The upside down flag is a signal of distress. This one flew at the Hands Off rally in Olympia, Washington April 5. Credit: Wikipedia Commons

The Constitutional Republic in Danger

Another July 4. It is 249 years after independence was declared in Philadelphia, one year shy of a quarter millennium of U.S. national existence. Tonight I will go up on my deck overlooking Lake Union and watch Seattle’s fireworks display. I wouldn’t miss the show, but this year there’s not much to celebrate.

It is a moment when it is uncertain whether the constitutional republic will survive in any recognizable form by the time the nation’s 250th birthday is celebrated. A Supreme Court decision last July granted immunity from criminal prosecution for presidential actions undertaken as official duties. A recent decision stripped the power of district courts to make rulings affecting the entire nation, reversing decisions that would limit the Trump administration’s power to revoke birthright citizenship. Now we must look to a rightist Supreme Court to rule for the nation.

These decisions were made by judges picked by the Federalist Society, which holds the doctrine of the unitary executive. This states that all powers of the executive branch vest with the president. Trump executive orders seeking to take away the independence of regulatory agencies fall in line with this. As do the recent two decisions, putting near unbridled power in the hands of a man inclined to push the envelope as far as possible.

Add to that the effective creation of a domestic army under the Big Bad Bill, tripling the ICE budget to $30 billion and increasing its detention budget 265% to $45 billion, 62% higher than the entire federal prison system. Expect a proliferation of Alligator Alcatraz’s such as the new installation in Florida bearing marked resemblance to barracks at Auschwitz or WWII Japanese internment camps. Concentration camps are nothing new in U.S. history. After all, Hitler and the Nazis took inspiration from native reservations as a model for their own camps. Those who believe these forces will be turned only on immigrants should recall how Border Patrol troops were deployed to Portland during the 2020 Black Lives Matter uprisings. This is the creation of a domestic military force under the direct control of the president.

The picture this presents has the most grave implications, tipping towards worst case scenarios. The separation of powers that balances the executive, legislative and judicial branches has been skewed heavily in the direction of the executive. Trump has seized authority at every step, and he can be expected to take full advantage of the powers the Supreme Court and Congress have given him. We face the prospect of executive dictatorship.

Trump will play his hand to the hilt, and likely overplay. The question is whether the immune response of the U.S. body politic will be strong enough to resist this onslaught, and the answer is uncertain. Ultimately, only a societal uprising will turn this back, and one that spans the political spectrum, including traditional conservatives alarmed at the decline of the rule of law. It has to be deeply rooted in the communities where we live.

A crisis long in coming

Ultimately, the question has to turn to how we arrived here. We’ve been coming to this point for a long time. Since the early 20th century, the power of the imperial presidency has increased exponentially. Congress no longer declares wars. Presidents do. Since the........

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