President Donald Trump is pursuing a path that is actively destabilizing the guardrails of our Constitution. Unless he changes course, our nation — the world’s oldest continuing democracy — risks a crisis where the president is no longer beholden to the rule of law. Americans will suffer the consequences.

America’s Founding Fathers designed the Constitution to place political power in the hands of the people. They granted each of the government’s three branches — legislative, executive and judicial — specific powers, providing checks and balances for one another.

This structure sets parameters so presidents cannot act like kings and instead must faithfully carry out the laws passed by Congress and interpreted by the judges.

Every president has tested constitutional boundaries. However, the Trump administration has taken far-reaching, unprecedented actions to try to create an unchecked presidency while stifling dissent and implementing a largely unpopular policy agenda that harms everyday Americans.

Echoing statements from authoritarians around the world, Trump proclaimed three weeks into his presidency, “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.” More recently, when asked if he is obligated to uphold the Constitution, Trump shockingly replied, “I don’t know.”

Keen to bend the Constitution toward its will, the Trump administration is undercutting Congress’s prerogatives left and right.

For example, the administration has attempted to undermine independent agencies despite Congress deliberately establishing these agencies to help protect Americans’ health, safety and prosperity, free from undue political pressure. The administration has also refused to spend congressionally directed taxpayer funds and has dismantled agencies without the required congressional approval.

Another step involves the administration’s unconstitutional attacks on perceived opponents, including universities, law firms, labor unions, former government officials, and media outlets, many of whom are alleged to be too “woke.”

These actions infringe on the First Amendment right to free speech, the Fifth Amendment right to equal protection and due process, and the Sixth Amendment right to counsel. Misusing governmental authority to punish one’s opponents stacks the political deck in favor of the president and strikes fear into people who want to exercise one of their most cherished liberties: free expression.

Perhaps the most worrying aspect is that in some instances, the administration is failing to fully comply with valid court orders, damaging the judiciary’s crucial responsibility to constrain a runaway president.

Dozens of judges across the country have temporarily halted many of Trump’s executive orders, often because they violate core constitutional provisions that protect people from government overreach.

This includes the administration’s attempts to deport immigrants without a proper hearing, deny Americans birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment, and usurp the constitutional power of Congress and the states to set election-related rules.

Even the Supreme Court — currently controlled by conservative justices — ordered the administration to stop depriving immigrants of due process and instead give them their constitutional habeas corpus rights before deportation.

Still, the administration has failed to follow the high court’s order to facilitate the return of an immigrant erroneously sent to a brutal Salvadoran prison and is now considering trying to suspend habeas corpus.

Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson, a conservative Ronald Reagan appointee on the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, has expressed worries about a constitutional “crisis,” writing that he hopes it is “not naïve to believe our good brethren in the Executive Branch perceive the rule of law as vital to the American ethos.”

Americans share his alarm. Almost six in 10 adults say they think Trump has “gone too far” in using presidential power to achieve his goals. Nearly seven in 10 adults say they think a president should follow Supreme Court rulings — even in the event a president thinks a ruling prevents him from protecting the country from a terrorist attack.

America’s nearly 250-year-old democracy has always been an experiment. And it’s an experiment that is still unrealized — not yet fully responsive to “we the people.”

An unanswerable, king-like president — of any political party — thwarts that foundational goal laid out in our Constitution.

Now, it’s up to the courts, Congress and civil society, including everyday Americans, to exercise collective responsibility and protect the constitutional separation of powers, ensuring presidents remain accountable to us all.

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ABOUT THE WRITER

Michael Sozan is a senior fellow for Democracy Policy at the Center for American Progress. He wrote this for InsideSources.com.

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