The New American Rebellion: Cities and States Against Trump

The man is out of control. "Make America Great Again" is his call. Its practical effect is "Make America the World's Pariah." Trump may be impeached before too long. His swagger in public maybe a mask of his fear of eventual humiliation. The appointment of a special prosecutor, Robert Mueller, to investigate the possibility of a Trump-Putin axis signals the ultimate check on a president gone rogue.

The recent straw straining the American camel's back is Trump's abandonment of the Paris global climate accord of 2015. Resorting to a junk misinterpretation of that 195 States voluntary accord on the reduction of fossil emission, Trump declared on June 1 at the White House that that agreement was an economic straight jacket. "I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris."

The rebuke of that isolationist move against combating global warming came fast and furious. Not only from heads of State, especially those who lead the "least developed countries;" but also from American business, corporate executives, climate activists, and American state governors and city mayors. A new American rebellion of cities and States against an erratic president is now afoot.

Led by former New York City mayor, Michael Bloomberg in the east, and Governor Brown of California in the west, the rebellion is a practical application of the Tenth Amendment of the US Constitution. It reads: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." 

From his campaign for the presidency (June 2015 to November 2016), it became clear that Trump is not conversant with the Constitution. A Muslim father of a US army officer killed in Afghanistan, Mr. Khan, angered by Trump's foolish call for a Muslim ban on entering the US, posed a challenge to Trump at the Democratic National Convention. Flourishing a copy of the American Constitution, Mr. Khan posed this historic challenge to Trump: "Have you ever even read the U.S. Constitution?"

The fact that the federal government in America is one of "enumerated" (limited) powers, has created for the states and cities which are in favor of the Paris climate accord the requisite space for this new check on Trump's "act of gratuitous destruction" (to quote Paul Krugman, a Nobel Laureate in economics).

This challenge by city mayors and state governors to Trump's headlong isolationism has been in the making since their opposition to Trump's executive orders for the deportation of "illegal immigrants." In one of the so-called "sanctuary cities," Mayor De Blasio of New York City led the charge. He instructs the New York Police Department not to cooperate with federal agents attempting to arrest persons who lacks documentary evidence for being in America.

In America, police departments (47000 in all) are not controlled by the federal government. They, as in the case of education, are subject to control only by cities (in the case of the police) or by community school boards (in the case of public education).

The spark that has further ignited the states and cities rebellion against Trump's "reckless climate decision," has been described by John Niles, the Director of the Carbon Institute of California, in these words: "Mr. Trump's decision is not only an arrogant abrogation of science and cooperation, but also defies logic. Ignoring the opportunities in clean innovation and relying on 18th century technologies is a mistaken bet to 'make American great again.'"

This new assertion of local power over federal power in America, is taking place against a series of Trumpist isolationist moves which have created voids now filled by China. Trump's avoidance of reaffirming US commitment to NATO, his abandonment of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, his reduction of the budgets of the State Department in favor of a 10% increase in the military budget, have alarmed an America whose leadership has, since 1945, been the mainstay of the postwar world order.

As of now, former New York City Mayor Bloomberg, together with 30 mayors, several governors, 80 university presidents, and more than 100 businesses, are now negotiating with the UN to formalize their contribution to the Paris climate deal. Declared Bloomberg: "We are going to do everything America would have done if it has stayed committed." It is incorrect to claim that such an initiative has no formal mechanism for entities that were not countries to be full parties to the Paris accord.

Although the UN is an inter-state system, its Charter, a World War II document dating back to 1945, declares in its preamble "We the peoples of the United Nations determined ... to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedoms." The cluster of US cities and states now rising against Trump in support of the climate accord endorsed by 195 States, falls in that category of legitimated UN participants. This is particularly so because such an American cluster includes states whose status under the US Constitution is regarded as "supreme."

Adding to that relevance to UN purposes is the continuous creation by the UN of new mechanisms to overcome the strictures imposed by the literal interpretation of the UN Charter. The most important examples are the creation of peace-keeping operations (there is no mention in the Charter of the term "peace-keeping"); the expansion of the authority of the UN Security Council to impose travel bans on individual citizens of sovereign States; and the avoidance of voting in the Security Council for fear of paralysis through the veto, by creating "presidential statements" to replace formal decisions.

Add to the above is that Mayor Bloomberg is a UN envoy on climate change. In that capacity of improvised American leadership outside of a White House going backward on international commitments, Bloomberg declared his approach to the UN was "a parallel pledge." Declared California's Governor, Jerry Brown: "If the President is going backward, we are going forward." California's economy is the 6th largest economy in the world.

In America, that fight has now shifted from the federal government to lower levels of government including academia and industry. This is a rebellion whose vanguards include Governor Jay Inslee of Washington State, Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York, and Governor Jerry Brown of California. All of them, democrats, have declared an alliance committed to upholding the Paris accord.

Now we have new European allies for the new American rebellion of cities and states against Trump. France's president, Emmanuel Macron welcomed that uprising in these words: "I want to say that they will find in France a second home... I can assure you that France will not give up the fight." And during her meeting in Berlin with India's prime minister, Narenda Modi, Germany's chancellor Angela Merkel pledged her support, and distanced the European Union from Trump. This is while she welcomed China's leadership in the global push for action on climate.

Under Trump, America is being transformed. Not in the way the Trumpists have hoped. But in the rise of new checks and balances not before used to chain a president who thinks that running a country is akin to running a company. As a country of laws, the system may yet force Trump out of the White House which he has recently dubbed "The People's House."

The U.S. Constitution begins with these words: "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union ..." It now looks that the "more perfect Union" is in the making via this new cities and states rebellion.

NOTE: New blog postings will resume on a monthly basis after my new book is ready for the press this Fall. Its title: "The New Islamic Religious Revolution: Fundamentals of Islamic Law and Practice"