President Trump: "Article II allows me to do whatever I want” Is Democracy in Peril?

by Denis Lyons

The obituaries being written about Western liberal democracy might be a touch premature but, while it is certainly not on its deathbed, there are unmistakable signs that it is a bit short of breath at the moment. Similarly, although comparisons with the erosion of Western liberal democracy in the 1930s are a little facile, there is some truth in the old saying that, while history does not repeat itself, it does tend to rhyme.

Homegrown versions of populist, ultranationalist, and far-right politics have been flourishing for some time in the West. In some cases, the far right has consumed much of the traditional conservative right, and the extent to which democratic institutions are being stressed as a result of this is a matter of concern in many countries.

As in decades past, anti-immigration sentiment has been a strident rallying point for many far-right parties, and the cold arithmetic of politics means that the more established parties have also been pulled to the right in their efforts to remain relevant to an electorate which is increasingly disillusioned with what they see as the failed policies of the traditional parties.

Has this populist tide reached its peak? Or will it continue to advance? And, if it does, are our existing democratic institutions strong enough to resist a slide into brazen authoritarianism, or perhaps into that old wolf in sheep’s clothing – authoritarianism masquerading as democracy? 

Up to now, it seems that far-right parties have generally been able to operate within Western democracies without obliterating them. Right-wing and populist politicians in Europe are basking in levels of approval which they have not experienced for many years. Giorgia Meloni in Italy, Alice Weidel in Germany, Karol Nawrocki in Poland, Santiago Abascal in Spain, and Geert Wilders in the Netherlands have all been enjoying their moments in the sun. And, despite a five year ban from holding public office, Marine Le Pen still polls strongly in France.

In the UK, it took Nigel ‘Mr. Brexit’ Farage eight tries but, when he eventually won a seat in Parliament in last year’s UK General Election with a 46.2% vote share, he did so by achieving a 45.1% swing - the largest in modern UK general election history. At the same time, Nigel Farage's Reform UK party secured a 14.3% vote share (but only 5 seats).

However, in terms of populist politics, Donald Trump is the daddy of them all - as NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte might put it - and Trump’s blizzard of controversial executive orders this year has many in the U.S. wondering how the long-term health of their democratic institutions will be affected.

Admittedly, the U.S. judicial branch is fighting back against many of these orders, but the global impact of Donald Trump’s unapologetic, populist, nationalist approach is inescapable. He hit the ground running right from the start of his second term and issued a record 143 executive orders during his first hundred days, a feat which demolished the previous record set by Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 99 orders in 1933.   

Already during Trump’s first term he was being described as “functionally a monarch,” and “the most politically powerful president in American History,” by Jon Meacham, the American historian and presidential biographer. But, for those who were not paying attention, the sheer volume alone of Donald Trump’s executive orders, proclamations and presidential memos during the first six months of this year signalled clearly that he intended to continue tilting the balance of power away from Congress by expanding presidential executive power dramatically, and by managing business as far as possible by directive.

Donald Trump’s executive orders have had a profound impact on both the domestic and the international landscapes, even though some have been blocked and others are being challenged in various courts. From his brave new world of tariffs to DOGE, from Gaza to Greenland, from Ukraine to Iran, from Canada to Turnberry, he is a ubiquitous presence who relishes his ability to dominate the news cycles.

This is all catnip for Donald Trump’s supporters, as is his continuing war against illegal immigration, bloated federal bureaucracies, political correctness and wokeism. For other voters, however, a pattern of intimidation, combined with increasingly centralised executive control, creates unsettling echoes of authoritarian regimes from the past and raises concerns for the future.

Trump’s highly personalised and kinetic approach to policymaking is seen by Washington observers as part of a broader strategy to test the “unitary executive theory” which argues that the Constitution gives the president full control over the executive branch, including the power to direct or remove executive officials at will. The unitary executive theory is certainly not settled law but, based on its handling of a recent case, the Supreme Court has sent strong signals that it might overturn Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, the 1935 decision ruling that Congress may restrict the president’s authority to terminate officials at independent federal agencies without cause.

