Just another day in the Eric Cartman presidency. Practically speaking, today’s Left finally has the situation it wants: a sufficiently progressive president in his second term is, in effect, an unchecked dictator. The only checks and balances the constitution provides are money, nominations, and impeachment. The political and media climate have removed impeachment as a viable option; nomination disruption is a pathetic response to a president committed to Caesarism – “oh, are you going to block my nominees to DOJ, fine I’ll just ban bullets.” That leaves funding, and Republican leaders have publicly committed themselves not to using that leverage at all.
Barack Obama is basically operating now without any congressional checks and balances whatsoever. There is the Judiciary and nothing else preventing him from doing anything he wants. And there is no reason to believe he will abide by court rulings. Federal law is such a thicket now, and litigation so complicated, that for every door the Courts choose to close, there are dozens of cracked-open windows the Executive can try to pry open. It’s a game of constitutional whack-a-mole, and by the time the court rulings come down, you have to deal with the consequences of the illegal steps the president has taken in the meantime.
Imagine this scenario: what would happen if, tomorrow, President Obama seized control of the Internet, imposed a cap-and-trade scheme, opened the Southern borders, raised the minimum wage, and imposed ENDA through executive fiat? The country might lose its mind – temporarily, until the media assured everyone it was no big deal. But what would Congress do? What could it do?
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