TRUMP - WAR ON THE STATE

There is a constant harping that Trump will destroy democracy which is by and large defined as the ability to vote. The differences between a democracy and a liberal democracy, as Francis Fukuyama has so carefully researched, are the institutions that are in place including the rule of law. In order to create an authoritarian state the institutions and rule of law have to be eradicated. You can be given the right to vote and still have an authoritarian government as the last 75 years has shown. 

Enter Donald Trump who from day one has been giving it a full go. As a gambler not only does he double up on his losses he doubles down harder when he wins. It is always for all the marbles. (Blogs: “Can Trump Pull This Off, 11/16/24 and Trump’s Powers - Circa 2025, 1/13/25). Instead of consolidating his narrow victory he has taken on, from the get go, everyone and every establishment, governmental or otherwise.  The institutions or “The Deep State” is part of his trifecta of “Day One” priorities together with expelling millions of immigrants- legal and illegal and sanctions on Mexico, Canada and China. All while exacting retribution.

It is fair to say the emotion Trump uses is fear not love. He admitted as much to Bob Woodward. Mitt Romney confided that since January 6 he has spent 5,000 dollars a day on security and “not everyone else can afford it”. The very least a Republican representative can be afraid of is to be primaried and lose her seat. The very worst is the mob. He has let loose violent January 6 criminals and everyone has to fear what happened to veteran Democrat Nancy Pelosi’s husband who had his skull cracked open. In an act of naked cruelty, so that it might serve as a warning, he withdrew the secret service protection from the assassination risk of his former cabinet members, John Bolton and Mike Pompeo and his Covid nemesis, Dr. Anthony Fauci.

So let us look at how America’s most transformative President since FDR and probably the world’s most influential figure of the twenty first century has set about changing the Republic of USA into an authoritarian dictatorship and turning the post WWII world in disarray. To do that he has to get rid of the institutions and the rule of law. He has assembled a coalition of family, friends, Fox TV contributors and tycoons to front for his coalition of billionaires, anti abortion Christian Evangelicals, a spectrum of far right wing activists, and the working class to oust “the deep state bureaucracy:” that only serve the coastal elites, their universities - faculty. graduates and media - and the “pampered”  minorities such as the LGBT, immigrants, and those of another color. 

To effect his grab for power he has firstly to face the other two co - equal parts of Government. 

THE INSTITUTIONS - THE CO - EQUAL BRANCHES OF GOVERNMENT

Ostensibly the President and his Executive are co partners with the Legislative Branch and the Judiciary in America’s governmental structure. 

Judiciary

The Supreme Court, the final interpreter of the Constitution, has given the President incredible protection from personal liability. However recently the nine Justices were unanimous, a rare occurrence, in slapping him down. He didn’t seem to care and some of his flood of executive orders are flat out contradictions of the Constitution and an affront to the Judiciary - two of which have already seen injunctions against them. There is little doubt that further into his term there will be out and out conflict with The Supreme Court and they will every reason to rue the day they gave this monster free reign from prosecution to openly use his Justice Department to seek retribution and govern like he was a King. His Vice President JD Vance has already quoted the statement apocryphally attributed to President Jackson, “The Supreme Court has ruled, now let them enforce it”. 

Trump has to worry about the civil cases against him unless the precedent that forced Clinton to be deposed in the Paula Jones sexual harassment litigation is reversed. He has already argued that as President he is not liable for the 83 million dollar award against him where the Judge adjudicated that he was guilty of rape. There are also January 6 civil litigants whose cases have already reached first base that will force The Supreme Court to decide whether Trump was acting as President or a Presidential candidate on the attempted coup terminating on January 6 2021. Trump has kept the insurrection alive by pardoning 1500 participants some of whom were found guilty of seditious conspiracy to the public anger of the sentencing judges. 

There is little doubt that many issues in relation to the Trump Presidency are going to be ultimately resolved by the Supreme Court.

The Senate and nominations for the Trump Cabinet.

The Senate’s most important function is to “advise and consent” on the Executive branch’s choices for the Cabinet. 

The Senate is where Trump is going hammer and tongs to control the country through his cabinet. His immediate objective, in that chamber of Congress where he has in effect a four vote majority, is to confirm his outlandish nominations. So far he is batting 50 percent - one candidate Matt Geitz as Attorney General withdrawn and one Pete Hegseth an alleged drunk, rapist and failure at managing two small bureaucracies confirmed as Secretary of Defense. In that position he will be head of the largest and most powerful organization in the world. More importantly he puts the military squarely behind whatever Trump may need them for. 