The case involved the dismissal, without explanation, by the Trump administration of the three Democratic Commissioners of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). The legality of the terminations is still under review, but the Supreme Court has allowed them to stand, at least for the time being.

Justice Elena Kagan, in her dissenting opinion, said that the court was “….allowing the President to remove Commissioners for no reason other than their party affiliation.” Justice Kagan went on to say that the court’s actions had occurred “with the scantiest of explanations” and concluded with an ominous warning: “By means of such actions, this Court may facilitate the permanent transfer of authority, piece by piece by piece, from one branch of Government to another.”

As recently as two weeks ago, Trump also fired the Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Erika McEntarfer, following the release of disappointing economic data. Trump posted on Truth Social, without evidence, that the figures had been "RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad."

Trump’s favourite whipping boy is undoubtedly Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell who has resisted the president’s repeated demands for lower interest rates. Describing Powell as a “numbskull”, “a total and complete moron”, “a stubborn mule and a stupid person”, Trump has also said that “Powell’s termination cannot come fast enough!”

Following a Supreme Court order in May effectively blocking Trump from firing Powell, Trump said that it was “highly unlikely” that he would fire Powell - “unless he has to leave for fraud.” With that in mind, perhaps, Trump has been criticising Powell for the Federal Reserve’s $2.5 billion renovation of its Washington DC headquarters, an expense which Trump called “really disgraceful.” Asked if he thought it was “a fireable offence”, Trump said, “I think it sort of is.” 

Elements of the unitary executive theory principles can also be seen in the Supreme Court’s 2024 ruling that “the nature of Presidential power entitles a former President to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority.” The Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority of six comprises three justices appointed by Trump himself.

The unitary executive theory is also a mainspring of Project 2025, the blueprint for reshaping the Federal government and advancing right-wing policies, which was published by the Heritage Foundation in 2023. Although Trump said last year, “I have nothing to do with Project 2025”, a CNN analysis of the executive orders and actions during his first week in office indicated that Project 25 proposals were reflected in no fewer than 36 of the 53 executive orders and actions issued during his first week in office. One of Project 25’s key authors, Russell Vought, is currently reprising his role as head of the Office of Management and Budget in Trump’s administration.

As Trump said in 2019, “Article II allows me to do whatever I want”, and, “Nobody ever mentions Article II. It gives me all of these rights at a level nobody has ever seen before. We don’t even talk about Article II.” 

Helpfully the authors of the 920-page Project 25 document corrected this omission by highlighting Trump’s claim: 

"In its opening words, Article II of the U.S. Constitution makes it abundantly clear that ‘[t]he executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.’ That enormous power is not vested in departments or agencies, in staff or administrative bodies, in nongovernmental organizations or other equities and interests close to the government. The President must set and enforce a plan for the executive branch. Sadly, however, a President today assumes office to find a sprawling federal bureaucracy that all too often is carrying out its own policy plans and preferences—or, worse yet, the policy plans and preferences of a radical, supposedly ‘woke’ faction of the country.”  

The Project 25 authors also talk about the need to "bend or break the bureaucracy to the presidential will”.   

Donald Trump’s litigious rise to power has played out over several decades but, this year alone, the Trump administration has energetically pursued legal action for various reasons against a wide range of perceived adversaries. For example, Trump unleashed a volley of executive orders targeting major law firms including Paul Weiss, Perkins Coie, and Covington & Burling which he believes have wronged him, typically by representing his political opponents.

The Trump administration has even fired broadsides at the judiciary itself by defying court orders, issuing formal complaints about judges it disagrees with, challenging Federal District Court judges over their power to appoint prosecutors and, in June, by suing an entire federal bench in Maryland over an immigration issue.

