“No, I never thought about that…”

Standing outside the polling station on Election Day I got into a chat with a VCU political science major about executive power, and how expanding the power of the President isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Given he was handing out sample Democratic ballots I broached the idea of gay marriage…

He explained to me it is unequivocally a good thing that the government, most notably the President, seized the power to define what marriage is…he very much thanked Obama for seeking to expand that definition that could now include same-sex couples. I cautioned that is great when you agree with the definition…but as Presidents are only in office of at most 8 years, what if the next President exercises that same power and changes the definition? He looked like a deer in headlights…who had just soiled his pants.

“No, I never thought about that…”

We are now in a post-Obama, now-Trump world and much of what we are seeing is the direct result of relinquishing too much power to the Executive Branch and people, most notably Democrats, are up in arms. They fail to realize these same powers resided in President Obama yet because they agreed with his positions and actions, they were happy clams. It is a lot like your parents growing up…we are OK with their rules as long as we agree with them. When we no longer agree, buckle up for the bumpy ride ahead….and the occasional (OK, perhaps more frequent) crying fits.

Trump is only marginally to blame. The real issue is the expanded power of the Executive, the imbalance of power among the 3 branches of government, and where we find ourselves today.

Should we stop Trump? Yes. However, what we should seek to remedy is to remove the power from the Executive, not just Trump….and sadly I fear most neither see the link between the two, nor understand the implications.