Climate change threatens life on Earth as we know it? No problem, just executive order a “Green New Deal.” Can’t get 60 votes in the Senate for single-payer health coverage? All good, just declare a national health care emergency. Need to defer law-enforcement action for undocumented immigrant parents of Americans? Just type up an order and…oh, wait. President Obama already tried that, courts rejected it, Trump reversed it and Republicans — rightly — cried foul. Don’t even get me started on a Democrat using emergency powers on gun control.

Until recently, Republicans were skeptical of executive action taken outside the boundaries of the Constitution and the law. But now, hypnotized by the rythym of Trump’s authoritarian soft-shoe, they’ve forgotten that the whole point of being the conservative party was, or at least used to be, opposition to big government…

Trump has grafted the ends-justify-the-means approach that he’s taken to everything in his life and so-called career onto the GOP and the federal government, and there’s no end in sight (disclaimer: it’ll all be over in just two to six more years). The sycophants in the White Hosue won’t stop him. Don’t hold your breath waiting for Congressional Republicans to stop him. And, I’ll wager, when there’s a Democrat in the White House, the temptation to see how far he or she can get by applying the Trump doctrine will be too tempting to pass up.