US Constitutional Order Circling the Drain
"U.S. democracy will likely break down during the second Trump administration, in the sense that it will cease to meet standard criteria for liberal democracy: full adult suffrage, free and fair elections, and broad protection of civil liberties.
The breakdown of democracy in the United States will not give rise to a classic dictatorship in which elections are a sham and the opposition is locked up, exiled, or killed. Even in a worst-case scenario, Trump will not be able to rewrite the Constitution or overturn the constitutional order. He will be constrained by independent judges, federalism, the country’s professionalized military, and high barriers to constitutional reform. There will be elections in 2028, and Republicans could lose them.
But authoritarianism does not require the destruction of the constitutional order. What lies ahead is not fascist or single-party dictatorship but competitive authoritarianism—a system in which parties compete in elections but the incumbent’s abuse of power tilts the playing field against the opposition. Most autocracies that have emerged since the end of the Cold War fall into this category, including Alberto Fujimori’s Peru, Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela, and contemporary El Salvador, Hungary, India, Tunisia, and Turkey. Under competitive authoritarianism, the formal architecture of democracy, including multiparty elections, remains intact. Opposition forces are legal and aboveground, and they contest seriously for power. Elections are often fiercely contested battles in which incumbents have to sweat it out. And once in a while, incumbents lose, as they did in Malaysia in 2018 and in Poland in 2023.
But the system is not democratic, because incumbents rig the game by deploying the machinery of government to attack opponents and co-opt critics. Competition is real but unfair."
Link: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/path-american-authoritarianism-trump
Replies to: US Constitutional Order Circling the Drain
Was that you I saw standing outside the SuperDome w beard&bare feet holding a sign about End Times?
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The Constitution has no Articles creating an administrative state that supercedes the executive .
Our Founding Fathers wanted a limited government.
If you feel we’d be better off ruled by an elite class go ahead and propose another Amendment. Perhaps we should also limit the vote to those with degrees from our elite universities?
You are full of shit. The administrative state was created by Congress and Presidents of both
parties under authority granted by the Constitution mostly under the Commerce Clause.
Looking forward to you citing the article in the Constitution. I'd like to read it.
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Called the Commerce Clause. Did you go to law school?
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He went to, I-know-it-all school. He’s smarter than everyone and is an expert
on all topics. Baron too.
The power to regulate Commerce w/foreign Nations, among the States, & w/ Indian Tribes?
I was asking for the clause that created an administrative state that supercedes the executive.
The Commerce Clause became the catchall to justify anything during FDR (closest person we've had to an autocrat). But, the scope of that clause has been shrinking, as I'm sure you know.
God you are a tool. The clause gives the power to Congress to regulate those matters that
substantially impact interstate commerce. The statutes create the regulation and the agencies that do the regulation. Again did you go to law school?
Commerce clause bars POTUS from controling State? Energy? Education? Homeland? Justice? Defense?
Why do you think the administrative agencies are part of the Executive Branch? It makes no sense if POTUS isn't able to hire, fire, look at records, cut off spending not specifically directed by Congress. You wouldn't be arguing this issue if it weren't Trump you were trying to stop. Then again, I could be wrong, and you have always supported waste, fraud, and massive debt.
Rabbit in the hat again. You lose on the argument to regulate and create the agencies.
They are creatures of the Congress that created them. There is still an ongoing question of how much Congress can even delegate of its power to them. But it’s clear that the power to create law by statute and establish regulations in accordance with that statute lies with Congress not the president. So the power to create the agencies and fund them is with Congress. That “control” cannot be usurped by the executive whose job is to see that these laws including the ones they don’t like are faithfully executed. And you allegedly went ND, right?
That's like the mother of all conspiracy theories, well done.
You will be under authoritarian rule and not even realize it!
No, YOU don’t realize it. Smart people do.
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More hilarious condescension from the uber-prof.
Yeah, nobody understands it like you do.
No, a lot of people do, actually. Just not Trumpies.
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How many logical fallacies are you planning to deploy in this thread?
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Sounds like something Alex Jones would say.
It's perfect because it's unfalsifiable.
More hysterical bull shit.
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Sadly, some here do prefer bureaucracy over democracy.
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Some prefer autocracy and oligarchy to a democratic republic.
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What rights of yours are threatened by fiscal responsibility?
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Killing cancer research is fiscal responsibility? Get your head out of your tukus, tool.
What rights of yours are threatened?
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Just put the bunny in the hat by calling it fiscal responsibility. It isn’t. Quite the opposite.
The common good which is a right of all is threatened when fiscal irresponsibility interferes with medical research to cure or ameliorate deadly diseases.
Two subjects you know nothing about. But you talk a big game. Like most of you footman here
you’re all know-it-all’s on every subject under the sun.
I’ll take the other democracy where those duly elected execute the will of the people
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Like Elon Musk, right?
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Sadly, most posters here are OK with it.
Political power is everything to them.
Democracy, the Constitution, Integrity, Principles, Values, are expendables.
Most posters here see this as some game to win and lose, and get the better of
the other guy. They don’t see it as losing a democracy. Hell, most of the MAGAfootman can barely spell democracy or federalism without spell-check active in the background. As in the poster below.
no, actually, that administration ended 3 weeks ago.
nice try, though.
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