Think about everything Democrats have been saying about Trump since he became the nominee. Why would they want to give the Trump White House more power?

I’ve long been critical of both Republicans and Democrats for not looking for common ground to advance their own views of freedom in the United States. There are always issues of commonality, or at least issues that the other side’s rhetoric makes it impossible to oppose, that could be introduced by the party that is out of power.

When President Clinton claimed that he was the victim of an out-of-control prosecutor, Republicans should have introduced legislation protecting people outside the beltway from out-of-control prosecutors.

When Democrats claimed to be worried about a President Trump’s executive overreach, they should have announced that they would support any Supreme Court Justice on Trump’s pre-election list: all of them would be strong opponents of an imperial presidency.

In my opinion, Donald Trump is mostly the fault of the political establishment, for failing to take advantage of opportunities to advance freedom in a bipartisan manner. Whoever is out of power complains about their power-hungry opposition, and whoever is in power uses that power. When politicians fail to live up to their campaign promises, voters will turn to non-politicians.

Democrats have decided, in the face of Trump, to continue blindly opposing literally everything he does, even things they called for earlier, such as firing James Comey.

But of course there is one policy they’re willing to work with Republicans on: increasing the power of an imperial presidency.

Why, after complaining that Trump is using the power of the White House to oppress Democrats, would Democrats introduce a resolution that makes it easier for Trump to act unilaterally? Why would they do this ahead of the 2018 elections, an off-year that traditionally goes in their favor?

Because they don’t believe what they’re saying. And because they know that regulations that cannot be repealed are a ratchet in favor of government control over everything. It is more important to Democrats to make it harder to repeal regulations than it is to maintain or even strengthen the ability to repeal Trump’s regulations.

I wrote during the election that the beltway establishment probably preferred a Donald Trump presidency to someone like Ted Cruz who would almost certainly heavily reduce Washington’s influence in our daily lives. Democrats are proving that with this legislation: backing Trump, and increased regulations, rather than introducing the kind of legislation Republicans always say they want in off years that would further reign in the imperial presidency.

The fact of the matter is, both their opposition to Donald Trump and their opposition to regulatory oversight stems from the same thing: a strong opposition to our right to govern ourselves.