Hegseth is one of the three nominees thus far who have  flat-out refused to confirm that they would disobey an unlawful Constitutional action by the President. The other two being the subsequent nominee for attorney general Pam Bondi and potentially the most dangerous of them all, Russell Vought a co - author of Project 25, a 900 page manifesto on how to rid the country of its institutional structure. He is slated to be installed as Head of The Office of Management and Budget and unbelievably was not even considered to be a “controversial pick” amongst the motley crew of cabinet nominees. Others in this sea of misfits, who by their very nomination Trump is sending a message that he is going to try and axe the institutions, include the Homeland Security Secretary, Kristi Noem who is known for the fact that she shot a puppy who just couldn’t be trained and Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bissent, who doesn’t believe in taxing people who earn a billion dollars a year, a penny extra.         

The other picks that are considered “controversial” are Kash Patel as head of the FBI, Robert Kennedy, Jnr., as Secretary for Health and Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence. Just giving the shortest of resumes, besides that none of these have the remotest of experience, is that Kash has published a book where he names his “enemies list in the Deep State” and will turn the FBI headquarters on Day One into “ a museum to the Deep State”, Bobbie Jnr., a predator who doesn’t believe in vaccines and last but least is Tulsi whose resume includes being an admirer of Putin and Syria’s Bassar Assad. All three are outrageous but after Hegseth’s ratification anything is possible. 

Trump, out of the gate, fired 18 Inspector Generals who act as watchdogs of agencies which he would like to ride into the sunset. It was unconstitutional as he has to give Congress 30 days notice and a solid rationale to be allowed to go ahead.This prompted a rare outburst from the Republican Chair of the Senate Judicial Committee, Chuck Grassley who signed a Joint Statement with Democratic ranking member Durbin, requesting that they receive “substantive rational including detailed and case specific reasons for each of the IGs removed”. They should live so long. 

It remains to be seen whether Trump can sustain his pressure on the Senate Republicans because it certainly worked with Hegseth. 

The House of Representatives who are responsible for “the power of the purse”

Trump’s hold on The House is more precarious where in the chamber of 335 members the Republicans have a majority of one to be increased to three in the future. He has complete control over the Speaker Mike Johnson who has not the same hold over his caucus. 

Trump urgently needs The House to deliver a number of financial agenda items. These include extending tax cuts which favor the rich, adding tax cuts on tips and social security payments, extending drastically the debt ceiling and providing a ton of money to pay for his gigantic immigrant expulsion. His expulsion Tzar has explained to the media that his operation is limited by the fact that he has not enough money. 

Johnson has to hope to win Democratic support because he wants to link this all in a humongous “one big beautiful bill” to also include Blue State California’s disaster funding, an item that has always been independent of political bias. Ostensibly this whole enchilada will be paid for by trickle down economics, eliminating government departments, tariffs and whatever Musk can do with his venture into cutting spending. 

Trump’s unsolvable problem is that there is a chunk of the House Republicans of approximately 40 members who form “The Freedom Caucus” and who are fiscal hawks. Their position at the moment is dead against Trump’s laissez affair approach to the deficit. In the last Congress where Johnson had a slightly larger majority he could not pass a budget bill without massive support from the Democrats. That backing is not likely going to materialize. It was one thing to get a budget bill to pass in the Biden government but to aid Trump they are going to exact blood. 

The House’s “power of the purse” is where Trump faces the largest problem in the future and there is no way around it.

AT THE END OF THE DAY

The ultimate objective is to destroy the institutions of the State not to mention the media and non governmental organizations - the liberal democracy. The tech billionaires as well as some of the traditional media have sold out but that is not where the influencers reside. 

 

In a blitz Trump has flooded the zone and regardless of a major blunder when he issued an unconstitutional executive order that stopped three trillion dollars worth of Federal payments from Medicaid to Meals on Wheels, he is soldering on. When the predictable chaos ensued and a Federal Court injunctive order was issued, he  just simply withdrew the order and carried on as if nothing had happened blaming the media for distorting the episode. The original reason for this step was to counter, “Marxist equity, transgenderism and Green New Deal social engineering policies”. Forgotten too in this mayhem was he was about to gut the Veterans’ medical care by cancelling 300,000 appointments. The outcry forced him to rescind that as well.

