In a country led by President Donald Trump, a power-hungry fascist and his megalomaniac billionaire benefactors and a spineless conservative Congress, it is unfortunate no one seems to be standing up to the president as he acts recklessly and haphazardly, lording over the country and disregarding the need to follow the law.
For instance, during one of Trump’s recent televised cabinet meetings he declared that he had “the right to do anything [he] want[s] to do” if he thinks our country is in danger.
Following this sentiment, Trump has purged numerous critical government officials including Susan Monarez, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), less than a month after her Senate confirmation and amid a series of resignations and concerns over the agency’s vaccine mandates. The Trump administration is currently being sued for his attempt to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, who Trump has said there was “sufficient reason” to believe Cook had made false statements on her mortgage.
Upon taking office, President Trump set a new record for the most day-one executive orders signed in U.S. history. However, Trump’s approach to pretty much anything — whether it be mass deportations, federal deployment of national guardsman in major U.S. cities to combat crime, or lack thereof, or his firing of 17 independent inspector generals across the federal government underscores the dangerous potential of the president to overreach his executive authority.
President Trump’s complete disregard for constitutional norms pushes our democracy into fascism and authoritarianism.
Trump has singlehandedly, illegally and atrociously eroded the core foundational principles of our democracy as his administration continues to attempt to roll back civil rights and liberties that have stood for generations.
In response to the flurry of executive orders, numerous lawsuits have been filed in an attempt to halt Trump’s orders and protect the rights of millions of Americans. In the Supreme Court case Noem v. Garcia, the Trump administration implies in open court that it could deport and incarcerate any person, including U.S. citizens, without legal consequence, so long as it does so before a court can intervene.
Due process is a right protected by our Constitution for both citizens and non-citizens alike and it requires that anyone whose life, liberty or property is being revoked by the state be given notice and a hearing before a judge. This is to ensure fair and just enforcement of the law and because life, liberty and property are protected rights in the United States.
However, this doesn’t matter to Trump as he often violates federal law and the Constitution. He has sought to throttle his enemies — whether universities, law firms or U.S. trading partners. For example, Trump reached a settlement with Harvard University, lost four frivolous lawsuits against major law firms and faced a federal appeals court ruling that he went too far when declaring national emergencies to justify tariffs on nearly every country on Earth.
While executive orders are meant to direct the federal government’s operations within its constitutional or statutory authority, Trump has weaponized them to strip migrants of their due process rights guaranteed under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.
By using executive orders to reshape immigration policy, Trump is effectively using innocent migrants’ deportation cases as a litmus test to see how far his administration is willing to push the bounds of the law and flout the rule of the judiciary.
In the nine years that Trump has been running for or serving as president, he has regularly evoked the language, history and motifs of fascism without hesitation or evident concern about how it would make him look to the general public.
U.S. Gen. Mark Milley was quoted as saying Donald Trump is “fascist to the core,” according to The Washington Post.
Indeed, Trump goes out of his way to portray himself as an American strongman, vowing to use the military to crack down on dissent, to use the Justice Department to prosecute and imprison his foes and to shut down news media outlets that displease him and to round up millions of people living in the country illegally and put them in camps or deport them in record numbers.
While previous presidents have pushed the boundaries of their power before, no American commander-in-chief has so aggressively sought to discredit the institutions of democracy and so openly embraced and envied dictators abroad as President Trump.
Trump exhibits all the hallmarks of a fascist authoritarian, showing blatant disregard and contempt for the law. His “Make America Great Again” slogan imagines a fabricated past as a vision for a “utopian” future tied to a white Christian, heterosexual family ideal — reinforced by the actions of Trump and his followers against anyone who does not fit that mold.
Despite Trump’s nonsensical ramblings and inability to talk in full sentences, he appeals to his fanbase and makes his voters feel like he’s one of them, despite the fact that his arguments often lack substance, depth, or factual grounding.
Project 2025 and Trump himself would have him at the helm of a government stripped of checks and balances, regulations, government agencies and any civil servants who haven’t professed loyalty to Trump himself.
Trump’s flavor of anti-liberalism is an example of how fascism is able to adapt to where and when it manifests. Trump’s fascism is always at odds with the most individualistic country in the world, so his anti-liberalism manifests itself discreetly: caring about the freedoms of our democracy (such as speech and press) but only the freedoms of the “right people.”
In the landmark Supreme Court case Trump v. United States, in which the federal government accused Trump of attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, Justice Jackson writes,“Once self-regulating, the Rule of Law now becomes the rule of judges… The potential for great harm is obvious.”
As Justice Jackson acknowledged in this case, our American system can no longer rely solely on tradition or precedent to restrain presidential overreach — citizens, courts, and civil institutions must actively safeguard our democracy. The question remains: can America endure the vengeful, vain and narcissistic strongman President Trump has become?
Copy edited by Daryl R. Thomas Jr.