Tag: Trump

2020 Election, General, Politics

Whither American Nationalism Now?

Bob Claude |

As we move on after the wreckage of the Trump administration, this call to courage from Theodore Roosevelt is both sobering and hopeful.  Nationalists made a mistake in putting their hopes in Donald Trump.  He damaged the nationalist brand, but not irreparably. The occasional successes of the last four years point the way to repairing the damage and rebuilding it on a positive policy platform. 

First, we have to accept the reality of the damage. True American nationalism seeks to build a common American identity across cultural and other boundaries. Instead, Donald Trump associated it an ugly white ethnic nationalism that fed identity politics, rather than fighting it.  A movement to create a progressive conservatism that strengthened America and the middle class instead enacted a major tax cut that benefited globalist corporations without requiring any corresponding investment in the nation. (see this previous post). Worse, it ended, not with a celebration of American culture and symbols, but with a sickening attack on the Capitol building, one of the citadels of American freedom itself.

However, there are unmistakable signs of success amidst these failures. The blue wave anticipated by Democrats never really materialized.  As this article illustrates, Trump’s nationalist trade and immigration policies were popular not only with white voters, but also minority voters. The shift towards a realist foreign policy and the withdrawals from Afghanistan and the Middle East caused heartburn among mainstream neocons and liberal hegemonists, but fulfilled Trump’s major foreign policy promises. All of this forced candidate Biden to talk about buying American, creating good jobs and getting tough on China. Thus, while Trump’s rhetoric often failed to meet the reality, there were still solid accomplishments.

American nationalists now need to hold President Biden and Vice-President Harris accountable for results that matches their rhetoric. Biden’s Democratic Party is still led by a Senate majority leader that represents Wall Street and a Vice President and Speaker of the House from the headquarters of Silicon Valley and Big Tech. Their goal of union-wage level jobs is commendable, but will be worthless if companies shift production to China and elsewhere overseas as they did during the Obama Administration. Calls for unity are nice, but are hypocritical if they result in a new woke identity politics that essentially is a left-wing echo of Trump’s ethnic nationalism.

In order to recover from this setback, American nationalists need to highlight our common concerns by building coalitions across party and other boundaries. If Biden pursues policies that really create secure good-paying jobs that strengthen America, we should cheer for and support such policies.  We also should remember the old maxim that all politics is local and start to build grass-roots organizations at the city, county and local level. Finally, we should avoid social issues so long as tolerance is observed on both sides.  

TR’s life was a study in indomitable courage against seemingly insurmountable odds, whether political, intellectual or military.  He experienced numerous failures as well as historic successes. As fellow American nationalists, we are called to pick ourselves up and continue the fight for a strong America and the American Dream for all.    

Coronavirus, Domestic Policy, Government

The Dangers of Executive Overreach

Bob Claude |
Theodore Roosevelt at his desk with papers

As this helpful article from the Smithsonian Magazine illustrates, the debate over the use of presidential executive orders to end-run Congress originated with Theodore Roosevelt.  In his conservationist zeal to protect unique land and monuments, TR pushed the limits of the Antiquities and Reclamation Acts. While we are all blessed by the resulting preservation of sights like the Grand Canyon, his expansive view of presidential power also resulted in abuses like FDR’s internment of Japanese-Americans and President Truman’s attempt to seize the steel mills to prevent a strike. President Trump’s recent orders to provide partial relief for workers hit by the COVID-19 pandemic shows the limitations of the practice and its danger to our constitutional democracy.

This story from CNN sets forth the problems with these orders and why congressional action was required. The new $400 per month unemployment benefit may never materialize since it was not authorized to be distributed through the current unemployment insurance system. The payroll tax cut is really a deferral and so worker could be on the hook for a huge catch-up payment next year. Finally, the eviction protections simply consist of a study by the Secretary of Health and Human Services of ways to provide such protection.

When the last coronavirus relief effort stalled in March, I criticized both the President and Congress over their failure to reach agreement under the headline “Leaders Don’t Dither. They Decide”.  This relief bill should be more targeted toward the unemployed and essential workers on the front lines of combating the disease and supporting American society in dealing with it. However. dangling partial relief for them by a questionable legal method is not real leadership.  Leadership in our system of separation of powers often involves compromise. TR’s sympathy for those workers would probably drive him to swallow his pride to provide a “square deal” for them in time for destitute and heroic workers to receive the meaningful help they need.       

Domestic Policy, Government, Immigration

The Swamp Wins Again

Bob Claude |

In this site’s mission statement, I said that as much as Theodore Roosevelt was a model, there would be times we would disagree with his likely approach to an issue.  The Supreme Court’s recent opinion on the DACA immigration program highlights one of those differences – the wisdom of unchecked presidential power. 

The Court’s opinion errs not just because it continues a program that flouts the basic rules of immigration law.  The so-called Dreamers would have been granted permanent residency eventually. However, it should have occurred through the legislative process as part of a comprehensive immigration reform that created real and enforceable limits on future immigration.  Instead, the Court used arcane administrative obstacles to allow the Obama Administration to evade the Congress and the people to achieve its political goals. In doing so, the Court has undermined the constitutional separation of powers and the democratic process.

The breadth and depth of the power granted by the Court to administrative agencies (and thus the presidency itself) can only be understood by delving into the details. The court admits that the DACA program (and the corresponding rule protecting the parents of DACA children) were affirmative rules subject to the Administrative Procedure Act. This law ordinarily would require such rules to be issued through a notice and public comment process and adopted only after “reasoned decisionmaking” (the Court’s language). They then could be appealed for judicial review by interested groups such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which advocates for immigration restrictions. Instead, the program was initiated by a three-page “memorandum” not posted for prior comment and justified on conclusory grounds that such immigrants “lacked the intent to violate the law”, are “productive contributors” and “know only this country as home”. No other justification or evidence was cited to support the memorandum. In addition, by acting through such a memorandum, the administration made it more difficult to challenge the program in the courts.

Thankfully, several states did challenge it and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a preliminary ruling holding it to be an illegal rule making.  After President Trump took office, Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued an opinion to the Department of Homeland Security holding it to be illegal. Based on these opinions, the acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security decided to rescind the program. That should have been the end of the matter. Instead, a new set of appeals were filed and the Supreme Court struck down the rescission and sent it back to the agency so it can consider at least 8 different objections by supporters of the rule. In short, the court ruled that an agency rule having a multi-billion dollar economic impact and granting new rights to over 20 million people could be adopted without public comment or congressional input on conclusory grounds, but could only be repealed by engaging in a detailed factual and legal analysis.

Justice Thomas’s dissent accurately describes the danger to our constitutional democracy, stating that an agency is  now “not only permitted, but required, to continue administering unlawful programs that it inherited from a previous administration”.  It grants agencies and the beneficiaries of their largesse more rights than the people as a whole. No wonder many refer to Washington as a swamp. Policies adopted through the democratic process go in, but become so mired in governmental and special interest muck that they never come out.

To his credit, President Trump has issued an executive order prohibiting this kind of rogue administrative action.  At the same time, he encourages the same culture of presidential power by constantly acting through executive orders rather than by legislation.  He has never seriously pursued a comprehensive administrative law reform in the Congress.  Without this, a succeeding administration can undo his restraints by its own executive order. As we approach the 2020 election, American nationalists who believe in the unique value of our constitutional democracy should insist that candidates, including Trump, commit to reform that drains the administrative swamp once and for all and opens up policy making to the American people.