What A Leader Sounds Like And What A Leader Doesn't Sound Like

Writing a couple of weeks ago for the New York Review of Books, Jonathan Stevenson suggested that "Trump appears to be testing the American political system’s tolerance for soft dictatorship through the cavalier-- and potentially illegal-- use of presidential emergency powers. On February 15, after months of blustery threats, he declared a national emergency on the southern U.S. border and dispatched the Army Corps of Engineers to administer the construction of a wall by private contractors in order to stop the flow of migrants and drugs into the country from Mexico. Trump issued the executive order because after a thirty-five-day government shutdown over funding for the border wall, Congress had just passed a spending bill that included only a fraction-- $1.375 billion-- of the $5.7 billion he wanted for the wall and specified that it be constructed of fencing rather than the steel he had demanded. The House and Senate passed a joint resolution to terminate the national emergency declaration, which Trump vetoed. The House was then unable to muster the two-thirds majority required to override the veto."

Legislators have good reason to oppose the construction of a border wall. Trump’s arguments for building one-- mainly that illegal immigration is rampant, that illegal immigrants commit more crimes than US citizens, and that the bulk of illicit drugs enter the United States through illegal border crossings—are demonstrably false. Trump himself betrayed his own claims of urgency when he said, in declaring the emergency, “I didn’t need to do this, but I’d rather do it much faster.”

...Congress has delegated to the president broad authority to invoke a national emergency, presidents have done it dozens of times, and the courts have shown little appetite for questioning the president’s emergency powers. But the legal, political, and factual background to Trump’s declaration illuminates its egregiousness. The International Emergency Economic Powers Act, enacted in 1977, has been the basis for about 80 percent of the emergency powers that presidents have exercised. It was designed specifically to allow the president to take economic measures outside the United States in response to an “international emergency.” Most cases have involved the imposition of sanctions on foreign individuals or groups for terrorist activity, human rights violations, or drug trafficking, which is widely considered well within the power of the executive branch.

The statutory authority that Trump has asserted to build the border wall comes from the National Emergencies Act of 1976, which affords the president considerable leeway in determining what constitutes a national emergency. Even so, no president has ever used his emergency powers to fund a project for which Congress has explicitly refused to appropriate money. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi characterized Trump’s move as a “power grab” and an “end run” around Congress’s constitutional authority over federal spending. Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, called it “a gross abuse of power that subverts the key principles laid out in the Constitution.”

...Following Trump’s veto of the resolution to terminate the border emergency declaration, Senate Republicans are considering new bipartisan legislation to rein in the president’s statutory emergency powers. Meanwhile, Trump is publicly brandishing his veto as an affirmation of his power to thwart Congress and protect the public. It is possible that he will stop there, recognizing that Senate Republicans are beginning to grow intolerant of his steamrolling of the legislative branch. But it seems just as likely that he will feel vindicated and again dare them to say no. He has already included $8.6 billion for a border wall in the White House’s 2020 budget proposal, indicating his intent to continue leveraging a domestic issue he has effectively militarized. Getting veto-proof majorities to oppose Trump’s policies is still unlikely in a Congress whose Republican members have mostly been unwilling to challenge him, which also makes impeachment unlikely. In this light, the courts may be the best chance of restraining him-- at least until the next election.

Michael Cohen, Trump’s former attorney and fixer, in congressional testimony in late February expressed his fear that Trump, if defeated in 2020, would not allow a peaceful transition of power. In reaction, Trump gave a two-hour speech on March 2 at the Conservative Political Action Conference in which, among many other caustic statements, he declared that members of Congress who oppose his policies “hate our country.” And as he prepared to veto Congress’s resolution to terminate the border emergency declaration, he dismissed the legislative branch as a delusional, unpatriotic inconvenience, remarking that “the only emergency Congress voted to revoke was the one to protect our own country.” The integrity of the United States’ constitutional democracy remains at risk.

Earlier today, former congressman Alan Grayson shared a letter with me from the President of Mexico, noting that "this is what a leader sounds like... beautifully written and profound."

President Donald Trump,

I am aware of your latest position in regard to Mexico. In advance, I express to you that I don’t want confrontation. The peoples and nations that we represent deserve that we resort to dialogue and act with prudence and responsibility, in the face of any conflict in our relations, serious as it may be.

The greatest President of Mexico, Benito Juárez, maintained excellent relations with the Republican hero, Abraham Lincoln. Later, when Mexico nationalized its oil resources and industry, Democratic President Franklin D, Roosevelt understood the profound reasons that led our patriotic President Lázaro Cárdenas to act in favor of our sovereignty. By the way, President Roosevelt was a titan of freedom who proclaimed the four fundamental rights of man: the right to freedom of speech; the right to freedom of religion; the right to live free from fear; and the right to live free from misery.

With this in mind, we frame our policy on immigration. Human beings do not leave their villages for pleasure but out of necessity. That’s why, from the beginning of my government, I proposed opting for cooperation in development and aid for the Central American countries with productive investments to create jobs and resolve this painful situation.

You also know that we are fulfilling our responsibility to prevent, as much as possible and without violating human rights, any passage of the persons concerned through our country. It is worth remembering that-- in a short time, Mexicans will not need to go to the United States and that migration will be optional, not forced. This is because we are fighting, like never before, the main problem in Mexico, corruption. And, in this way, our country will attain a powerful social dimension. Our countrymen will be able to work and be happy where they were born, where their families, their customs and their cultures are.

President Trump, social problems are not resolved by tariffs or coercive measures like turning a neighboring country overnight into a ghetto, an enclosed place for the migrants of the world, where they’re stigmatized, abused, persecuted, and excluded and the right to justice is denied to those who seek to work and to live free from want. The Statue of Liberty is not an empty symbol.

With all due respect, although you have the sovereign right to say it, the slogan "United States First" is a fallacy because universal justice and fraternity will prevail until the end of time, even over national borders.

Specifically, citizen President, I propose to deepen our dialogue, and seek alternatives to the immigration problem. And, please remember that I do not lack courage, that I am not cowardly or timorous, but that I act on principles. I believe that politics was invented to avoid confrontation and war, among other things. I do not believe in the Law of Talon, in a 'tooth for a tooth' or an 'eye for an eye' because, if we practiced it, we would all be toothless and one-eyed. I believe that as statesmen and even more so as patriots, we are obliged to seek peaceful solutions to controversies and to practice the beautiful ideal of non-violence, forever.

Finally, I suggest that you instruct your officials, if it doesn’t cause any inconvenience. that they attend to representatives of our government, headed by the Secretary of Foreign Relations, who will be in Washington tomorrow to reach an agreement for the benefit of our two nations.

Nothing by force. Everything by reason and human rights.

Your friend,

Andrés Manuel López Obrador
President of México