In a 2021 column for this publication and in my latest book, “Grand Old Unraveling,” I argued that the U.S. Constitution isn’t working.

Earlier this month, Washington Post columnist Karen Tumulty contended that we are witnessing a “constitutional collapse.” She is right.

President Trump has accelerated the unraveling of that once meticulously constructed document. He has halted the work performed by several agencies funded by Congress, fired thousands of civil service employees without cause and removed inspectors general and leaders of the U.S. military. He has even attempted to rewrite the Constitution by voiding birthright citizenship guaranteed in the 14th Amendment.

In an interview with me, Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Pa.) deplored Trump’s “highjacking” of congressional powers, noting that Republicans in Congress are “not willing to do their jobs.”

Attempting to prick the conscience of his Senate colleagues, Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) wonders why they have not fought to preserve their constitutional power of the purse. Sadly, the only answer he can find is, "We gave it up!"

With the emergence of what American Enterprise Institute scholar Jack Landman Goldsmith calls Donald Trump’s “Caesarean presidency,” Republicans have been content to forfeit their constitutional responsibilities. Defending Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) says that while Musk’s actions may be unconstitutional, “nobody should bellyache.”

Not surprisingly, as Scanlon told me, there have been “daily crossings of constitutional boundaries” in the 40 days of Trump’s second administration.........

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