By Robert Reich
Wrong. He’s been
worse.
Exhibit one: the
“Wall.” After torpedoing Mitch McConnell’s temporary spending deal to avert a
shutdown, he’s holding hostage over 800,000 government employees (“mostly
Democrats,” he calls them, disparagingly) while subjecting the rest of America
to untoward dangers.
On-site inspections at
power plants have been halted. Hazardous waste cleanup efforts at Superfund
sites are on hold. Reviews of toxic substances and pesticides have been
stopped. Justice Department cases are in limbo.
Meanwhile, now working
without pay are thousands of air traffic controllers and aviation and railroad
safety inspectors, nearly 54,000 Customs and Border Protection agents, 42,000
Coast Guard employees, 53,000 TSA agents, 17,000 correctional officers, 14,000
FBI agents, 4,000 Drug Enforcement Administration agents, and some 5,000
firefighters with the U.S. Forest Service.
Having run the Department of Labor during the 1995 and 1996 shutdowns, I’m confident most of these public servants will continue to report for duty because they care about the missions they’re upholding. But going without pay will strain their family budgets to the point that some will not be able to.
Shame on him for
jeopardizing America this way in order to fund his wall – which is nothing but
a trumped-up solution to a trumped-up problem designed only to fuel his base.
In his second year
he’s also done even more damage to the nation’s judicial-criminal system than
he did before.
At least twice in the
past month he’s reportedly raged against his acting attorney
general for allowing federal prosecutors to reference him in the crimes his
former bagman Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to committing.
This is potentially
the most direct obstruction of justice yet. He’s now pressuring an official
whom he hand-picked and whose entire future depends on him, to take actions
that would impair the independence of federal prosecutors.
Last month he blasted
Judge Jon Tigar as an “Obama judge” after Tigar blocked the Administration’s
limits on asylum eligibility to ports of entry, a decision summarily upheld by
the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and sustained by the Supreme Court.
Chief Justice Roberts
issued a rare rebuke. “We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges,” he wrote,
adding that an “independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful
for.”
Which prompted his
rejoinder: “Sorry Chief Justice John Roberts, but you do indeed have ‘Obama
judges,’” followed by his baseless and incendiary claim that “they have a much
different point of view than the people who are charged with the safety of our
country,” and their “rulings are making our country unsafe! Very dangerous and
unwise!”
In his second year
he’s displayed even less commitment to keeping the military nonpartisan than he
did initially.
During last month’s
teleconference with U.S. troops and coast guard members he continued his
rampage against the judiciary, calling the ninth circuit “a big thorn in our
side” and “a disgrace.”
Then he turned last
week’s surprise visit to American troops in Iraq and Germany into a political
rally – praising troops wearing red “Make America Great Again” caps, signing a
“Trump 2020” patch, and accusing Representative Nancy Pelosi and other leading
Democrats of being weak on border security.
Some Americans are
becoming so accustomed to these antics that they no longer see them for what
they are – escalating attacks on America’s core democratic institutions.
Where would we be if a
president could simply shut down the government when he doesn’t get his way? If
he could stop federal prosecutions he doesn’t like and order those he wants? If
he could whip up public anger against court decisions he disapproves of? If he
could mobilize the military to support him, against Congress and the judiciary?
We would no longer
live in a democracy. Like his increasing attacks on critics in the press, these
are all aspects of his growing authoritarianism. We normalize them at our
peril.
Our institutions
remain strong, but I’m not sure they can endure two more years of this. He must
be removed from office through impeachment, or his own decision to resign in
the face of impeachment, as did Richard Nixon.
Republican members of
Congress must join with Democrats to get this task done as quickly as possible.
Nothing is more urgent. It must be, in effect, America’s New Year’s resolution.
Robert B. Reich is Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at
the University of California at Berkeley and Senior Fellow at the Blum Center
for Developing Economies. He served as Secretary of Labor in the Clinton
administration, for which Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective
cabinet secretaries of the twentieth century. He has written fifteen books,
including the best sellers "Aftershock", "The Work of
Nations," and "Beyond Outrage," and, his most recent, "The
Common Good," which is available in bookstores now. He is also a founding
editor of the American Prospect magazine, chairman of Common Cause, a member of
the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and co-creator of the award-winning
documentary, "Inequality For All." He's co-creator of the Netflix
original documentary "Saving Capitalism," which is streaming
now.