Trump has fired civil servants left right and center and offered buy outs of employees, in order to replace them with “meritorious appointments” who have sworn loyalty to him.

There are 1351 days, including one leap year day, remaining of this lunacy, and the country is already exhausted while a disbelieving world gawks. 

TRUMP’S POWERS CIRCA 2025

President - elect Donald Trump in his campaign served notice as to his revolutionary and authoritarian intentions. Since his election he has exuded power holding court at his personal WhiteHouse, Mar A Lago. He has been hosting foreign dignitaries, Republican legislators, media moguls and business titans who were queuing to kiss the ring and throw wads of money into the overflowing alms bucket. The media hung onto every word as America and the rest of the world shudder every time he opens his mouth. He threatens world trade and has imperial ambitions. He has the richest man in the world, Elon Musk backing his threats with unlimited money. There appears to be little to ameliorate the situation. The central question is what are the powers of the USA Presidency as of today that would enable him to carry out his agenda?

There are two major limiting factors in a democracy, one practical - the control the leader has of the party he “represents” and, the other constitutional - checks and balances that he has on his authority. Trump’s control over the Legislative Branches of his party is uncertain and was dealt with in a blog, “Can Trump Pull This Off; November 18, 2024”. In the latter his difficulties of getting his unqualified loyalists confirmed to his Administration was outlined.  Most significantly he needs the Legislature to give him massive sums of money to implement his grandiose schemes.  However, Trump has considerable constitutional powers outside of the Legislature. Some of the rulings emanating can be challenged legally. He has to be hoping that The Supreme Court that appears to be supportive of a powerful Executive will give him any leeway he needs. 

Trump recognizes that he need to pass his agenda particularly as it relates to lower tax rates for the rich, no tax on tips, tariffs, money for his vast expulsion of immigrants and getting rid of the debt ceiling so it doesn’t matter if he expands the national debt. He aspires to accomplish all in “One Big Beautiful Bill”. Good luck with that the Republican Senate Majority leader countering they need two. That too is fanciful thinking. That’s If anything reaches the Senate with a majority in the House of one.

In addition to Trump’s slender Legislative majorities, there has been a profound irreversible split between the two main factions in his coalition - the Musk globalist business band and the Bannon nativist isolationist crowd both of whom have congressional legislative backing as well as followings in the body politic. Bannon threatened Musk warning him that he would "take him out". The MAGA theorist smeared Elon as a war profiteer who would have done business with Hitler! The divisive civil war heated up with Musk calling Trump voters “unrepentant racists”. He lashed out at Steve Bannon to his face declaring “…I will go to war on this issue the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend”. Lest anyone forget Bannon has just served 4 months in prison protecting Trump. It would appear that Trump is favoring Musk in this Civil War as the sycophantic Mike Johnson stated, after his narrow win as Republican leader of the House, that they were looking forward to working with Musk to trim the budget,

All this makes Trump’s ability to legislatively enact his agenda extremely problematic making him dependent on the powers of the Presidency per se to effect his vision.

THE ORIGON OF THE PRESIDENT’S POWER 

A President has, as the Chief Executive, vast other powers as enshrined in Article 2 in the Constitution, especially the fact that it has been interpreted to allow him to unilaterally issue Executive Orders and declare “emergencies” which then afford him unfettered power.

The genesis of American Presidential Power is complex as the Governmental system was a man made achievement consolidated in a Constitution only 250 years ago. There was a deep tension in the creating of a powerful executive with just enough control and accountability to prevent him becoming a king. The Supreme Court has been central in interpreting the Constitution itself as well as defining Presidential power.

For practical purposes there are a number of decisions which are relative to this discussion. Firstly there is The United States v Nixon, 1978, where the Court unanimously ruled that the President could be criminally liable for his actions. This precedent was reversed by The Roberts Court in 2025 where they decided that the President has absolute immunity in both criminal and civil matters for any action taken in the course of his constitutional duties. The latter decision was taken after a long delay that effectively kiboshed the Special Counsel’s ability to try the indicted Trump for criminal activity related to the January 6 2021 insurrection. As matters stand the decision that a President was not immune from civil litigation unrelated to official duties while he was in office, (Clinton v Jones 1997) is still in play. But stick around…..

