US president Donald Trump announced a “state of emergency” on Friday of last week in order to get funding to build his anti-migrant border wall.
He wants to push through almost £4 billion funding for 200 miles of wall along the US’s southern border.
This is on top of another £2 billion from other sources that is already available.
Trump wants the wall completed in time for the presidential elections in 2020.
Migrants will die as a result.
That’s just one reason among manyn why people should turn out to protest against him if he comes to Britain this year.
Yet declaring and creating states of emergency to push for political objectives is nothing new in the US.
Barack Obama did it to deport thousands of migrants.
Senior Democrat Nancy Pelosi, self-proclaimed leader of the resistance to Trump, was strongly in favour of that state of emergency.
Sanctions
And states of emergency have been used to impose sanctions on countries such as Venezuela and Iran on 26 separate occasions.
These have had devastating consequences for ordinary people.
Democrats have launched legal challenges to Trump’s state of emergency.
They are unlikely to succeed legally if they can’t challenge it through legislative means.
If they wanted to challenge it in the branches of government they would need to win a majority in both houses of government—the House of Representatives and the Senate.
This is unlikely since the Republicans have a majority in the Senate.
Trump could then veto the decision anyway.
It’s a devastating counter-argument to claims by the Democrats that voting for them is the most important way to resist Trump or achieve social change.
And a legal process could take years to reach the Supreme Court—which is now dominated by conservatives thanks to Trump’s appointments.
The only answer is a movement on the streets and in workplaces that is capable of pushing Trump back.
And there are real signs of resistance.
The number of workers taking part in strikes in 2018 was the highest for 32 years.