Millions of Americans opposed to President Trump’s attacks on our Constitution, democracy and the rule of law are expected to join some 2,000 peaceful No Kings Day protests around the nation tomorrow. The protests are a follow-up to the No Kings Day held on June 14 — Trump’s 79th birthday.
The protests are backed by a long list of nonprofits and will draw patriotic Republicans, Democrats, independents and third-party backers determined to defend the principle stated by Republican President Abraham Lincoln “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
The Founders’ genius was creating a Constitution that made America great in the first place — a place where the Bill of Rights guarantees us freedoms that many around the world only dream about. America has often failed to live up to its ideals, most notably with the acceptance of slavery, along with systemic discrimination against Black people, other minorities and women that has lessened, but stubbornly remains.
Unfortunately, Trump doesn’t even try to live up to the ideals or goals of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence; he actively ignores them.
Trump clearly idealizes strongmen like the leaders of Russia, China, North Korea and other dictatorships he so admires, who rule with an iron fist and have immense powers. He contends that Article II of the Constitution, which spells out the responsibilities of the president, gives him carte blanche “to do whatever I want as president.”
This frightening view is widely derided by legal scholars, including 35 surveyed by The New York Times about Trump’s actions in the first 100 days of his current term. The scholars — conservatives, liberals and libertarians — identified a long list of deeds that many consider illegal or unconstitutional.
These actions include ending birthright citizenship, refusing to spend billions of dollars appropriated by Congress, imposing tariffs without congressional approval, deporting unauthorized immigrants without due process and demanding nearly $1 billion in free legal services from major law firms to avoid losing federal contracts, security clearances and access to federal buildings.
Trump’s also threatening to cut billions of dollars in federal funding to universities that refuse to follow his rules on hiring, admissions and teaching, restricting the access of news organizations he dislikes and improperly firing officials at independent federal regulatory agencies.
Trump has weaponized the Justice Department against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) as revenge for their investigations against him. He has fired tens of thousands of federal civil servants without just cause and given buyouts to tens of thousands more. He has sent National Guard troops into cities with Democratic mayors to deal with phony emergencies without local or state approval.
He has also endangered national security, with mass firings of top officials he deemed insufficiently loyal. He appointed the dangerously unqualified Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as his Health and Human Services secretary. He has refused to compromise with Democrats to end the government shutdown and protect about 22 million Americans from huge health care increases under the Affordable Care Act.
This is just a partial list of Trump’s actions to seize near-dictatorial powers. I don’t have the space to list them all. Trump acts and then waits for lawsuits challenging him to hit the courts, hoping the six Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices will side with him, as they often do.
Columbia University Law Professor David Pozen sums it up: “The depth and breadth of this administration’s disregard for civil liberties, political pluralism, the separation of powers and legal constraints of all kinds mark it as an authoritarian regime.”
Before Trump became president, most members of Congress fiercely defended their powers and responsibilities to act as a co-equal branch of government, including when that required opposing presidents of their own party.
For example, numerous congressional Democrats opposed President Lyndon Johnson’s conduct of the Vietnam War. Many Republicans turned against President Richard Nixon for his conduct in the Watergate scandal, ultimately forcing him to resign to avoid impeachment in the House and conviction in the Senate that would have removed him from office.
But in Trump’s second term, even more than in his first, the Republican majorities in both chambers are terrified he will endorse their primary election opponents and cost them their jobs. So they give him a blank check to do almost anything he wants. This poses a profound threat to our freedoms.
Many of us learned to type years ago by repeatedly typing the sentence: “Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country.” Let us add women to the sentence and use it as a call to nonviolent peaceful dissent at a time when America is threatened by the prospect of authoritarian rule.
We must remain a nation with no kings or queens.
Donna Brazile is a political strategist, a contributor to ABC News and former chair of the Democratic National Committee. She is the author of “Hacks: Inside the Break-ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House.”
