President Trump has proposed stripping federal judges of their authority to issue nationwide injunctions, a move that greatly weakens the judiciary's ability to check presidential power. This change targets birthright citizenship, jeopardizing the 14th Amendment by denying citizenship to children of non-citizen parents. The script calls for public action and awareness to protect constitutional safeguards.

President Donald Trump’s bizarre obsession with insisting that Canada become the “51st State” has pivoted from trollish trash talk to something in which he seems to believe.

Trump is known for his unique form of political kayfabe, perhaps learned from his days on the WWF circuit, knowing that controlling conflict is the easiest way to control the media and, therefore, the narrative. And he’s done it incredibly successfully, as nearly every media outlet — including ours — has not been able to resist taking the bait of outrage he tosses out on the regular.

Much has been made about Trump’s shifting tariff policy towards our biggest trade allies and longest-running allies, Mexico and Canada, which was explained by many as a negotiating tactic to get better border security and help stem the flow of fentanyl into the United States. While one might criticize the ethical nature of this approach, or the on-again-off-again tariff policy has cratered the investment markets, there is no arguing that Trump effectively bullied Mexico and Canada into taking action, even if much of what they agreed to had already long been planned.

But the 51st state thing is a different rhetorical beast altogether. And Trump has said it so repeatedly that it now seems clear as day that it’s no longer a troll but rather something he fully believes in, which is absolutely INSANE given the lack of reason, logic, or even an operational plan for how that would unfold, short of a military invasion.

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) urged fellow Democrats to “take on” President Donald Trump on Thursday, arguing that “the best time to take on a tyrant is as early as possible, and this is the moment.”

Reacting on CNN’s The Arena to the controversial government spending bill, which has split Democrats in the Senate, Merkley argued:

You don’t stop a bully by giving over your lunch money and you don’t stop tyrant Trump by voting to give him more power. That is absolutely the wrong approach. There are others who say, you know, in a shutdown, the president may have more power than we’ve seen in any previous shutdown. There is a legitimate case to be made on both sides of this argument. But here’s what I am aware of, and that is, in history, as you see institutions degrade in republics where there’s an authoritarian president, is because the courts cave and you get an acquiescent legislature.

The senator then declared, “The best time to take on a tyrant is as early as possible, and this is the moment. We have the leverage as a Democratic caucus to insist on negotiations, to produce those bills onto the floor, those appropriation bills onto the floor. This is the moment to use that leverage.”

He concluded, “I think the concerns about the Republicans shutting down the government, because it will be the Republicans that do it, it will hurt them politically, it will be bad policy, and we will get back to using our leverage in an effective fashion.”