THE CHICKEN LITTLE PRESIDENCY. THE SKY IS ALWAYS FALLING. BUT ONLY ON THE PEOPLE

America is being baited and switched to death. While we gobble up the daily outrage coming from the White House, any deeper dive reveals that we are being systematically deconstructed. There is a particular political theorist who has captivated leaders on the American right. His precepts boil down to these building blocks… Opposition to liberal democracy, in which the state enables individuals to determine their own fate. Instead, true democracy erases individual self-determination. You are required to give fealty only to the state. That uniformity requires getting rid of opposition. Politics is simply about dividing people into friends and enemies. And using the power of the state to crush enemies. There is no law. Just power. This is a philosophy centered around the idea that the power of a nation established on a constitution and the rule of law belongs to the man who can exploit emergencies. Emergencies that he says create exceptions to the constitutional order. Emergencies that enable him to exercise power. To exercise power without regard to the law. Is it just coincidental that Trump asserted this same view in August 2025? “I have the right to do anything I want to do. I’m the president of the United States. If I think our country’s in danger—and it is in danger in the cities—I can do it.” And he set out to do just that…anything he wants. How? By figuring out how to bypass the intentions of the Founders in our Constitution by any means necessary to achieve his goals. And by bobbing and weaving around the Constitution, he has made the Congress obsolete. And unnecessary to any action he takes. And they have helped him make them ineffectual. A particular favorite tactic is to declare anything and everything an emergency. Example. Tariffs. Tariffs are revenue measures. The Constitution explicitly gives the power to raise revenue to Congress, not the president. We had a revolution over the concept of we the people having a say in how our government raises money. In fact our Framers took the concept from the Magna Carta that established that even the king did not enjoy absolute power. Even a king was not allowed to pass revenue measures without the consent of the governed. Example. The Framers were also crystal clear that the people must have control over the decision to go to war. They did not trust that much power in the hands of one man. They wrote into the Constitution that Congress had the sole power “[t]o declare War” and “[t]o raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years.” But here too Trump has used the idea of an emergency to sidestep Congress’s authority by insisting the threat from Iran was “imminent” even though every source in his own government told him otherwise. Using the 1973 War Powers Act, a president has the authority to respond to an “imminent threat” without congressional approval so long as he notifies Congress in writing within 48 hours. Then the president has 60 days either to withdraw US forces. Or to get Congress to authorize the military action. We’ve seen the bait and switch in action quite clearly on both tariffs and the Iran war. Declare an emergency. Exclude Congress. Change the language. Change the intent. Change the justification. Change anything and everything to stall and continue to do exactly as you wish. The Trump administration continues to make a mockery of our Republic and governing structure and legal system. They seem to think it’s all a game to use our country against itself. To twist the Founders’ language. To use bad faith to disrupt the ship of state. To basically do whatever they want and dare us to anything about it. And when our elected leaders refuse to use the power entrusted to them when we gave them their jobs to protect constituents and the country, this is the unthinkable place we end up. Ruled by an American king.