Incensed by what it sees as excessively left-wing policies, the Trump administration has also taken aim at Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, Brown and several other elite academic institutions. In the US, there is a long history of conservative fears about seditious leftist academics. As long ago as 1951, in his book God and Man at Yale, William F Buckley, a leading conservative of his era, warned about professors indoctrinating students by feeding them with left-wing ideologies under the guise of academic freedom.

Following in this tradition, Donald Trump’s conservative base takes a dim view of woke academics, affirmative action admissions programmes, and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives on campuses. Concerned conservatives can even consult The Professor Watchlist, an online project which maintains a database designed to “expose and document college professors who discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom.”

The Trump administration has employed a range of initiatives, including freezing billions of dollars in funding, threatening to strip universities of their tax-exempt status, and revoking international student enrolment privileges in order to achieve policy changes such as ending programs that promote “race-based outcomes, quotas, diversity targets or similar efforts.”  

There is also an executive order ("Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling") prohibiting kindergarten to twelfth grade schools from teaching any material considered to be anti-American or subversive.

As Education Secretary Linda McMahon put it, “The Trump Administration is successfully reversing the decades-long woke-capture of our nation’s higher education institutions.”

Like the education sector, the media are also experiencing significant heat from the Trump administration. During the course of his career, Donald Trump has frequently targeted media organizations and his legal blitzkrieg against them has continued unabated this year.

His recent $10 billion lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch and the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) is his latest salvo against those segments of the media which he views as false, defamatory, biased or woke. The WSJ article which triggered the lawsuit focused on a “bawdy” birthday message which the WSJ said Donald Trump had sent to Jeffrey Epstein in 2003.

While the relationship between Trump and Murdoch has not always been smooth sailing, it has generally been mutually beneficial, not least because of the usually reliable stream of devoted adulation directed towards Trump by Murdoch's Fox News.

Fox News has also provided a substantial pool of candidates for the Trump team. In his second term alone, Trump has appointed over 20 former Fox News staffers to his administration. Notable among them are Pete “I did not leak classified information about the Yemen strikes” Hegseth, the Defense Secretary; Tulsi Gabbard, Director of National Intelligence; Jeanine Pirro, US Attorney for the District of Columbia; Tom Homan, White House Border Czar; Lara Trump, former co-chair of the Republican National Committee, and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.

The fact that Trump can sue Murdoch’s WSJ, while still benefitting from favourable Fox News coverage, neatly illustrates the transactional nature of the symbiotic Trump-Murdoch relationship.

The WSJ has not been the only media target of Donald Trump’s disapproval this year. In May he issued an executive order to halt all Federal funding for the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and National Public Radio (NPR) because of what he described as “biased and partisan news coverage”. A White House statement at the time said that PBS and NPR receive tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer funds each year to spread "radical, woke propaganda disguised as 'news'."

The executive order did not succeed but, spurred by Donald Trump, Republicans recently voted to claw back $1.1 billion in Congressional funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). This month CPB announced that it was closing down after providing financial support for over half a century to PBS, NPR, and their more than 1,300 locally managed public radio and TV stations around the US.

Voice of America was launched in 1942 by the US government to combat Nazi and Japanese propaganda. Ironically, an executive order in March effectively shut down the organisation for being an “...anti-American, anti-Trump, hubris-filled rogue operation…”, according to complaints listed by the White House.

Donald Trump also has a long history of suing and threatening to sue commercial media outlets like CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post, ABC News, Meta, and CBS. Although many of these cases have been dismissed, some have succeeded. For example, when Donald Trump sued ABC for defamation over a misstatement by anchor George Stephanopoulos, the company contributed $15 million towards Donald Trump’s proposed presidential library and paid an additional $1 million in legal costs.

When Donald Trump sued Meta for excluding him from Facebook after rioters tried to stop certification of the presidential election at the Capitol on 6 January 2021, Meta paid $25 million to settle the suit.

