Regular readers know that I am enjoying the Trumpkrieg™ as much as anybody. But I’m concerned that I haven’t heard much about following up the quick and easy victories of Executive Orders by pushing bills that will codify them into law. (I know, EOs are neither as quick nor easy as they should be, since the left has an army of biased judges who can temporarily delay their implementation. But I’m confident that they will still be enacted relatively quickly.)
I love the bracing effect of a volley of EOs unleashed on Biden’s legacy, like the first fusillade sent down range against the enemy after a besieged Marine unit receives fresh ammo in the middle of a battle.
But EOs alone produce a “sugar high” that quickly dissipates. In 2017 Trump wiped away a bunch of Obama’s EOs. (And there was joy and rejoicing amongst right-thinking people!) Then Biden wiped away Trump’s EOs in 2021. (And darkness descended.) And now Trump is returning the favor.
Since anything done by EOs can be undone by them, we need to move quickly to pass laws, especially in areas where we’ve got the “80” position on an 80/20 issue. Use the same EO language to pass laws banning men from women’s sports, locker rooms and prisons, for example.
Then, when the Dems take back the White House (shudder), rather than just signing an EO that lets men start beating women in sports and raping them in prisons again, the Dem president (shudder) will have to go to the American people and say, “Let’s let the dudes back into women stuff.”
Good luck with that, hypothetical future Democrat president! (hypothetical shudder)
In some cases, we might not need this. For example, the EO on birthright citizenship is heading to SCOTUS, and they could rule correctly, giving the ban the force of law going forward.
But I’m still a belt-and-suspenders guy: even if SCOTUS might do the right thing eventually, it would be nice to try to pass a law explicitly ending birthright citizenship. Even if it didn’t pass the first time, getting a bunch of Dems on record opposing it would help us whip a bunch of them in a future election, and then maybe a second attempt would be successful.
The same should happen for all of our 80/20 issues. Put them on the floor, and force the Dems to vote against them.
I saw one intriguing way to possibly bolster this effort. (I’d give credit to the writer if I remembered where I saw it. Maybe on the Daily Wire?) The idea is that the GOP congress should immediately propose and start pushing a law codifying the filibuster for regular legislation, with a one-year deadline to pass it.
But the GOP should warn the Dems that if by the end of next January they have successfully opposed it and it hasn’t passed, the GOP will immediately kill the filibuster themselves, and jam through every bit of legislation that Trump wants. In that context, smart Dems would have a big incentive to vote for legislation to keep the filibuster, knowing that if they don’t, the GOP is going to run rough-shod for the next year, and possibly 3 years.
So far, the filibuster has only been a customary practice, which we saw when Harry Reid threw it out for lower court judge confirmations, thus allowing us to put judges on SCOTUS with 51 votes. (HA!) And before the election, many Dems were saying they would get rid of the filibuster for all legislation, arguing that the evil GOP was “thwarting the will of the people” by adhering to it.
As an O.G. conservative, I like the filibuster, because it prevents faddish passions from driving whiplashing policies. But a prerequisite for a functional filibuster is the existence of two sides operating in good faith, so that some party members are willing to cross party lines to support reasonable ideas proposed by the opposition.
Does ANYBODY think that’s the world we’re living in? If Trump gets to nominate someone for SCOTUS, and there are 47 Dem senators, and there is no way that any Trump nominee will get more than one Dem vote. (Zero, if a second coconut falls on Fetterman’s head and he reverts to his leftist priors.)
So why would I want to keep the filibuster? Because as much of an obstacle as it is to us now, if it were codified into law it would be much harder to overturn, and will thus be a similar obstacle when the Dems get a small majority later.
However, if the Dems don’t take the deal by next January, we can’t continue to live by rules that we know the Dems will trash as soon as they regain power. Toward the end of Biden’s term, they seriously talked about killing the filibuster, stacking the SCOTUS and adding Puerto Rico and DC as new states. And they likely would have done AT LEAST the former if they’d won in November.
So let’s force the issue. If they want to play by the rules, that’s our thing. But if they expect to change the rules to gain an unfair advantage, we’ve got to beat them at their own game, by beating them to the punch.
Because like the big guy in the new Army ad said: Stronger parties are harder to kill.
Switching gears, I’ve got some fun examples of recent leftist self-owns, but this column is getting long, so I’ll save them for Wednesday.
In the meantime, I’m happy to report that the choice of Lil’ Davy Hogg as the DNC vice chair is already paying dividends.
For us.
Remember when Cankles McPantsuit and the rest of the left were making fun of Elon’s DOGE tech wizard wunderkinder because they were so young? (This was about two weeks ago.) But then the DNC picked their own 24-year-old blunderkind. And he immediately showed that he’d learned from his leftist elders by starting a money-making grift for himself.
He used the party’s “sucker list” to solicit donations for his own private PAC, which pays him over $100K per year.
Sorry, that was supposed to be “donor list.”
Or was it?
Anyway, the smarter Democrats – I know: they can fit in a phone booth at this point – are probably realizing that they screwed the pooch by electing Hogg.
Ooh, which reminds of this older tweet of Hogg’s that I just came across: “I’m never planning on having kids. I would much rather own a Porsche and have a Portuguese water dog and golden doodle. Long term it’s cheaper, better for the environment and will never tell you that it hates you or ask you to pay for college.”
So many thoughts. Starting with, on the list of things to worry about happening in the future, Davy Hogg fathering kids is not one of them. Because: biology.
Second, if he does manage to impregnate somebody, and if future college admissions are offered based on merit (Because: Trump!), I don’t think Davy will have to worry about paying for college for any dullards he manages to sire.
My favorite part of this story is the name of Hogg’s political action committee: “Leaders We Deserve PAC.”
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Hogg/Warren 2028!
Martin Simpson 