Never Let A Serious Border (And Constitutional) Crisis Go To Waste

“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that: it’s an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.” — Rahm Emanuel, Obama White House chief of staff

Ah, from the lips of the take-no-prisoners “Rahmbo” (who once reportedly delivered a dead fish to a tardy pollster) to the ears of 25 U.S. governors. 

That’s 25, count ‘em, state bosses – one complete half. Who recently joined together in a declaring their defiance of the Feds over the current usurper administration’s “All-ee, all-ee in free” approach to the southern border. 

Exacerbated by the actions of the arrogant Bidenites in “attack(ing) and su(ing) Texas for stepping up to protect American citizens from historic levels of illegal immigrants, deadly drugs like fentanyl, and terrorists entering our country.”

The result of which was the Supreme Court’s recent 5-4 punt of that suit, delivering to the administration the snippers to remove razor wire the Lone Star Staters had positioned on the boundary in a desperate attempt to stem the flow of migrants.

Hmmm. A little over three years ago, this commentator noted that a “spurned lawsuit,” initiated by none other than Texas and bringing together 18 states to allege a stolen presidency, provided “a potential stepping stone” from which “it’s only a hop, skip and a jump to the Declaration of Dissolution previously suggested in this space.”

It’s not just the number of nose-thumbing states that is elevated this time around. It’s the rhetoric – and potentially Rahmbo-esque implications.

“Republican Governors Band Together” read the headline on the guvs’ communique. You mean, like “Join or Die?”

And more consequential, this central assertion: “The Biden Administration has abdicated its constitutional compact duties to the states” (emphasis added).

“A hop, skip and a jump to a Declaration of Dissolution?” More like a Superman-level single-building bound. These state leaders are stating that the Bidenites have broken the bond that made the United States united.

Need a historical parallel? Try the Founders’ assertion that King George had “abdicated Government here.” How? “(B)y declaring us out of his Protection.”

But wait – there’s more! The governors “stand in solidarity with our fellow Governor, Greg Abbott, and the State of Texas in utilizing every tool and strategy, including razor wire fences, to secure the border.” 

“Stand in solidarity?” Them’s “compact” words (and we don’t mean small).

And words aren’t the only way Republican governors are “hanging together” to stick it to Washington. Red-state commanders in chief have been dispatching troops and troopers to the border for many moons. Now, recent presidential-race-departee Ron DeSantis is rushing 1,000 “reinforcements” westward from the Sunshine State.

Their assignment? “(H)elp Texas to add additional (sic) barriers, including” – wait for it – “razor wire.” 

Out of such cheeky pokes in the eye are mighty revolutions spawned.

Which brings us back to the Machiavellian counsel of Mr. Emanuel, whose somewhat-more-than-cheeky desk nameplate read “Undersecretary of Go F— Yourself.”

If one were to engage in a word association exercise anywhere in America today, who wouldn’t respond to the term “border” with “crisis,” if not “serious crisis?” (As the fictional Col. Nathan Jessup might have put it, “Is there another kind?”)

Waving in millions of migrants is overrunning the coping capacity not only of the nation’s second-largest state but of states and municipalities big and small, rich and poor, north, south, east and west. 

After all, there are only so many luxury hotels, schools, community recreation centers, buses, airport terminals, police precincts and neighborhood streets to convert to “temporary” housing – not to mention dollars to devote to the cause of sheltering, feeding, educating and supplying phones and health care to illegals.

Let’s see. We have a “serious” fiscal, social and national security catastrophe. The fact that untrammeled immigration has risen to become Americans’ number one concern. And the reality that 50% of the nation’s governors have seized the occasion to vault up right up to the line of voiding and replacing America’s “constitutional compact.” 

Might it not now be possible “to do (something) that you think you could not do before?” Like go all the way to the Great American Opt-Out?

And if more grist for the partition mill is needed, there’s always:

• Ongoing efforts to rig another election
• Raids on and prosecution of a former president
• Further weaponization of the justice system – including the prosecution of grandmothers for walking through the Capitol complex (as opposed to video-recording sex there) and possible years-long imprisonment for praying in abortion clinics
• The creeping federal takeover of the health care and transportation systems
• Blatantly unconstitutional actions to forgive hundreds of billions of dollars in student-loan debt (defying a previous hand slap from the very same Supreme Court)
• Systematic currency debasement including a one-year doubling of the deficit that is “without precedent,” thanks largely to the commitment of non-existent dollars to growth-killing initiatives underwriting corrupt crony capitalism
• Concomitant devaluation of citizenship by imposing an anti-meritocratic and potentially dangerous DEI regime promoting group identity over hard work, competence and moral behavior
• And of particular relevance given the current standoff, disappearing U.S. fossil-fuel dominance via a fanciful, wildly expensive and freedom-grinding Green New Deal agenda. The latest chapter of which is the administration’s sudden, unsupportable liquefied natural gas moratorium – yet another direct blow from an unhinged, imperious central government to the state that produces fully a quarter of the nation’s dry gas. You guessed it: Texas. 

Emanuel’s Prairie State predecessor, Abraham Lincoln, averred that the nation could not “endure permanently half slave and half free.” Today’s America cannot endure with its venal, reality-rejecting, wealth-sucking woke half permanently dictating to and impermissibly burdening, persecuting and outright endangering the sound, stable and productive cohort. 

The opportunity now presents itself for the leaders representing the latter half to go full Rahmbo before it’s too late to save any of us. Take the logical next step: declare not just the “constitutional compact,” but the union dissolved.

Bob Maistros is a messaging and communications strategist, crisis specialist, and former political speechwriter. He can be reached at bob@rpmexecutive.com.