Coming Constitutional Crisis

All of Donald Trump’s actions since taking office January 20 have the same ultimate goal – to consolidate power in the Executive Branch of the federal government. Much of what he has done is illegal, some of it unconstitutional. Many lawsuits have been filed (more than 24 so far), and already a few court orders proclaimed, to stop certain of his actions. The crisis will come when Trump defies a court order, especially one from the Supreme Court, essentially saying “Who’s gonna make me? You and whose army?”

Here are some of the illegal acts Trump and his cronies have done in the first 2 weeks.

·         Overruled the Justice Departments ban on TikTok.

·         Signed an executive order changing the interpretation of the 14^th amendment as it applies to children of non-citizens born in the United States.

·         Summarily fired inspectors general (see my January 27 post) without cause or required notice.

·         Fired federal prosecutors and FBI agents that had worked on cases involving Trump or the January 6 insurrection.

·         Fired federal civil servants and offered retirement payouts which they had no authority to offer.

·         Attempted to freeze federal grants and loans, temporarily blocked by a court order.

·         Took over the USAID organization, placing it under the State Department and freezing (almost) all payments.

Much of this illegal activity has to do with usurping the “power of the purse” which belongs exclusively to Congress and its elected members. Congress is made up of two bodies – the House of Representatives with 435 members (distributed proportionately by population) and the Senate with 100 (2 per state).

The proper (legal) way to bring about such changes would be to get a bill passed through the two houses and then signed by the president. Either Trump isn’t sure that such bills would pass both houses even with his slim majority in both, or he is too impatient to wait the amount of time it would take for them to be studied and debated. More likely Trump believes he no longer needs to go that route and is simply usurping the power for himself. This essentially makes Congress useless and irrelevant.

And this is what makes these actions illegal and unconstitutional.

To restructure the federal government giving more control to the Executive Branch (president) would require a constitutional amendment. An amendment would also be required to change the citizenship birthright. Constitutional amendments are very difficult and in the case of government restructuring, would be nearly impossible.

You would expect the members of Congress to be opposed to losing power and relevancy, and the Democrats are. But the Republican lawmakers have been notably silent. There is a reason for this. Most no doubt agree with Trump’s policies and any that don’t are afraid to voice opposition fearing for their jobs (remember “primary” as a verb in my January 225 post?) or for the safety of themselves or their family from the MAGA Redshirts*. All of them (Republican lawmakers) are happy to let Trump enact these policies himself, taking it out of their hands, because many of these policies are very unpopular with the voters back home, even the Republican supporters.

Peter M. Shane, a legal scholar and expert on separation of powers law at New York University described what the Trump regime has been doing as “well past euphemism about pushing the limits” and instead amounts to “programmatic sabotage and rampant lawlessness.”

So the big question is what will happen when (not if) Trump defies a court order. If he has control of the military and police by that time, who will stop him?

Mass demonstrations by the American people will be crushed by Trump using the Insurrection Act (how ironic is that!!) and the military. And many Americans have no faith that the 2026 midterm elections will even be held, or if they are that they will make any difference no matter how many voters wake up in the meantime (Russia still has elections).

Even impeachment, should enough Republican lawmakers realize that the next institutions to be eliminated in the name of government efficiency could be the House and Senate, might just be ignored.

The more deeply entrenched this regime gets, the harder it will be to root them out. The struggle will not be easy nor, I’m afraid, without significant loss of life.

Such are the times we find ourselves in.

Sources

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/05/us/trump-federal-law-power.html

 *  Mussolini had his Blackshirts and Hitler his Brownshirts. These were civilian paramilitary groups that committed violent actions against enemies of their fascist leader. Trump’s violent MAGA followers have been given the unofficial name of Redshirts (likely due to the red MAGA caps they wear). They are ready to attack anyone who Trump suggests is an enemy, either online with vicious threats or harassing them at their home. Following the 2020 presidential election, two election officials in Georgia, Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shea Moss, required FBI protection and relocation after being (falsely) accused of election fraud by Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani. Trump supporters surrounded their house, harassing them for days. Judges who made unfavorable rulings against Trump have similarly received threats.