presidents have done as much, or more, than Trump is doing now. Amid Democrats’ histrionics, history, and hypocrisy, their only consistency is a willingness to see federal and executive power used when it expands the state and the presidency for their goals.
Beyond bemoaning Trump’s actions of freezing funding, deporting illegal immigrants, imposing tariffs, and blocking men from participating in women’s sports, Democrats label these actions existential threats to the republic.
Freezing funding for review is dubbed unconstitutional, despite estimates that the federal government made $2.7 trillion in erroneous payments since 2003 and created a $1.8 trillion deficit in fiscal 2024. Deporting illegal immigrants is labeled racist, despite these individuals having broken the law. Imposing tariffs is decried as inflationary, despite the Biden-Harris administration having fueled inflation throughout their four years. And barring men from women’s sports is called transphobic, despite the law’s clear intent to base itself on biological differences rather than ideological preferences.
An irony of history underlies these histrionics. Joe Biden clearly and continually tried to overturn the parameters of presidential power. He repeatedly sought to shift student debt to the general taxpayer, even though the Supreme Court had ruled against it. So much for Democrats’ inflation concerns. Biden opened the border in violation of his constitutional obligation to enforce the law — then he abused his power of parole to open the border wider still.
Biden preemptively issued blanket pardons aplenty, right until he left office. For her part, then-presidential candidate Kamala Harris made it a point of pride to say that she would support abolishing the filibuster to advance abortion. There is no telling — because Harris assiduously refused to tell us — what she would have done with executive power had she held its reins. The Biden-for-Harris switch broke every Democrat presidential process rule in spirit when not in letter. And Democrats also called for reordering the Supreme Court to overturn its conservative majority. Now, Democrats are intentionally delaying Trump’s nominees.
Democrats’ History of Expanding Presidential Power
None of this is new. Democrat Party history is a tapestry of presidential power expansions. President Andrew Jackson completely ignored a Supreme Court ruling. Woodrow Wilson took unprecedented power for the presidency during World War I. Franklin Roosevelt later built on Wilson’s precedents; after being blocked by numerous Supreme Court rulings against his expansions of federal power, he moved to pack the Supreme Court — only to see the country bridle at his plan. Harry Truman repeatedly announced his intention to take control of railroads in 1946, finally actually seizing the nation’s steel mills in 1952 — only to have the Supreme Court strike down his move.
In the next Democrat administration, John Kennedy had the Bay of Pigs invasion. Lyndon Johnson used the Gulf of Tonkin attack to push America ever deeper into the Vietnam War. Bill Clinton tried to thoroughly remake the nation’s health care system, coming within a Hillary of succeeding. Barack Obama famously announced his intention to govern unilaterally from the Oval Office by announcing, “I’ve got a pen, and I’ve got a phone.”
This parade of presidential aggrandizement would undoubtedly be applauded now if undertaken by a Democrat president today. This realization should cut through today’s obfuscation.
The only consistency in their tableau of histrionics, history, and hierarchy (the rules don’t apply to these elites) is that Democrats are quite willing to see the power of the presidency expand by any and all means — as long as it is used to expand government, spending, and generally advance their ends. Today’s reason is simple: The ends they are now seeking to advance are so extreme that voters will never approve of them. Enviro-extremism, trans insanity, and open borders: Democrats have no other way to achieve their extremist initiatives than to impose them through an expanded presidency.
Thwarting Trump
Democrats are now using the courts to try to thwart what Trump is doing. As long as rulings slow Trump, Democrats will applaud them. However, as soon as new rulings overturn the lower courts, Democrats will curse the courts just as they are Trump now.
Democrats’ real grievance is not with expanding presidential power. It is not even so much with Trump. And it won’t be so much with the courts when the courts uphold Trump’s actions. It is with last November’s voters who overwhelmingly rejected Democrats’ distorted dystopian view of what America should be.
Jesus Christ is King
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