Donald Trump’s vilification of the media has been relentless. He repeats various versions of his Truth Social message "The Fake News Media is the true Enemy of the People!" routinely.

He has branded the press as "dishonest", "corrupt", “bad people”, and “human scum.”   

These repeated criticisms, the lawsuits, and the threatened lawsuits, all combine to deter criticism and dent the media’s already precarious credibility still further. Deploying “lawfare” to hobble opponents has been stunningly successful.

Trump’s authoritarian rhetoric is directed not only at the media, but also at almost any individual or group which he deems to be undesirable. With phrases like “poisoning the blood of our country”, “vermin within the confines of our country”, “infested countries”, and references to illegal immigrants as “animals” and “not human”, his rhetoric, intentionally or otherwise, carries shrill echoes of the Third Reich.

The very phrase “enemy of the people” is itself a chilling echo of the Nazi and Stalinist lexicons. In a 1941 article, Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, wrote “If someone wears the Jewish star, he is an enemy of the people.”

Nikita Khrushchev denounced Stalin in a famous speech to a closed session of the Communist Party Congress in 1956 when he said, "Stalin originated the concept 'enemy of the people'…..It has to be said that in regard to those persons who in their time came to oppose the Party line there was no serious reason for their physical annihilation. The formula, 'enemy of the people,' was specifically introduced for the purpose of physically annihilating such individuals."

Rupert Murdoch might be forgiven for hoping that Donald Trump’s use of the phrase “enemy of the people” differs from Stalin’s.

History shows that dehumanizing language strips targets of their humanity, making their mistreatment psychologically acceptable and politically justifiable within authoritarian systems. This is a familiar symptom of autocratic regimes, as are tactics like denting the credibility of democratic institutions and processes by questioning the validity of elections, challenging the peaceful transfer of power, and intimidating opponents by real or threatened lawsuits.

Even the lawsuits instigated by Trump which fail can also have an inhibiting effect on his adversaries. The judiciary, law firms, academia and media organisations are all key players in a healthy democracy, but lawsuits, legal threats and public disparagement create a climate where fear of litigation, regulatory retaliation or funding withdrawal can stifle criticism of the government.

While the latest Gallup Poll shows that Trump’s approval rating has sunk to 37%, the lowest of this term, and the lowest of any second term president since 1957, it also shows that Republicans’ ratings have remained steady near 90%.

His base, loyal so far, is still apparently solidly behind his signature domestic policies: mass deportations of illegal immigrants, tougher immigration enforcement, stricter border controls, purging the “deep state” by replacing civil servants with political loyalists, weakening and downsizing the Department of Education, abolishing USAID, attacking the media, demanding ideological reforms from academia, and pushing to eliminate left-wing ideology from schools.

And, of course, the “The One Big Beautiful Bill” which promised, among other things, “The largest tax cut in history for middle- and working-class Americans”. The legislation was signed into law, although the recent Pew Poll showed that, while a 56% majority of Republicans say they favour the budget and tax bill, 54% of the country believed that it would have a mostly negative effect on the country.

Donald Trump even scores a 93% approval rating among Republicans in the Gallup Poll for his handling of foreign affairs – a result which will doubtless help him get over the rather disappointing 3% which he scored among Democrats.

Neither the blizzard of activity since Trump was sworn in for his second term in January, nor the Foreign Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, seem to have curtailed his personal business activities.  As Dan Alexander at Forbes puts it “….today, Trump profits from politics with little reservation—both domestically, recently signing crypto legislation that probably made him tens of millions of dollars—and abroad, expanding his licensing empire at dizzying speed. The conflicts of interest are now more brazen, and more overlooked, than ever before.” And the AP reported that: “The Trump’s family businesses have raked in hundreds of millions of dollars since his election”.