The up shot of all this if Trump or any President for that matter, for example instructs anyone including a member of his Cabinet to perform an illegal act he cannot be criminally charged. Trump’s lawyer maintained that if Trump ordered a Navy Seal to murder a political opponent that he was immune from prosecution unless he was impeached first!  Under the current Supreme Court ruling if the decision was within the scope of his official duties he could not be charged. However a president is still criminally liable for acts performed outside his presidency or for acts in his personal capacity. 

 The Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts has belatedly woken up to the fact that the role of the court is not only to fulfill a cultural political agenda more akin to the 18th Century and enshrine a dictatorial Presidency but to serve as a Constitutional check and a balance. Justice Roberts issued an unprecedented warning to “political parties” not to defy the courts. In the light of Trump’s attacks on Judges and officers of the court it is not hard to guess to whom this is directed. This awakening with the Court’s credibility at a low mark in its history is about time. The Court ruled with the slenderest of majorities that Trump could be sentenced for his 34 felony convictions in a case where anyone else would have served jail time. He was given an unconditional discharge so that he could be inaugurated on January 20 2025

HOW TRUMP MAY ACT OUTSIDE OF THE LEGISLATURE.

Trump is the decision maker in several areas. Most importantly the Commander in Chief is responsible for foreign policies but treaties such as abandoning NATO need a Congressional mandate. Likewise declaring war so as to incorporate the Panama Canal, Greenland or Canada into America would require congressional legislation 

Trump can issue Executive Orders. These are subject to legal challenge but more often than not if they reach the Supreme Court they are allowed to stand. One of his most controversial orders, in his first term, “The Muslim Travel Ban” was upheld by the Supreme Court. He can also attempt to legalize his orders on the basis of previous laws. Apparently there are two eighteenth century laws which he could base his portent to use the military to deport millions of undocumented immigrants. The 1798 “Alien Enemy’s Act” which was last shamefully used to intern Japanese Americans in WW11. 

Presidents’ have been supported in their imposing of tariffs although that is strictly Congress’s responsibility. The issue of a national abortion ban has been mooted and supported by his Vice President. There is an 1873 Chastity Law, which Trump’s Evangelicals want him to use to ban the sending of abortion pills via the post. To date he has said he is against but as he as admitted, “Things change”.  

One issue that Trump has been hammering on of late is to deny anyone born American citizenship which is a stretch too far as they are specifically designated as such in the Constitution. 

There are two major powers that are non challengeable - the right to negate all other Executive Orders which Trump will do with alacrity, especially those dealing with climate change and fossil fuel energy and the right to declare an emergency which would give him extraordinary powers. Examples might include an economic emergency to get through his sanctions and one that will allow him to use the military internally because of a supposed “invasion”.

Another major item on his list personal retribution via the Justice Department would be covered by the immunity the Supreme Court handed him. However it remains to be seen if Biden dishes out preemptive pardons to anyone involved in the January 6 insurrection. The pardon power of a President is immutable. In that regard Trump has promised to pardon the insurrectionists that he inspired in January 6.

AT THE END OF THE DAY

The President of the United States is one almighty powerful leader made more so by a Supreme Court that has made his “official” illegal behavior untouchable.

Facts that Trump cannot reverse are that he is a convicted felon and the indisputable evidence that the Special Counsel Jack Smith will present as to his instigation and  as leader of an attempted  coup d tat. What has to be ringing in Trump’s ears is Judge Marchant’s inference that it was the law pertaining to Presidents that kept him out of jail.

There are innumerable non governmental agencies and the Democrats working on any Trump action that is potentially challengeable by the Courts. 

Greenland has a population of 57,000 so Musk need only spend 1,000,000 dollars per voter to persuade them that their answer is Donald J. Trump. He must also promise the free health and education that they now get from Denmark.

The price of eggs that Trump again and again on the trail promised would drop the moment he was elected has sky rocketed and the share market is quaking at the inflationary potential his tariffs, expulsion of workers, imperial ambitions and tax breaks will bring. Also they are still fighting in Ukraine.

The best Trump could do to help the unprecedented climate disaster in Los Angeles was to call the Californian Governor scum. 

Trump's inauguration speech on January 20 will not be about the "Great American Idea" nor will it be about being President "for all Americans" it will be all about confirming the worst that he has threatened.