Executive Orders

When you have both houses of Congress decidedly on your side, you shouldn't need to enact very many Executive Orders (EO). You can introduce actual legislation that Congress can pass through the two houses and make law. Whether you liked him or not, Obama passed legislation in the first two years of his presidency because most of Congress was Democrat. He didn't need EOs to go around a hostile Congress.

So, why is Trump going the route of EOs? Why is he trying to circumvent the law creation and enactment system in place? He should, like Obama, be taking advantage of the Congress being "on his side" while it is (historically, the Congress will change to Democrat control at the two-year mark). Is it because not all Republicans are behind him? Maybe they are seeing cracks in the visage?

One of the best parts of going through the legal process of law creation is that many eyes see the legislation and, often, they can find the loopholes and unclear sections, point them out, and it can be rewritten. The EOs are not currently going through that process. Instead, Steve Bannon is writing them late at night, doesn't understand legalese, and is making very poorly worded orders that are hard to follow and will likely be overturned in Federal court.

Everything about Trump's first few weeks in office smells fishy. Hell, it appears he is not even reading the EOs he is signing. The constant leaks from the White House indicate a house in disarray, where Trump doesn't even know the contents of the EOs he's signing. In one case, he apparently became upset after learning that Bannon made himself a part of the NSC in an EO. But Trump didn't read it before signing it, so didn't know that was part of the EO? If you were President, and signing something that would, effectively, become a law, wouldn't you read it before signing it? (one of many sources) There are even some who question whether or not Trump can read. Here's one video where the gentleman makes a pretty convincing, if circumstantial argument.

Also, the literal number one item on Trump's "First 100 Days" document was getting term limits for Congress in place using a Constitutional Amendment. Yet that hasn't happened. It hasn't, to my knowledge, even been discussed. Yet, this might be the most effective thing Trump could do, getting turnover of the many 60+ year old, male, white Congresspeople for younger people of various ethnicities, backgrounds, and sexes. People who actually understand things like the social media, the immediacy of news and information today, the Internet (remember the Senator who didn't know what he was talking about and thought the Internet was made up of tubes?), how science works, and what's really happening to real people in the real world. I mean, if you are in Congress for decades, making $250k+ a year, with free healthcare for life, and all the other perks of Congress, you may just lose sight of how an average American, making less than $50k a year, who has to buy his own healthcare (or risk going without), and doesn't get the other perks has to live.

These are, indeed, interesting times. It remains to be seen how long they will last or how they will end.

#revolution