Rebecca Hamilton Is An American Patriot And Therefore Cannot Be Silent

Here is a guest column she asked me to run. I do so with pride:

President Trump is threatening to grant himself dictatorial powers. He is making repeated statements about declaring a national emergency at the border and overriding Congress so that he can build his wall.

Let’s be clear about this. Whatever is happening at the border has been going on for many decades, so it’s hardly an “emergency”. The emergency powers he’s talking about are for situations like a runaway pandemic that causes a total breakdown of government everywhere in the country, an invasion from outer space, or a civil war.

Emergency powers are dictatorial powers. President Trump is talking about declaring an emergency so that he can set aside Congress and make himself into a dictator.

Any President who would invoke these powers in order to pass a piece of legislation needs to be removed from office and put in jail. I mean that.

I have never said before that President Trump needs to be removed from office. I do not believe that a duly elected president, no matter how bad he may be, should be hounded from office. I do not believe impeachment should be invoked for any but the most serious reasons that directly threaten our nation. The reasons don’t get much more serious than what President Trump is talking about doing.

What President Trump is threatening is not only a crime against our Republic, it is a direct attack on our democracy and all our freedoms. He is talking about using emergency powers to override Congress and take Congressional powers onto himself. He is talking about making himself a dictator.

I’ve heard news commentators say that Republican members of Congress have, in off-the-record conversations, said that they think that the president declaring an emergency and making himself a dictator is the “only way out” of the current shutdown. That is absolute rot.

The way out of this is for Congress to override the President’s veto of the bill they passed (on a unanimous vote in the Senate) earlier. All they need to do is vote the way they voted before. That bill funds government, and passing it would end the shut down.

President Trump had originally agreed to sign this bill, but, according to news reports, he decided to veto it and shut down the government instead because right wing rabble rousers such as Newt Gingrich criticized him for compromising.

Now, as usual, President Trump sees the mess he’s made as a test of his manhood. He’s a rich old man who’s spent his entire life bullying, bragging and lying, and he’s suddenly up against people who can tell him “no” and make it stick. He’s in the real world of full-speed, contact politics in a democracy.

And he can’t take it. For all his bragging, lying, bullying and posturing, he’s not man enough to fight things out on a level playing field in the democratic process. Speaker Pelosi, who’s no spring chicken herself, evidently has all the guts in the world, and is plenty able to fight it out, and she does it without threatening, blustering, or even raising her voice.

You don’t have to agree with all her policies to see that she’s got what it takes for the job. And you don’t have to disagree with President Trump’s policies to see that he doesn’t have what it takes.

He can’t negotiate. He’s too weak emotionally, too dishonest and too crazy to negotiate with a separate but equal division of government. He doesn’t have what it takes to do the job he’s been elected to. He’s in the kitchen, and he can’t take the heat. Not only that, but his very delicate ego can’t take negotiating as equals with a woman.

So, he’s throwing tantrums and stomping out of important meetings, and talking about declaring an emergency and making himself a dictator just like the emotional two-year-old that he is.

The question is, will the Republicans in Congress sell out our country and allow this man to destroy our democracy, because they’re bought-and-sold cyphers who have no purpose other than to line up with the Republican Party?

President Trump is not man enough, not American enough, to be president. He’s demonstrating that right now.

He’s crazy. He’s mean. He’s dishonest. And as the court documents come down from the special prosecutor, he’s looking more and more like both a felon who has committed serious crimes against the people of the United States of America, and a straight up traitor who sold us out to a hostile a foreign power.

If Republican members of Congress and officials in the Republican Party support him in a seizure of dictatorial powers, then they are guilty of the worst offense anyone can possibly commit against this country. They are absolute traitors to our democracy.