I woke up this morning thinking, “Trump is still a private citizen. Trump is the unofficial president elect. He isn’t the president until January 20. In fact, Trump isn’t officially even the president elect until December 19 when the Electoral College makes it official, but he’s acting as if he were already the president with powers that a president of the United States doesn’t legally have.”
Whitehouse.gov clearly defines the role of a sitting U.S. President: “The power of the Executive Branch is vested in the President of the United States, who also acts as head of state and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. The President is responsible for implementing and enforcing the laws written by Congress and, to that end, appoints the heads of the federal agencies, including the Cabinet.”
In fact, even the U.S. Constitution, written by the Founding Fathers in the 18th century, says, “Under Article II of the Constitution, the President is responsible for the execution and enforcement of the laws created by Congress. Fifteen executive departments — each led by an appointed member of the President’s Cabinet — carry out the day-to-day administration of the federal government.”
Trump, as the unofficial president elect of the United States, does not have the legal authority to make deals with other countries or corporations, even to save jobs. Whatever deal Trump negotiated to keep about 1,000 jobs in the United States in Indiana with Carrier, a division of United Technologies, is not legal and binding without the consent of the state legislature.
Furthermore, from Whitehouse.gov, we learn “The Executive Branch conducts diplomacy with other nations (it doesn’t say corporations), and the President has the power to negotiate and sign treaties, which also must be ratified by two-thirds of the Senate. The President can issue executive orders, which direct executive officers or clarify and further existing laws. The President also has unlimited power to extend pardons and clemencies for federal crimes, except in cases of impeachment.”
Finally, everyone should know, and that includes Trump’s supporters ignorantly cheering him at that rally in Cincinnati, the oath of office that Trump must take to become president of the United States on January 20, 2017. Once he takes that oath, he will be risking impeachment if he does what he just did with Carrier to allegedly save about 1,000 jobs in Indiana from going to Mexico. If Trump really wants to save jobs, he’ll have to get Congress to pass laws he can sign that limits how many human jobs in the U.S. manufacturing sector can be given to robots, because that’s where 88 percent of the lost jobs in manufacturing have gone since 1979. “The vast majority of the lost jobs — 88 percent — were taken by robots and other homegrown factors that reduce factories’ need for human labor.” – Why robots, not trade, are behind so many factory job losses.
From PresidentsUSA.net we learn that before Donald Trump will be allowed to become the president of the United States, he must take the following oath or affirmation: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
What Trump just did in Indiana with Carrier is a publicity stunt; it’s all for show, and when Trump acts (on one of his rally stages), it’s obvious that the U.S. Constitution, the rule of law for the United States, isn’t important to him.
If the state of Indiana, the U.S. Congress and/or the Republican Party, since they hold the majority of seats in Congress, and the courts from Indiana to the U.S. Supreme Court do nothing to stop Trump, the United States has elected its first emperor, king, or dictator, and the U.S. Constitution is now worth less than the cost of a package of toilet paper sold at Costco.
Alt-Right fascist, often misleading news sources like Brietbart, the Conservative Tribune, and Fox News are all trumpeting this as a victory for the autocratic, billionaire oligarch that’s about to become President of the United States. However, Business Insider, a valid and reputable media source, reports, “Conservatives are worried Trump’s Carrier deal could set a bad precedent.”
“This is not a precedent we want to see — American presidents aren’t supposed to interfere on behalf of individual companies,” said David Boaz, executive vice president of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington. … He added, “Frankly, it brings to mind the term ‘banana republic.’” But two of Trump’s billionaire appointees – Trump’s billionaire cabinet could be the wealthiest administration ever – said, “this will be business as usual in a Trump administration.”
“BUSINESS as USUAL”
If correct, that means the U.S. will not have a president in Donald Trump. It will have a dictator, because that’s what corporate CEOs do. It’s obvious that Trump plans to rule the United States as if it were part of his business empire, and ignore the U.S. Constitution that he will swear an oath to support, but most Americans already know that lying and breaking promises comes very easy to Donald Trump.
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Lloyd Lofthouse is a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran, with a BA in journalism and an MFA in writing, who taught in the public schools for thirty years (1975 – 2005).
Lofthouse’s first novel was the award winning historical fiction My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. His second novel was the award winning thriller Running with the Enemy followed by his award winning memoir Crazy is Normal.
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Lloyd Lofthouse 
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