POLI•RANT: When Does Democracy End?

Not many dominoes need to fall, even at this point.

Last week we saw a rash of opinions from federal judges halting or pausing a number of Trump initiatives. From unilaterally freezing spending to signing an “Executive Order” eliminating birthright citizenship, it was no surprise that federal judges would take these actions.

That’s because both of these examples are unlike anything any other POTUS has tried to do — both blatantly unconstitutional. And we’re not talking about laws that have been interpreted via the Constitution. These two examples are actually IN the body of the Constitution.

It is the separation of powers, the very foundation of our three-branch system of government that dictates that the Legislative Branch (Congress) has the power of the purse. They, and only they, do the spending in our system.

As for birthright citizenship, that is explicitly granted in the 14^th Amendment of the Constitution. The only way to start changing any text in the Constitution is to amend the Constitution. Which is no easy feat.

So, of course, judges of both political persuasion weighed in on these issues.

On citizenship it was a conservative Reagan-appointed judge who excoriated the Trump administration, saying he had never seen anything so blatantly unconstitutional in his entire career.

There’s no doubt that the intellectuals behind Project 2025 knew that this was coming. And we’re starting to see the normalization of what they want to do next: Bypass or ignore the Judicial Branch of our government. And while this idea has been out there for years, it used to be relegated to the extreme fringes of political thought. Now, it is running our Executive Branch.

Case in point is VP J.D. Vance who has advocated this radical, anti-Democratic philosophy before and had this to say just yesterday:

None of that is true and has never been true in the history of our Republic. But, it has led to a coordinated groundswell of support on the MAGA right, from the everyday cultists to the intellectual elite of the party.

So, there is a very good chance that Trump will simply start ignoring the lower courts and, frankly, do whatever the fuck he wants. In the meantime, these cases, and others that will surely come, will make their way up to the Supreme Court.

We already know how radicalized that court is. But, it’s conceivable that some of these moves are so beyond the norm and Constitution that Trump will be stopped. I wrote about this with Immigration as another scenario that gets us to the same point.

The Supreme Court could try to write a ruling that grants Trump these extraordinary powers but tries to weasel their opinions and basically say it’s a one time only ruling.

But, if they rule against Trump there’s the possibility — more likely probability — that Trump ignores the Supreme Court, kicks some justices off and rams through ones who blindly follow him, or expands the number of justices and does the same.

The time is NOW to start talking about these possibilities.

There are multiple paths, and not many dominoes that need to fall, to get us to the same existential crisis:

The end of our Democracy.

UPDATE: I’ve had some thoughtful pushback from folks bringing up some of the same points made by Senator Warren tonight on Rachel Maddow. The gist is, it won’t be Trump himself breaking laws, but people further down the chain who will be bound by court orders or being charged with contempt.

Two things if those dominoes start falling. First, it takes US Marshalls to enforce those orders who are all controlled by Trump. Secondly, Trump obviously has no compunction about abusing his pardon powers.

The Project 2025 people knew all of this was going to happen. I think we’re fooling ourselves to trust that any of the normal rules/laws apply now.