Well, they can’t say we didn’t warn them.
For eight long years, the liberal media looked the other way while Barack Obama used a novel, dangerous strategy to get around what they glibly referred to as Republican obstructionism. With his “pen and phone,” President Obama forced rules and regulations on the American people without so much as a conversation with Congress. And since he did so to further a (very) left-wing, statist agenda, the media backed him every step of the way.
We saw this start to come undone months ago. Faced with the mere specter of a Donald Trump presidency, academic liberals started singing a different tune. Hmm, look here now, maybe Obama should ease off those executive actions. My God, man, we have a Constitution!
Too late, my friends.
Now, on his first day in office, President Trump will have the ability to immediately and ruthlessly rescind every single Obama order that never went through the proper channels of the legislature. Goodbye, overbearing EPA regulations. Goodbye DAPA. Goodbye gun control orders. These measures will be undone by their very weakness – that they were never consented upon by the governed. In truth, even those liberals who supported the goals of those orders should be glad to see them go.
But we’re probably not going to hear much of that sentiment.
Nonetheless, we are going to watch the restoration of true democracy, and it will be a pleasure we’ve waited on for a long time. We deserve to enjoy this moment, assuming Trump goes through with it.
At the same time, let’s not make the mistake of simply flipping the coin. This is going to be the tough part. It would be very satisfying to watch President Trump abuse his executive powers over the next four years. It would scratch that itch for revenge. We have to resist the urge. Just like Obama, Trump has an expiration date. In whatever ways he expands the power of the presidency, that power will be inherited by the next guy, who may be even further to the left than Obama. Hopefully, with the backing of a Republican Congress, Trump won’t be tempted to resort to the same constitutional end-arounds as his predecessor.
We have an extraordinary chance to turn our government back into a truly representative institution – one that is more focused on staying out of our lives than on micromanaging liberty. If that is the trend of the next four years, our choice last Tuesday will have been resoundingly validated.
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