Liberal Tolerance of Obama’s Executive Power is what Makes Trump Scary

by Brian Nichols

If you have graced social media at all today, I’m sure you have been enlightened by your liberal, progressive friends as to how terrible those who voted for Donald Trump are and that Trump is an absolute monster ready to destroy minority rights.

Here are some highlights I encountered:

“If you voted Trump, and you have friends who are threatened by him (women, LGBTQ, black, Latino, or Muslim), then you are no friend to any of them. If you voted for Trump, and you have a wife, daughter, girlfriend; if you have a child or friends who identify as LGBTQ, you have proven that you don’t care about them, that their rights and future mean NOTHING to you.”

“I am disgusted with America and honestly disgusted with many of my Facebook friends right now. I’m disgusted with how they threw the lives of so many away. The next four years the LGBT community, Muslim Community, Black Community and Women will all be forced into fear. I’m disgusted we failed these groups. I’m scared.”

Oh, and my personal favorite:

“I will never be able to call this shit stain of a person my President.”

While everyone is more than entitled to their opinion, I cannot help but laugh at the absolute hypocrisy and irony being posed in these proclamations. No, I do not believe my liberal friends are closeted bigots or secret racists. But rather, the irony in that they are terrified of a person at the head of government.

What do I mean by this?

For the past eight years under President Obama, those on the left have been enamored at the prospects of increasing the size of government in the name of “progress.” Instead of letting the principles of liberty and freedom of association run their course, those on the Left have promoted the increase in the size of government to promote “social change” and “progress.”

But here is the greater issue: progress on behalf of a strong government is all in the eye of those in power.

For the past eight years, liberals and Democrats have been in control of the Executive Branch under President Obama. While the Republicans in Congress were able to act on their constitutional authority of implementing checks and balances (much to the dismay of those on the Left), Obama was able to bypass several of these measures by utilizing his much beloved “executive orders,” and in essence, entirely bypassing the checks and balances set up by the Framers of the Constitution.

These actions, done under a Democratic president, were heralded by those on the Left.

But, much like a pendulum, what swings to the Left will inevitably swing to the Right.

And here we are.

Now, these same liberals and progressives who cherished Obama’s ability to enact “progress” through his executive orders are now terrified at the prospects of a “conservative” president doing the same, only through the lens of conservatism.

And let’s be clear: the ONLY reason my liberal and Democrat friends should be afraid of a President Trump is because they themselves set the precedent of allowing an executive to usurp power away from the Legislative Branch and in turn, deconstruct the system of checks and balances set in place at the birth of our nation.

In a twist of irony, Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC stated the following last evening as it became clear Trump was headed towards the White House:

“The Constitution anticipated this. The Founding Fathers anticipated Donald Trump. They feared tyrants, they were overthrowing the rule of a king, and they designed a separation-of-powers government in which all of the true powers belonged to Congress, those can then be reviewed by the courts…”

And this, my friends, is why the idea of embracing a small, limited government is so crucial.

Robby Soave of Reason explained this last night in an easy-to-digest fashion, stating:

“Why am I libertarian? This election is why I am a libertarian. I favor constraints on the federal government precisely because I fear what a maniac like Trump could do with unchecked power. If you cheered the Bush and/or Obama misuses of executive authority and orders, if you excused them undermining federalism because you agreed with their decisions, well, now you live with the consequences of those precedents.”

So, to my dear liberal friends, this is a bed that you have made yourselves.  By expanding the power of the Executive, you have created the vary situation that you now so lament.