I’m really not sure how we got to a place where our leader is threatening a national emergency (it’s not) because he isn’t getting his way from Congress. Well, I do know, what I really don’t know is why no one has stopped him. The checks and balances found in three branches of government only work if there isn’t corruption in the system. Someone has figured out how to jigger the system, and exposed a weakness in our society, that we will turn on each other if we don’t all get what we want exactly when we want it. It’s not a pretty site.

If there is a national emergency, then he should declare it. Holding such a threat over the heads of people having budget negotiations is just a tactic. People’s livelihoods shouldn’t  be a tactic. Having a functioning government shouldn’t be a tactic. Our security shouldn’t be a tactic. We can’t be governed by a person that uses threats just to get his way. Look at some of the things a President can do when an emergency is declared, per The Atlantic:

“the president can, with the flick of his pen, activate laws allowing him to shut down many kinds of electronic communications inside the United States or freeze Americans’ bank accounts. Other powers are available even without a declaration of emergency, including laws that allow the president to deploy troops inside the country to subdue domestic unrest.”

All of that is scary in the hands of our current president (and by the way all of that happened in The Handmaid’s Tale), but that that last one… whoa. Let’s say people protested a ridiculous emergency declaration. He could basically declare marital law and impose his will. I know I sound like I’m wearing a tin foil hat. The rule allowing a president to declare an emergency assumes that the person will act accordingly, in the best interest of the country. Nothing about our president’s behavior tells me this is the case here and I find it very disturbing.