If you were schooled during the age when civics was routinely taught in elementary and high school you would have learned the American government is an intricate system of checks and balances designed to restrain any of its three branches—the executive, the legislative and the judicial—from controlling all affairs of state.
Here’s the way our government is supposed to work: The president cannot issue taxes, or impose indiscriminate tariffs. That’s the job of Congress. Congress declares war, not the president. The president nominates cabinet secretaries and federal judges but it is Congress that formalizes each appointment. Congress passes laws but a president may veto the legislation; to become law two-thirds of both the Senate and House of Representatives must vote to override a veto. Federal courts up to the Supreme Court adjudicate any disagreement between Congress and a president, as well as disputes between private entities and those between the government and the private sector. In addition, to limit the influence of the central government, the Constitution gave states control over any power not specifically assigned to the federal government. For example, each state has the authority to determine election criteria for its own office holders.
The system has mostly worked out well for the last 249 years. Sure there have been cries of overreach, even injustice, especially when the justices of the Supreme Court voted to permit slavery (Dred Scott decision, 1857), desegregate schools (Brown v. Board of Education, 1954), and stop the counting of votes for president in Florida (Bush v. Gore, 2000). By and large, however, the system the Framers gave us has stood the test of time.
In its 250th year, however, the foundational fabric of our country has frayed.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/21/us/politics/trump-imperial-presidency.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
It is tempting to ascribe blame for our predicament to Donald Trump. He does deserve our scorn. This predicament of unbridled executive power will be Trump’s imprint on America. Once out of the bottle the genie of orgasmic presidential power most probably cannot be re-corked.
I believe it is inconsiderate to believe Trump’s actions are part of a pattern based on a philosophy that rejects liberal democracy in favor of a unitary executive. Trump may be paralleling these ideas but he is not channeling them, for to believe so would imply that Trump actually sat down and read a book or treatise on government. In his more than a decade on the national scene Trump has never revealed any hint that he has read any books, even his own, in furtherance of a political philosophy and agenda.
Trump’s motivation is as visible as his skin tone—he is obsessed with anything golden. He wants to be surrounded by gold. To possess as much as he can. To deplete his adversaries, even his worshippers, of as much lucre as possible to add to his fortune. He also is motivated by revenge, to punish anyone who has ever challenged his authority.
Trump has been the vessel for the abuse of checks and balances. But the reality is, it could have been anyone. Joe Biden tried to exert power never before thought to be presidential. The Supreme Court shut him down.
John Roberts and his reactionary colleagues on the Supreme Court were simply waiting for the right vessel to install the autocratic president.
So, it is Trump 24 hours a day The true programmers of our national and international nightmare are the six black-robed Supreme Court justices who legitimized his absolutism after Mitch McConnell circumvented Senate norms to secure the appointment of the conservative majority.
Will Trump’s successor be saddled with his actions and executive appointments, or will a tit-for-tat appointment process be the norm whenever a new president is sworn in, or whenever a federal appointee fails to satisfy a president?
Russell Riley, a presidential historian at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, is quoted in The New York Times as saying history “strongly suggests that what we are seeing today will not, in fact, endure.”
Perhaps, but a return to normalcy requires a Supreme Court that admits it made a mistake in granting sweeping powers and immunity to a president. Given the highly partisan bent of the six conservative justices on the court, it would not be surprising if they would reverse themselves if it reigned in a Democratic president. But if a Democrat fails to win the presidency, our authoritarian future, sadly, is assured.
