Beyond the Law

Twenty-three years ago, America's leaders asserted the right to ignore the law. Now, they want voters to ratify their own disenfranchisement

On September 14^th, 2001, President George W. Bush signed Proclamation 7463 declaring a “National Emergency by Reason of Certain Terrorist Attacks.” The measure activates over 400 additional provisions of executive authority and has been re-signed every year by every succeeding president, including four times by Donald Trump. As discussed on the new America This Week, Joe Biden just signed its latest renewal, effective tomorrow, noting the threat of twenty-three years ago “continues”:

Along with 200 other Republicans, former Vice President Dick Cheney and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez just endorsed Kamala Harris. Gonzalez, who as George W. Bush’s counsel received and signed the infamous torture memos and dismissed the Geneva conventions as “quaint,” said in a Politico essay his reason was that Donald Trump represented a “threat to the rule of law.”

Cheney said Trump tried to use “lies and violence” to stay in power. Beyond pushing “enhanced interrogation” and conducting affairs of state through extralegal mechanisms like the Office of Special Plans, Cheney perfected the institutional whopper. His lies weren’t crazy and off-the-cuff, but monstrous and effective, like saying Saddam Hussein “is actively pursuing nuclear weapons” or had “high-level contacts with Al Qaeda going back a decade.” Putting a Trump lie in a class with one of Cheney’s is like comparing a flatus and a methane planet.

It’s the right metaphor, because that doesn’t mean the Trump experience smells great. But we’ve forgotten the scale of the other thing: