UPDATED BELOW:

We all heard Trump’s inane ranting this week from calling himself the “chosen one” to him saying he’s going to cut payroll taxes (never mind) to escalating his trade war with China that was doomed from the start.  The outrage of the week, though, after China retaliated by slapping a 5% tariff on crude oil (crushing US oil prices), Trump appointed himself “Emperor of All Commerce” and tweeted out:

“Our great American companies are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China, including bringing your companies HOME and making your products in the USA.”

The response on Twitter was EXACTLY what you’d expect:  Republicans ran for the exits and were virtually radio silent, and Democrats as well as Trump critics pounced, and #iherebyorder started trending.  Adam Schiff tweeted:

“As long as we are claiming constitutional powers we don’t have, I hereby order the President to stop tweeting.”

George Conway got into the act, hilariously tweeting:

“I hereby order everyone on Twitter to hereby order something. #Iherebyorder” and “I hereby order Republicans to get real about Trump’s mental state.”

The hashtag is extremely entertaining, but let’s be clear – President of the United States is president, not king, emperor, or dictator.  It’s the most powerful position in the world (I shuddered as I typed that), but it’s limited.  He can’t order private business to do ANYTHING. That’s why they call it the private sector.  What he could do, though, is lead by example, and get his own goddam businesses out of China.  Both he and Ivanka’s cheesy crap is made in China as well as his 2020 campaign banners.

Trump is completely off the rails, driving the global economy in the ditch with his idiotic trade war.  His latest tantrum is only an attempt to control what he has no authority over, and I expect this to get worse and worse.  Think about it – when he was campaigning, he said over and over that only HE could fix what was “wrong” with America (even though the economy was fine, thank you very much). He also repeated that he knew more about the economy, warfare, ISIS, technology, and trade than ANYONE when, in fact, he didn’t know shit about any of those things.  All Trump knows about is reality television and that’s how he’s running the government, with his daily episodes of out of control tweeting and stupefying chaos.

We’re in this pickle because a huge portion of the electorate is stupid.  That’s a given.  However, we remain in this pickle because the Congress is broken.  Over the years it has ceded its Constitutional authority over to the Executive branch.  Trade policy is the Congress’s, not the president’s.  Trump is using national security as his reason for driving his personal vendetta against allies and trading partners, and Mitch McConnell is sitting on his fat ass letting it happen. McConnell has blocked every effort to stop the wrecking of the US and global economies and for this reason, is actually worse than Trump, since he actually DOES know better.

Enough of this is enough.  Get off your ass, Mitch, and do your goddam job.  Either do that, or get out of the way and let someone else do it.

UPDATE:  Trump asserted on Twitter early this am that he indeed CAN order companies to leave China.  He quoted the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 as his authority, but, of course, he’s wrong.  This law was passed to provide a framework for dealing with criminal regimes and terrorists organizations and was enacted to LIMIT a president’s authority to unilaterally act without proper declarations of emergencies that affect immediate national security.  It has NEVER been used for commercial trade disputes.  My feeling is that, per usual, Trump shot off his Twitter and some law library rat has been scurrying around trying to find some legal thread to tie it to, just like the Muslim ban and his “zero tolerance” policy that has created one of the largest human rights crisis in US history at the southern border.

This one, like all the others, won’t end well for either Trump or the US’ standing in the international community.