State of Permanent Fake Emergency

To be honest, I am hoping that the federal nature of the US and State's Rights will be the what prevents this administration from fully achieving its goals.

It's not the villain. It's the system.

As long as this is about an individual abusing a system and not the system itself, we will never be able to stop this.

When emergency powers are granted to the same person that has the power to declare the emergency, those powers are effectively no longer restricted to emergencies.

The exception will eventually swallow the rule.

https://www.history.com/articles/national-state-of-emergency...

https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/98-505

For example COVID emergencies were kept in effect long after it was appropriate. As a recently example, an election observer from the GOP in Washington state was charged and later convicted of a felony for not wearing a mask when serving as an election observer in the 2024 election (https://nypost.com/2025/02/16/us-news/washington-election-ob...), long after the pandemic ended.

I also read that the same state’s legislators often mark their bills as an “emergency measure” because it prevents voter initiatives (which I guess are like propositions in California) from changing the law. This happens elsewhere too for other procedural reasons. Like governors or whoever declaring an emergency because it allows them to unlock funds and spend, or it allows them to take some action that is otherwise prevented by law.

But setting these types of situations aside, there has been casual overuse of the words “emergency” or “crisis” everywhere. Climate emergency. Housing emergency. Homeless crisis. Drug crisis. And so on. None of these fit the definition of an emergency unless you contort things.