‘Democracy has been dismantled’: Donald Trump’s latest move shocks America
The US is in utter chaos after Donald Trump issued his most controversial decree yet, just weeks into his second presidency.
It doesn’t need another January 6 insurrection.
It doesn’t need loyal militias on the streets.
All it takes for the world’s greatest democracy to fall is to fire those who believe in doing their job.
It’s just one month into Donald Trump’s second term as the 47th President of the United States, and he has issued his most controversial decree yet. He insists that only he and his Attorney-General can interpret the law for government institutions.
All the while, “special government employee” Elon Musk and his team of young acolytes are firing civil servants at all levels of government and seizing control of crucial personal records systems.
Political analysts are alarmed.
“As researchers on authoritarian politics, it is no surprise to us that a leader bent on expanding his own power, such as Trump, would see the bureaucracy as a key target,” argue political scientists Erica Frantz, Andrea Kendall-Taylor and Joe Wright.
It’s a heavily-worn chapter of the millennia-old “authoritarian handbook”.
“The seemingly bizarre series of events that have transpired in Washington since Trump came to power are highly consistent with other countries where democracy has been dismantled,” the researchers of authoritarian governments add.
Julius Caesar usurped constitutional authority with personal loyalty when he overthrew the Roman Republic and replaced it with the foundations of an emperorship.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban was ousted in elections in 2002. He returned in 2010, blaming media and civil servants for his loss before ordering a mass purge and dismantling legal oversights.
Turkish President Recep Erdogan fired 100,000 government workers and replaced them with the families of political party members in 2016.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez had civil servants fired and replaced in 2004. A decade later, his successor, Nicolas Maduro, did the same – giving him the power to overturn an election loss and jailing the opposition.
“When aspiring autocrats come to power, career bureaucrats are a common target, often replaced by unqualified loyalists who would never be hired for the position based on merit,” the researchers explain.
It’s also a move that bypasses the mechanisms entrenched to prevent a power grab.
“Democracy’s delicate balancing act is under serious pressure,” warns political philosophy analyst Vittorio Bufacchi.
“If the separation of powers does not hold, and the checks and balances prove to be ineffective, democracy will be threatened.”
I am the law
President Trump’s intentions have been detailed by his new Office of Management and Budget Director. Russell Vought told podcaster Tucker Carlson shortly after the November election: “There are no independent agencies”.
“Congress may have viewed them as such, SEC or the FCC, CFPB, the whole alphabet soup, but that is not something that the Constitution understands,” he insisted.
“So there may be different strategies with each one of them about how you dismantle them. “But as an administration, the whole notion of an independent agency should be thrown out.”
This week, Mr Trump moved to turn this into reality.
He’s challenging the principle that the courts are the supreme arbiters of the law. That Congress gets to define those laws. And civil servants get to enact them.
Such separation of executive, judiciary and legislative powers ensures democratic governments remain loyal to the law and constitution – not any individual leader.
“It’s what enables the political ecosystem of checks and balances to create the conditions for democracy to exist and freedom to flourish,” Bufacchi explains.
“But if one of the three branches of government dominates the other two, the equilibrium is shattered, and democracy collapses.”
Modern democracies have responded to growing populations, technological advances and legal complexities by introducing independent institutions removed from the machinations of political parties. This includes tribunals, regulatory agencies, central banks, ombudsmen, inspectors general, auditors, electoral commissioners and anti-corruption agencies.
Now, President Trump’s attempts to weaken these institutions and bypass Congress and the Senate through the prolific use of executive orders are meeting legal resistance.
“In the long term, this hollowing out and reshaping of the bureaucracy is part of a broader plan in which aspiring autocrats usurp control over all institutions that can constrain them, such as the legislature and the courts,” the authoritarianism researchers argue.
Inevitably, many of these challenges will end up in front of the US Supreme Court.
“What the court rules – and how the Trump administration responds to its judgments – will tell us a great deal whether the separation of powers still works as US founding fathers intended when they drafted the constitution,” Bufacchi argues.
Whose servants are they?
“A well-functioning bureaucracy is an organisation of highly qualified civil servants who follow established rules to prevent abuses of power. Bureaucracies, in this way, are an important part of democracy that constrain executive behaviour,” Frantz, Kendall-Taylor and Wright argue.
“For this reason, aspiring strongmen are especially likely to go after them.”
Soldiers. Judges. Park Rangers. FBI agents. All swear allegiance to the US Constitution and the presidency it defines. Not an individual president.
But that’s not how Mr Trump sees it.
Irritated at the effect such checks and balances had on his previous term in the White House, he’s moving swiftly to remove the chance of being obstructed again.
He’s demanding loyalty to himself. Not the law. Not the constitution.
Any civil servant not seen to be proud and loud in their support of his rule is, therefore, a threat.
“Given Trump’s insistence on complete loyalty to him on the part of all government employees, this move is designed to extend his grip on the government to areas that previously have been nonpartisan,” Daniel Farber, professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley, told US media.
President Trump has already fired more than a dozen inspectors general across many government agencies. Institutions, including the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the National Labor Relations Board and the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission are already being dismantled from the inside.
Such arbitrary acts have triggered a slew of lawsuits. The most common complaint is that the President doesn’t have the power to hire and fire in supposedly independent institutions.
Under the US Constitution, the Supreme Court gets to arbitrate disputes within and between the various branches of the federal government.
“Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power,” US Vice President JD Vance insisted earlier this month.
Billionaire Elon Musk this week lambasted “a corrupt judge protecting corruption” for interfering in his takeover of the regulatory bodies that oversee his businesses.
Now, the Supreme Court must decide if they are correct.
And of the nine life-term judges that form that court, six are ultraconservatives appointed by the Trump and George W. Bush administrations.
Power grab
“In environments where loyalty to the leader is prioritised over all else, and purges can happen at a moment’s notice, few people are willing to speak up about abuses of power or stand in the way of a power grab,” Frantz, Kendall-Taylor and Wright warn.
Fearful employees are subservient employees. They have career ambitions. They have families to support.
Director of the United States Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Russell Vought is once again leading President Trump’s charge.
He insists only the “President and the Attorney-General, subject to the President’s supervision and control, shall provide authoritative interpretations of law for the executive branch”.
He has ordered his office to “establish performance standards and management objectives” for government agencies. He’s also instructed them to provide regular reports to the president.
“OMB will review agency actions for ‘consistency’ with presidential policy and ‘adjust such agencies’ apportionments by activity, function, project, or object, as necessary and appropriate, to advance the President’s policies and priorities,” highlights legal analyst Olivia Manes of the Brookings Institution’s Lawfare publication.
It’s a significant step.
“When leaders gain full power over the bureaucracy, they use it to reward and punish ordinary citizens as well,” the authoritarianism researchers explain.
“In the short term, greater executive control over the bureaucracy gives these leaders a valuable tool for rewarding their elite supporters, especially as diminished government oversight increases opportunities for corruption and the dispersion of rewards to such insiders.”
Only the US Constitution stands between President Trump and full control over every aspect of US governance – and those who interpret it.
“The next few months and years will determine whether the rule of law will be displaced by the rule of the strongest. At the moment, the odds don’t look good,” Bufacchi concludes.
“It takes a brave person to bet on democracy to win this contest, but we live in hope that America will remain the land of the free and the home of the brave.”
Jamie Seidel is a freelance writer | @jamieseidel.bsky.social
Originally published as ‘Democracy has been dismantled’: Donald Trump’s latest move shocks America
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