When you hear the words “national emergency,” some ideas or images might come to mind. You could go to one extreme and picture something closer to the scenes of “The Walking Dead,” or maybe something less extreme like an outbreak of the flu. However, one thing is clear: a national emergency implies an imminent threat. It implies that efforts have been made to alleviate the danger with no success and that a presidential declaration of national emergency is the only solution.

Historically, national emergencies have been declared with no contestation from Congress and are supported on both sides of aisle.

However, historically, national emergencies aren’t created out of thin air and declared as a tantrum for not getting what you want.

Here is a real national emergency: a president that doesn’t seem to care about or understand the separation of powers and checks and balances.

The United States government, although not perfect, was designed to prevent leaders from circumventing the political process to do things that aren’t approved by Congress and furthermore the American people.

When announcing his declaration on Feb. 15 in the Rose Garden, President Trump, himself, put it best. He said, “I didn’t need to do this.” And he is right, because there is no emergency. This isn’t 9/11. The border isn’t being invaded, and there is no imminent threat to respond to.

On Dec. 22, 2018, the government was shutdown because no consensus could be reached on the federal funding for the 2019 fiscal year. The government was shut down for 35 days, the longest in American history. However, on Dec. 11, Trump announced that he would be “proud to shutdown the government” in a meeting with Chuck Schumer.

He proudly stopped paying hard working Americans for 35 days. Now, he is degrading a presidential power to go around Congress to get what he wants; all because of of the promise he’s been making for more than two years now, except now it’s not millions of hard working Americans on the line, it’s his pride.

Meanwhile, there are emergencies around the country that deserve the president’s attention, such as million of Americans without health care, or Puerto Rico’s failing infrastructure, or climate change, or criminal justice reform, or access to quality education. Those are issues in this country that need to be addressed by the president.

Maybe this will finally be what makes Americans open their eyes and realize that their president consistently degrades women and minorities, bullies leaders in this country and around the world by giving them derogatory nicknames, believes the leader of a foreign power over the leaders of his own intelligence agencies, and is more interested in protecting his ego than helping the American people.

I encourage you to talk to people you know that are from the border. Learn about their experiences, don’t just rely on a Facebook post or a tweet. The border is beautiful, immigrants are an integral part of this society and hatred due to ignorance has no place in 2019.