Executive Power: What Obama’s Pen Giveth, Trump’s Sharpie And Twitter Can Take Away

In the immediate aftermath of Trump’s historic win, Sean Dean wrote a piece about 10 things that will be cool again. Things like making jokes about the president, gridlock and obstruction, war protests, and, get this executive power.

A Trump presidency will do wonders in restoring beliefs in limits on executive power. The unitary executive is old and busted. The new hotness is bipartisan compromise across each branch of government.

Liberals are going to be shocked when Trump uses executive power to roll back the Era Of Obama

Washington’s massive about-face on executive power is underway.

Donald Trump’s election has triggered a whiplash-inducing role reversal in D.C. legal circles, as liberals who spent the past eight years defending President Barack Obama’s use of his executive authority prepare to challenge Trump’s plans on issues like immigration, the environment and transgender rights, while conservatives who railed against Obama for acting unilaterally on those fronts seem ready to back the new president’s moves.

Republicans are all-in on using that power to roll back Obama’s executive orders, all the things Obama did via executive power that avoided the constitutionally elected legislative branch. If he starts going beyond that, well, he might find a bit of pushback.

“Whatever Obama’s pen and phone giveth, Trump’s Sharpie and Twitter can taketh away,” said Josh Blackman, a conservative law professor at the South Texas College of Law. “Obama has set all these dangerous precedents….All the shortcuts Obama took are now coming home to roost.”

Of course, Democrats will manufacture reasons to suddenly say that Trump can’t do the same things Obama did, such as

Obama’s defenders say executive action was rarely the president’s first choice, but effectively his only one, in order to pursue policy priorities in the face of a recalcitrant Congress.

The problem here is that Obama was doing this while the Democrats owned Congress during 2009 and 2010. He often simply ignored Congress during that time period, as well, and often didn’t even bother attempting to work with Congress. He would say he wants this piece of legislation, but fail to follow through in discussing it with Congress, even people of his own Party. There was no attempt to do a bit of the old give a little get a little. He would announce something he wanted to do, immediately demonize Congressional Republicans, then go ahead and do it through executive orders.

Trump will use his sharpie to whack a goodly chunk of Obama’s EO’s and federal regulations. Some in total, some partly. His picks for leadership of federal agencies can force through rulemaking changes to counter those from Obama’s minions. They can make things like killing the Clean Power Plan and the Waters of the United States, approving Keysone XL, and so much more, happen. Stopping the abuse from the Dept of Education which used mob tactics when they told school that refused to allow the gender confused to use the opposite sex bathrooms “be a shame if something happened to your federal funding.”

In many things Trump would have the support of the Congress, such as pulling federal funding from cities that shelter illegal aliens, the sanctuary cities. In other cases, all Trump has to do is tell the Executive Office agencies to follow existing federal law.

All in all, it will be fun watching Liberals suddenly be against all they loved during Obama’s time.

Crossed at Right Wing News.