IS THIS CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS A SIGN THAT DEMOCRACY IS BEING THREATENED?

The USA has worked well since 1776 because the framers of the Constitution were wise enough to establish a government with a separation of powers: legislative branch makes laws, judicial branch interprets laws and executive branch enforces laws.  But the Constitution can be upheld only if these three are independent from each other.  For the first time ever in our history, we have a president who does all three whenever he wants, has one branch (the U.S. Congress) afraid to defy him, and the third (Supreme Court) which has already ruled that a sitting president can do anything and be free from prosecution.  Democrats and the public are useless in any defense, so President Donald Trump now rules like a dictator.

There is one delay in the system.  A judiciary which has checked Trump.  But only temporarily, for anything Trump does not like gets eventually appealed to the Supreme Court.  The next few months will determine if the USA is in a constitutional crisis.  Will the Supreme Court, then, do what Trump wants?  My gut feeling is NO.  But I've been so much wrong these days.  We shall see.

Trump wants to Make America Great Again.  But his idea of greatness is not in the normal historical sense, and nowhere near the proper routine of the country over the past century.

• We have tended to help needy countries with foreign aid.  Of course, doing this also helped our companies gain inroads into those sites, plus, we tended to gain their votes in the United Nations.
• However,  Trump thinks the UN and their programs mostly hurts the U.S.  He now couldn't care less about what that international institution does.  Providing tax dollars to many of those countries does not seem as necessary anymore.

• 
  Yesterday I reported on the U.S.'s previous expansionist Manifest Destiny period.  He thinks the U.S. is having our pockets picked by certain countries because of our soft policies, and wants to rectify that attitude by taking control over the Panama Canal (which we built), renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America, ceding Greenland for their resources (I don't see much justification for this heist) and taking control over the Gaza Strip (yes, outrageous, but as nothing has worked in the past, and nothing particularly promising is currently being discussed for the future, perhaps Trump's burgle might be worth some serious discussion).
• 

  The USA has tended to serve as the global leader to combat widespread environmental concerns, now particularly remediation of global warming.  Yikes, last month was the warmest January in recorded history!  But this is no longer a national priority.  While not now considered to be a hoax, Trump is unhappy about the U.S. contributing more to reducing carbon dioxide than countries like China and India.  This sort of makes some sense, for he is tired of only us fools making such sacrifices.  But to also promote more fossil fuels and abandon greener initiatives?  You win some and you lose some, but his defiance of science is dangerous to the future of humanity.
• 
  Same for NATO and the Ukraine-Russia war.  
• There are 32 NATO nations.  
• Only 11 of them  contribute spending 2% of their GDP on defense.  
• The U.S. accounted for 68% of all previous NATO expenditures, or $860 billion, a rate of 3.5% our GDP.  This amount is 10 times more than second-place Germany.  Poland allocates 3.9%, but they are right next to Ukraine, while the USA is a continent and ocean away.
• He does not want to abandon NATO.  He just desires them to pay their fair share, and more, for they are closer to Russia.
• 
  TIME magazine wrote, Can He Do That?  Well, he did, and we are now in a Constitutional Crisis.
• And, oh....Congressional Republicans have filed several bills to flatter Trump, including ones that would rename Dulles Airport in his honor and add his likeness to Mount Rushmore.

Trump has longed to join the President for Life Club, now occupied by Vladimir Putin, Jinping Xi and Kim Jong Un.  We are on our way to a New Power Axis:  the U.S., Russia, China and North Korea versus the rest of the world.  These four countries control more than 90% of nuclear warheads.  One of these detonated over New York City would cause more than half a million deaths, and there are 12,512 of them.

To close, just before the 2024 presidential election, Richard Seymour published Disaster Nationalism:  The Downfall of Liberal Civilization.

The rise of the new far right has left the world grappling with a profound misunderstanding. While the spotlight often shines on the actions of charismatic leaders such as Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro, the true peril lies elsewhere. Defeating these people will not stem the tide driving them forward. They are merely the embodiment of profound forces that are rarely understood. Propelled through the vast networks of social media and fueled by far-right influencers, enthralled by images of disaster and fantasies of doom, they have emerged from a reservoir of societal despair, fear, and isolation. Within this seething cauldron, we witness not only the surge of far-right political movements but also the sparks of individual and collective violence against perceived enemies, from ‘lone wolf’ killers to terrifying pogroms. Should a new fascism emerge, it will coalesce from these very elements. This is disaster nationalism.

Richard Seymour delves deep into this alarming development in world politics, dissecting its roots, its influencers, and the threats it poses. With meticulous analysis and compelling storytelling, Seymour offers a stark warning. The battle against disaster nationalism is not just political; it is a struggle for our collective soul and the future of civilization itself. Unless we understand the deeper forces propelling the far-right resurgence, we have little chance of stopping it.

So, IS THIS CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS A SIGN THAT DEMOCRACY IS BEING THREATENED?  If the Supreme Court acts as it should, no.  If they don't, yes.

Now headed straight for Mauritius in the Indian Ocean,  Cyclone Vince is churning along at 150 MPH.  Thankfully, just short of becoming a Super Cyclone, Vince is expected to make a left turn away from populated islands.  This is just another example of increasing global warming.

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