Ever since Donald Trump declared he’d act like a dictator on Day 1 during his presidential campaign, there have been real concerns that he’d be true to his word — that he’d take a series of unilateral actions that threaten the integrity of American democracy.

With Trump’s Inauguration Day in the rearview mirror, we’re in a position to assess just how justified those fears were. Four specific moves — illegally attempting to end birthright citizenship, reviving the Schedule F order that could initiate a civil service purge, pardoning January 6 rioters, and ordering multiple investigations into the Biden administration — deserve particular attention.

Each contributes, in its own way, to the weakening of democratic principles such as the rule of law and nonpartisan government that prevent authoritarian-inclined leaders like Trump from consolidating power. If he gets away with each of them, it will likely invite anti-democratic behavior of greater and greater import. They are tests, of a kind: early ways of assessing how resilient our system will prove to an anti-democratic leader.

We’ll all soon learn the answer.

Trump’s blatantly unconstitutional immigration order

The 14th Amendment of the US Constitution makes it achingly clear: Anyone who is born in the United States is a citizen.

Trump’s most troubling executive order attempts to overturn this constitutional right by executive fiat, ordering US officials to stop issuing citizenship documents to any future children born to undocumented migrants. It’s an order that will test just how willing the federal bureaucracy and the courts are to defend against unlawful Trumpian behavior.

The precise wording of the amendment — “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside” — is fairly straightforward. Trump’s argument is that undocumented migrants and immigrants with temporary visas are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States, but the case is

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