A killer paragraph by J. Michael Luttig, writing in The Atlantic:
For not one of his signature initiatives during his first 100 days in office does Trump have the authority under the Constitution and laws of the United States that he claims. Not for the crippling global tariffs he ordered unilaterally; not for his unlawful deportations of hundreds of immigrants to the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), El Salvador’s squalid maximum-security prison; not for his deportation of U.S. citizens to Honduras; not for his defiantly corrupt order from the Great Hall of the Department of Justice to weaponize the department against his political enemies; not for his evil executive orders against the nation’s law firms for their representation of his political enemies and clients of whom he personally disapproves; not for his corrupt executive orders against honorable American citizens and former officials of his own administration, Chris Krebs and Miles Taylor, a former Homeland Security chief of staff who dared to criticize Trump anonymously during his first term; not for his unlawful bludgeoning of the nation’s colleges and universities with unconstitutional demands that they surrender their governance and curricula to his wholly owned federal government; not for his threatened revocation of Harvard University’s tax-exempt status; not for his impoundment of billions of dollars of congressionally approved funds or his politically motivated threats to revoke tax exemptions; not for his attempt to alter the rules for federal elections; not for his direct assault on the Fourteenth Amendment’s birthright-citizenship guarantee; not for his mass firings of federal employees; not for his empowerment of Musk and DOGE to ravage the federal government; not for his threats to fire Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell; not for his unconstitutional attacks on press freedoms; and finally, not for his appalling arrest of Judge Dugan.Read it all: “The End of Rule Of Law in America” (gift link).
comments: 2
It was a postwar guy in West Germany who said that the difference between a one-man government, fascism, and a free government, is that while both governments may make egregious mistakes, such as invading Russia or tariffs, under a free government someone may keep screaming, "This is a mistake!" until others wake up.
It seems to me the Republicans don't "go into caucus" to talk with each other anymore. Surely there will be a hard rain, a screaming wind, in 2026. I am grimly waiting to see if Lincoln was right to say, "You can't fool all of the people, all of the time."
I'm waiting too.
Heather Cox Richardson today has something similar to the postwar person you cite. She cites several poli sci people:
"The way to tell if the United States has crossed the line from democracy to competitive authoritarianism, the political scientists explain, is to see if people feel safe opposing those in power. Can they safely protest? Publish criticism of the government? Support opposition candidates? Or does taking a stand against those in power lead to punishment either by the government or by government supporters?"
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/may-14-2025
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