The 10th Amendment is prescient particularly now with the US in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. There's an ongoing dispute between President Trump and some of the Governors in various states who claim using the 10th Amendment as their guide it is they the governor of their state who will decide how their state will proceed in the Covid-19 crisis, not the President of the United States.
So are we heading for a genuine Constitutional crisis with Trump saying he alone will decide how the country will proceed in ending the lockdowns, stay at home edicts currently in force in much of the countries cities, towns and states since mid March, or will it be the States Governors?
The western state Governors of California, Oregon and Washington are acting in concert as well as State Governors in the east, namely New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Delaware are signaling it is they acting along with their States' public health experts who will decide what is to be done, not the president of the United States.
Today it's not Governors claiming States Rights, as was done in the civil rights era when southern state governors rejected the intrusion of the federal government in what they said were strictly states affairs upholding segregation and separate but equal statutes. As we know the governors and their states segregation efforts didn't prevail against US presidents backed by SCOTUS decisions outlawing segregation.
Now it's governors in the east and west, plus a few other states t who are rejecting the encroachment of the president into what the governors say are affairs strictly within their states' province alone.
What's really interesting as we know Trump bungled the response to Covid-19 from the beginning dismissing it as just another flu virus till even he realized it was more than the usual flu the states and the world was dealing with. His bungled leadership as much as anything contributes to governors dispute with the "Donald".
In typical Trumpian fashion he was behind the curve, coming late to the game blaming everyone in sight except himself for not being prepared.
Instead of working with the states governors he openly criticized some of them for their state not being adequately prepared, not enough masks, ventilators, hospital beds, testing kits et al.
So now we have a sort of Constitutional crisis on our hands that was unimaginable just a couple of months ago.
It's laughable really but what else should we expect from a misanthrope president, an executive branch of government whose ineptness, dysfunction, diplomatic incompetence along with the dissembling nonsense we get from them clearly reveals their lack of leadership; evident to every consciously aware person in the country to say nothing of those who recognize it in the rest of the world.
Now how to get the majority of people in this country to see it and do something about changing it? Sadly that's a question no one has come up with an answer for.
Maybe it'll take another 1930's great depression. That's what seems looming on the not too distant horizon.
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