The Crisis is Upon Us

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

The election is over, and save for some recounts in tightly contested races the Democrats have won the House of Representatives with a convincing win despite many overwhelmingly gerrymandered districts in Red States, while the GOP increased its majority in the Senate. The Democrats also made significant headway in State races and for the first time in many years now hold a majority of governorships.

In response President Trump behaved as any tyrant would have. He attacked the press, he suspended the press privileges of CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta after an altercation in which after the President berated Acosta a female staffer attempted to take a microphone out of Acosta’s hands.

During the press conference the President said that he would “work with Democrats” but would go to war if the new House majority exercised its constitutional right to conduct investigations into the President and his administration’s actions. But unlike his spineless GOP majority these Democrats will mean business and will not back down in the face of the President’s threats.

But there’s more. Following his Press Conference, Attorney General Jeff Sessions was forced to resign immediately from his post and replaced as Acting Attorney General, not by Deputy Attorney General Ron Rosenstein, but by his Chief of Staff, Matt Whitaker, an outspoken critic of Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller who now replaces Rosenstein to oversee Mueller.

The multiple effects of these actions is chilling for our constitutional system of government. The direct attack on individual members of the press is an assault on the First Amendment, and the firing of Attorney General Sessions and his replacement by a non-Senate confirmed aide was unprecedented.

We are now in completely uncharted territory. Never before has an American President attacked the foundations of the American system of government, but quite obviously, President Trump has no respect for his office or the Constitution. With a Lame Duck House still in office and a Senate majority he may well attempt to create a crisis in which he could try to seize unlimited power before the Democrats can officially take control of the House of Representatives.

Outside of the secession crisis of 1860 and 1861, this is the most dangerous moment in the history of the American Republic.

I do not know what tomorrow will bring but I do not think that it will be in any way comforting. I expect that we will lurch from crisis to crisis until the President attempts to seize absolute power. It is a moment that I dreaded since the President announced his candidacy in 2015.

Thomas Jefferson wrote: “Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.

Until tomorrow,

Peace,

Padre Steve+