Hate Emergency Declarations? Try Competence

The Lawful Remedy When Others Refuse to Govern.

The Duty to Declare an Emergency

Emergencies are not a vibe. They are moments when ordinary governance cannot secure life, liberty, or the continued functioning of the Republic. In those moments the Constitution does not invite the president to hold a seminar. It binds him to act within law to restore order and protect the nation he swore to serve.

Two current fronts make the case with unusual clarity: federal intervention in Washington, D.C., and the national emergency at the southern border.

The Seat of Government is Not Optional

The federal government has a non-delegable interest in keeping its capital open, safe, and governable. Congress wrote that reality into the District of Columbia Home Rule Act, which preserves presidential authority to direct the Mayor to provide Metropolitan Police Department services “for Federal purposes” when “special conditions of an emergency nature” exist. President Trump invoked that statute, delegated operational direction to the Attorney General, and ordered MPD support for protecting federal property and maintaining conditions necessary for the Federal Government to function.

The action is explicitly time-limited. Under the Home Rule Act, federal control expires after thirty days unless Congress extends it. That alone distinguishes this from open-ended federalization and makes it a textbook case of emergency power that is bounded, reviewable, and tied to an identifiable federal interest rather than a roving police power.

Critics point to falling citywide crime rates and accuse the White House of theater. The reply is legal and practical. First, the trigger here is not a comparative trend line but the president’s determination that emergency conditions affecting federal purposes exist. Second, the urgency is not abstract. The order mobilizes the D.C. National Guard and reassigns local police to protect federal workers, buildings, and operations that have been strained by personnel shortages and recurring security incidents. Whether some categories of crime are down does not change the federal duty to secure national institutions in real time.

This is what a limiting principle looks like. A specific statute. A specific place. A specific public purpose. A strict clock. The alternative is for the president to watch the capital wobble and pretend his oath does not travel the short distance from the White House to the Capitol.

Borders Are Not Metaphors

The Constitution charges the political branches with maintaining the nation’s territorial integrity. On January 20, 2025, the president declared a national emergency at the southern border, invoking the National Emergencies Act and Title 10 authorities to recall Ready Reserve forces and to permit military construction support for the response. Those tools make sense when civilian capacity is overwhelmed by organized transnational crime, mass unlawful crossings, and fentanyl trafficking that is killing Americans. This is not a free-floating appeal to necessity. It is a finding under a statute Congress enacted, with citations to specific provisions and a notice published in the Federal Register.

Here again the structure matters. The proclamation does not create criminal law by executive pen. It marshals existing military support authorities to backstop DHS where ordinary resources have failed to produce operational control. In constitutional terms, this is the executive executing. When the prior administration allowed a breakdown in enforcement, it did not repeal the Take Care Clause. The duty survived, and it now demands action calibrated to restore order quickly enough to save lives at the line and in the communities downstream.

The Philosophical Core: Power as Fiduciary Duty

Emergency power in our system is not a license to rule. It is fiduciary authority exercised for a limited end under law when delay costs lives. The president is not free to ignore emergencies that threaten the security of the federal government’s seat or the sovereignty of its borders. To do so would be to breach the oath. If one believes Biden-era policy produced dereliction at the border and if one believes the District’s governance allowed a security deficit around federal operations, then a refusal to use lawful emergency tools would be the radical act. Their use is the constitutional norm in abnormal times.

Anticipating the Standard Objections

Objection: This is federal overreach into local policing.
Answer: Congress built an emergency override into the Home Rule Act precisely because the District is not a state and the federal interest in its continuous operation is unique. The order directs MPD services “for Federal purposes” and sunsets absent congressional approval. That is a narrow, temporary intervention keyed to federal needs, not a general revocation of home rule.

Objection: The border emergency is policy preference dressed up as crisis.
Answer: Congress supplied a process and standards in the National Emergencies Act. The January proclamation identifies concrete threats, invokes enumerated Title 10 authorities, and posts formal notice. Courts remain open to test the fit and to police abuses. The presence of judicial review and statutory predicates is the opposite of autocracy.

Objection: Emergencies become permanent.
Answer: Permanence is a political failure, not a structural inevitability. The D.C. action has a hard thirty-day fuse. Border authorities must be justified and renewed against a public record, and Congress retains the power to terminate national emergencies by joint resolution. If opponents dislike the policy, their remedy is legislative and electoral, not rhetorical despair.

The Predictable Consequence of Prior Choices

None of this should surprise anyone who watched the last several years. A city that tolerates persistent disorder around federal sites invites federal intervention the moment a president is willing to bear the costs and accept the accountability. An administration that treats border enforcement as optional cedes both the moral ground and the legal high ground to its successor. The trajectory is as old as republican government. Dereliction by one set of officials compels diligence by the next.

The Standard to Hold

These two uses of emergency power meet the bar that should guide citizens and courts alike: a clear legal hook, a concrete public safety or sovereignty threat, tight tailoring to the problem, and structures that force reconsideration rather than open-ended drift. Lives are at stake in D.C. and at the border. The president’s oath runs to those lives first and last. In a constitutional order dedicated to the rule of law, that is not an indulgence. It is the job.