The right wing fringe would like you to believe that Barack Obama was a monstrous dictator. Every time Obama issued an executive order, right wing radio hosts wrung their hands and gnashed their teeth. But whenever Donald Trump issues an executive order, like clockwork they stand up and applaud. Also, like clockwork, when a judge finds that order unconstitutional, they all but denounce him as a traitor.
A textbook example of this came last weekend, from one of the usual suspects–American Family Radio afternoon drive-time host Bryan Fischer. In a blog at the American Family Association’s official blog, The Stand, Fischer called for Trump to defy a Hawaii-based federal judge’s block on the second incarnation of Trump’s travel ban.
Just hours before the ban was to take effect on March 16, Judge Derrick Watson issued a restraining order that blocked it from taking effect on the grounds that it violated the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause. Watson cited Trump’s own words during the campaign as evidence that the ban was intended to discriminate against Muslims.
Last Thursday, Watson converted the restraining order into a preliminary injunction. The Justice Department asked Watson to ignore Trump’s previous statements and instead focus on the wording of the order. Watson disposed of that suggestion in a firm manner.
“Where the ‘historical context’ and ‘the specific sequence of events leading up to’ the adoption of the challenged Executive Order are as full of religious animus, invective, and obvious pretext as is the record here, it is no wonder that the Government urges the Court to altogether ignore that history and context. The Court, however, declines to do so.”
Hawaii attorney general Doug Chin applauded Watson’s decision in a press conference. Watch here.
Fischer definitely wasn’t applauding. He denounced Watson as “a third-tier judge” who had engaged in “an appalling, alarming and Constitution-destroying act of judicial hubris and overreach.” In other words, a longer-winded version of Trump calling the Washington-based federal judge who ixnayed his original ban a “so-called judge.” Apparently Fischer doesn’t know that Watson, an Obama appointee, was confirmed 94-0 by the Senate. Not exactly a so-called judge.
Fischer then rails that the courts have no authority to act on immigration policy whatsoever.
“Simply begin with the fact that neither the Constitution nor the law gives any authority to the judiciary to set immigration policy in any manner at all. The Constitution vests it all in Congress, and Congress under that authority can pass laws which the president as the head of the executive branch then implements.
The law gives the president unquestioned, unilateral, and unreserved authority to block entry into the United States to any persons or group of persons he ‘deems detrimental to the interests’ of the country. And he can simply do it ‘by proclamation’ and entirely on his own authority.”
I had to read this twice in order to believe it. So if a president issues an immigration order that is blatantly discriminatory, the courts have no authority to intervene? Apparently so, in Fischer’s world.
If anyone is acting in an “appalling, alarming, and Constitution-destroying” manner, it’s Fischer. Then again, we’re talking about a guy who thinks terrorists’ families should be tossed out of the country, considers refusal to display the Ten Commandments an act of treason, and believes the First Amendment only protects Christians.
Fischer believes that Trump would be well within his rights to disregard this order because Watson supposedly “has no more legal authority than a traffic court judge.” If Trump were to go that route, Fischer believes that Watson would be able to do “precisely nothing.” To Fischer’s mind, Trump would be setting an example for the rest of the country.
“This is the only way judicial tyranny is going to be broken in America. It will be broken by elected officials who fulfill their oaths of office to uphold and defend the Constitution by flatly refusing to knuckle under to black-robed oligarchs who tread where the Constitution forbids them to go.”
Hmmm–isn’t this the same line that segregationist governors took during the Civil Rights Era? Sounds like it. But considering Trump’s past behavior, it’s even more chilling. Unless I’m very wrong, Fischer thinks it’s perfectly fine with Trump essentially being a dictator.
The folks at People for the American Way’s Right Wing Watch discovered something else–Fischer was perfectly fine with a judge blocking an Obama order on immigration. In 2015, when a Texas judge blocked Obama’s order on deportation amnesty, Fischer praised it as “right on matters of law and the Constitution.” Then again, consider that the majority of Fischer’s audience is of the mind that no Democratic president is legitimate–whether he or she is white, black, or polka-dotted.
So when a judge strikes down a Democratic immigration order, he is “right on matters of law and the Constitution.” When a judge strikes down a Republican immigration order, he “has no more legal authority than a traffic court judge.” Got it.
(featured image courtesy Fischer’s Facebook)
