The courts will ultimately decide the issue of national emergency. Conclusively I hope. Public opinion, and media influence will likely be less clear.
The time may actually be at hand where some self proclaimed conservatives can postpone committal on this issue until after a check of the wind. Im not a lawyer, but if the precedent is found to be conclusively unconstitutional it will be difficult to reconcile previous support with conservative politics.
Until Obama, presidents used executive orders, which include the declarations of national emergencies, for issues where the public was clearly either in favor of it, or willing to 'let it slide.' They adhered to that criteria because they did not want to be overturned in the court system, for obvious political reasons. Obama pushed the envelope, by signing orders that represented positions that were clearly partisan issues that could not be passed through Congress - like the DACA order, and the executive order that removed the work requirement for welfare recipients.
By Donald Trump's logic, he is doing nothing different, except that he upped the ante by classifying the border security crisis as an emergency, which is always going to be a subjective term, and it is impossible to know how the Supreme Court will rule. It all depends on what the SC decides the definition of 'emergency' is. He can justify his position, politically, by citing all of the times that Congress approved sending our military abroad to help other countries control their borders, and the fact that Congress has been unwilling to secure the southern border for decades, regardless of national security considerations.
I think that, legally, the SC has to weigh the 'letter' of the law, which may not allow him to classify a 30 year long crisis as an emergency, or the 'spirit' of the law which would should ultimately support a president's cardinal responsibility to protect the public from foreign invasion.
Personally, I believe that the state of our border sovereignty is an existential threat to the republic, just as it was to all of those foreign countries we have assisted in maintaining or reclaiming their borders. This is what Abraham Lincoln believed when he bent the Constitution to preserve the Union, and what FDR pretended to believe when he imprisoned Japanese Americans.
Legally, who knows? It is a difficult proposition that will test the court's adherence to the words written in the Constitution. But, that's why they get the big bucks, and they will earn it on this one, if they are honest.
Bisley, the point is each successive president moves the goalposts further in terms of executive power. Every time it happens the opposition screams about overreach and how this or that is unconstitutional and then completely forgets about that the next time their guy is in power and cheers the next step they take down that road. Under Obama it was executive orders. Under Trump now it's national emergencies. How many more administrations until we no longer have a president but an emperor? At least some here and even some in congress seem to get that.
I don't cheer them on. I lament the fact that our bloated, corrupt government is no longer responsive to the level-headed portion of our population that actually makes things work. The public has become incapable of, or unwilling to process the massive amounts of information and cancel out the BS on each side with the other. Instead, they depend on the summaries that are prepared by specialists in the art of creating the opinions that benefit a particular agenda.
It is only natural in an environment of aggressive ignorance that the political goal posts will keep moving. No honest person can get elected, and cannot govern if he/she does get elected. In frustration, they issue edicts that please their loudest constituency, so that they can 'truthfully' say that they have done all they could to keep their campaign promises. If the opposition can get away with 'cheating,' the temptation is to 'out cheat them.' It is wrong and it is destructive, and the only thing that can ever prevent the cheating is for the two sides to have the same basic moral underpinning. Without it, it is simply total war, politically at first, but escalating beyond that, eventually. Wars have grown out of such behavior, with the people fighting in them befuddled about the causes and the goals...because the only goal is to be the winner, or maybe just the survivor.
In the past, the two parties shared common religions, patriotism, and ethics. It was imperfect, and some cheated, and some people still suffered. But the basic tenets of fair play and honesty still provided a structure that was sometimes capable of compromise on the unsolvable disagreements in principal.
Where we are now is far away from anything that has a chance of survival, over the long term. Compare us to the 'bread and circuses' era of the Roman Empire, and you can see where we are at. They lasted 700 years, and we haven't manged 300, yet. Each political faction thinks that this era of radicalism is necessary to make up the lead that their opposition has won by underhanded means. They think that once they have won, things will settle down and get back to normal. But it won't, because the moral underpinning will be completely gone, replaced by a faux morality that ignores the lessons of the past.
Our Southern border is by far the most infiltrated. Barriers can help but are not nearly 100% effective. Our Southern land border is 1,954 miles long. Our Northern land border is 5,335 miles long. Our continental shoreline is 12,383 miles long. Our continental borders vulnerable to infiltration by air is 19,672 miles Can we build a wall around that?
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The time may actually be at hand where some self proclaimed conservatives can postpone committal on this issue until after a check of the wind. Im not a lawyer, but if the precedent is found to be conclusively unconstitutional it will be difficult to reconcile previous support with conservative politics.
Conservative legislators put on the spot of having to justify and reconcile their positions after a negative ruling could be severely compromised.
Another possibility is long delayed adjudication beyond 2020..
Meanwhile, the 60 minutes interview may wind up supportive of claims of DOJ partisan subterfuge. If substantiation beyond hear say materializes.
Interesting times.