President Trump has openly stated that, “Article II [of the Constitution] allows me to do whatever I want.” Our Constitution represents a social contract between the governed and the government with the people holding ultimate sovereignty; but Trump’s administration is violating that contract. He does not believe in a constitutional regime with separation of powers and checks and balances. Instead, he is using levers of government to attack his opponents and reward his supporters. “Constitutional crisis” isn’t a strong enough term for how this administration is vandalizing our democracy.
The president was never supposed to be the star of government. We didn’t even have a president from 1781-1789 while we operated under the Articles of Confederation. Recognizing that an executive was necessary but fearing significant power residing in a single person, the founders created a presidency with few solo powers but a number shared with Congress. Yet Trump is engaging in behaviors that are obviously illegal, violate the Constitution’s separation of powers doctrine, and ignore checks and balances like judicial review. In fact, he is trying to purge the courts of anyone who challenges his executive power, turning the Justice Department against his enemies, and sidestepping Congress altogether.
On January 27, Trump issued an executive order freezing most government spending to investigate government efficiency. But this “pause” starves federal bodies of the money they need to operate. It is a way to bypass the Constitution by killing these agencies without involving Congress. President Nixon did something similar in the 1970s to halt federal funds to states for the implementation of the Clean Water Act. Congress then passed the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 that forbids presidents from impounding lawfully-appropriated funds. Then the Supreme Court ruled the president doesn’t have the power to hold back funds lawfully appropriated by Congress. However, despite both statute and legal precedent prohibiting impoundment, the administration is doing it anyway. And congressional Republicans (and many Democrats) have abdicated their responsibility to rein in a president who is behaving exactly as dictators behave.
Trump’s contempt for democracy helps explain his foreign policy, too. The termination of foreign aid–never above 1.5% of the budget since 2000–risks millions of lives. The trade war against our allies will wreak havoc on the global economy. And Trump seems bent on reviving imperialism, “suggesting” that Palestinians leave Gaza, Greenlanders submit to U.S. control, Canadians form the 51st state, and Panamanians give up the canal. While the ongoing diplomatic efforts to end the Russian war against Ukraine are laudable, Trump’s clear bias against Ukraine and bizarre admiration for dictator and war criminal Vladimir Putin reeks of the “might makes right” mentality that spawned two world wars.
No political scientist or historian would describe Trump as anything but a dictator and his administration as anything but authoritarian. But authoritarianism doesn’t come out of thin air. There has to exist some opening within the population for authoritarians to exploit. People have to be so disappointed with the government that they’re willing to let a dictator have virtually unlimited power. Trump has long denigrated the federal government as a “deep state,” a “swamp” that must be drained. But scientific research, foreign aid, air traffic control, public education, environmental protections, and historical references to people of color, women, and LGBTQ people on government websites are not the things letting Americans down. Killing federal programs will ultimately make life harder for most Americans.
Our members of Congress will not save us. They no longer see listening to their constituents as the key to reelection; instead, they see supporting a dictator as the way to stay in power. Nor can the courts save us. The Supreme Court chooses which cases it hears, and the justices don’t want to hear a case and issue a ruling the administration would violate, because that would undermine its legitimacy and credibility. Lacking enforcement mechanisms to back up their opinions, the courts rely entirely on the idea that when they issue an order, we go along with it just because those are the rules.
We have to do the work. We have to save ourselves and our constitutional system. We have to vote, even when judges, members of Congress, and state legislatures are making voting much more difficult in all kinds of ways. We have to protest. We have to be obnoxious and call our members of Congress (Democrats and Republicans alike) every day. We have to boycott businesses that benefit from the administration’s actions or cave to its threats. We must demand that universities across the country stand up to threats against students, what they can study, and what their professors can research.
We need to decide what we want our country to stand for in the world. We must insist on a foreign policy that prioritizes human rights, international cooperation, de-escalation of conflicts, and democratization. We should push for honorable and lasting solutions to the Russo-Ukrainian war and to conflicts in the Middle East. We must support alliances with the European Union, NATO, the World Health Organization, and others to check the geopolitical ambitions of dictators and work out solutions to humanity’s problems, including climate change, pandemics, and nuclear proliferation. We should seize upon any good ideas, such as Trump’s professed desire to restrict nuclear weapons, and hold the regime accountable.
We need to achieve our desired outcomes through the messiness of democracy, not by the decrees of a single man. Regardless of our preference for particular policy outcomes, the ends don’t justify the means. Ruling by executive order isn’t normal or okay, and how we achieve our goals matters. We must demand a return to the process demanded by our Constitution and laws.
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