By Andy Brack
It’s sad to say, but there’s more wrong going on than right these days in the United States. Sadder still is that these national wounds are self-inflicted — by the Trump Administration, a fearful Congress and a judiciary that needs to wake up more.
We’ve faced such turmoil before, most recently with the overhyped “Red scare” in the early 1950s by U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy. Friends turned on friends. Americans lived in fear that communists were going to take over, thanks to the Republican senator’s bullying tactics to spread allegations that spies and communist sympathizers infiltrated the national government.
When he went after the U.S. Army, the Senate convened weeks of hearings that exposed McCarthy as a bully. And the country turned on him, eventually closing a nasty chapter of American politics.
Now we’re living with the same kind of moment. The difference is that one branch of government – the executive – is pillorying everything. What’s happening is not just the work on one man with a bunch of files on people in the Senate. Rather, the full power of the presidency is coming down hard on just about anything not in line with the target of the day.
It’s wrong for the president and executive branch to curtail funding for dozens of vital programs that pay for medical research that can cure diseases.
It’s wrong to cut money for national treasures, such as national parks, libraries, museums and more.
It’s wrong to eliminate departments and agencies without the consent of Congress, which is charged with setting policies and funding them to make government work. A president and executive branch are supposed to ensure that money appropriated by Congress is used correctly, not just turn off the spigot because of a perceived wrong or partisan agenda.
It’s wrong to threaten Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, student loans and other programs that serve masses of Americans and make their daily lives better.
It’s wrong to wage a campaign of retribution on foreign allies who do not deserve explosive tariffs, knowing full well that the turbulence created would sink the stock market and deflate retirement savings of millions of Americans.
It’s wrong to threaten institutions of higher learning with various punishments for not teaching or researching the way that the administration seeks.
And it’s wrong to cultivate fear among immigrants who help to make the country strong and do the kind of work that most long-time Americans no longer want to do. Instead, Trump and company threaten green cards and send people to foreign prisons without the due process of law required in the U.S. Constitution.
Maybe the tide is starting to turn a little, thanks to more than 100 cases filed against the administration.
Just look at the Maryland man sent to prison in El Salvador without due process. A federal appeals court this week blocked an attempt by the administration to try to stop a judge’s order to bring back the man to the United States.
“The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order,” wrote conservative U.S. Court of Appeals Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson. “Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done. This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear.”
Wilkinson envisioned what could happen if the executive branch continued to disregard court orders and deport people without due process: “What assurance will there be tomorrow that it will not deport American citizens and then disclaim responsibility to bring them home? … And what assurance shall there be that the Executive will not train its broad discretionary powers upon its political enemies? The threat, even if not the actuality, would always be present and the Executive’s obligation to ‘take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed’ would lose its meaning.”
Public service is more than showing up at press conferences and ribbon-cuttings. Sometimes it’s about standing up for what’s right and opposing what’s wrong. It’s time for Congress to stop being fearful and for judges to get Trump to keep in his lane.
Andy Brack is editor and publisher of the Charleston City Paper and Statehouse Report. Have a comment? Send it tofeedback@statehousereport.com.