But the MAGA base cheer their leader on as he scythes his way through red tape, government bloat, effete liberal ideologies, European free-loading and the rest. The tech broligarchy team is also still largely onside and, even despite his major bust-up with Trump and his threat to form a rival party, the Financial Times reported this month that Elon Musk was “the single largest donor to committees supporting Republicans in congressional races” in next year’s midterm elections.

Within the Republican Party, it is difficult to gauge the real temperature because, as Ken Spain, a former communications director for the National Republican Congressional Committee observed  “100% loyalty is the party litmus test”. Trump has moulded the Republican Party in his own image to such an extent that “disloyal” congressional Republicans are terrified of being “primaried”, which means facing a challenger endorsed by Trump and amply funded, possibly by a broligarch like Musk. 

Meanwhile, the 63% who disapproved of Trump in the latest Gallup Poll are looking on in dismay, and the Democratic party seems to lack an effective opposition plan other than the “We’re not Trump” approach.

Despite all the criticisms, it would be unfair to suggest that Trump’s approach has not triggered some positive results. For example, he repeatedly warned European NATO members that the US could reduce its security commitments if they did not meet the alliance’s target of spending 2% of GDP on defence. Other factors, such as security threats from Russia and terrorism played a role, but Trump's pressure was a major reason why many European countries decided to boost their military budgets and organise more effective defence cooperation.

But, as Trump’s second term progresses, will there be continuing efforts “to peel back democracy and its guardrails in the U.S.”, as the Brookings Institute described it? Will distrust in the electoral system increase?  Will loyalty to Trump replace competence and democratic accountability? How combustible is the combination of a submissive Republican party and a Supreme Court ruling that grants a former President “absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions taken within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority”?

Is there really nothing to see here? Is Trump just the temporary MAGA king, or does he see himself rather more like the real thing; for example, the smugly grinning AI version of himself with a fake crown on the mock Time magazine cover with the caption “Long Live The King?” - a version posted on Official White House social media accounts no less?

Not if New York Governor Kathy Hochul has anything to do with it. As she commented tartly, “I’m here to say: New York hasn’t labored under a king in over 250 years and we are not — we sure as hell are not going to start now.”

It is a long time on the political calendar until the next major elections - the midterms in 2026. With so many conflicting vested interests at stake, what will the voters decide? Will the MAGA base hold firm and encourage Trump to continue consolidating his personal grip on power? Perhaps even run for a third term, despite the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which precludes this. 

With his trademark strategic ambiguity, Donald Trump has been stripteasing his interest in the Presidency for over 30 years. He test marketed his “I might do it as a favour” approach in his 1988 interview with Oprah Winfrey when he said “I would never want to rule it out totally because I really am tired of seeing what’s happening with this country, how we’re really making other people live like kings and we’re not…..I think I’d win. I tell you what, I wouldn’t go in to lose. I’ve never gone in to lose in my life.”

In a world where his US domestic opponents are cowed, foreign leaders are supplicants, and long-term policymaking has been relegated to opportunistic dealmaking, Trump has conducted a masterclass in the acquisition and execution of personal power - and all within the framework of democracy.

Francis Fukuyama, a leading American political thinker, argued in his 1992 book, The End of History and the Last Man, that liberal democracy had emerged as the only viable political system. However, in a recent interview, even Fukuyama had to acknowledge that “….we’re already in an authoritarian phase.” Under the Trump administration, he said, “It’s like the king is simply giving out commands to his subjects...you don’t go to Congress to debate legislation. If you want to change something, like closing down a major agency, you petition the king.”

Political allies like Steve Bannon and Rand Paul are already floating the idea of a third term, and Trump himself, referring to the concept in a March interview, said “...there are methods which you could do it....” and he added that he was "not joking" about the prospect.

Bill Geist, who profiled Donald Trump for the New York Times Magazine in 1984, wrote; “Spending a day with Donald Trump is like driving a Ferrari without the windshield. It's exhilarating; he gets a few bugs in his teeth.” 

How fast will Donald Trump be able to drive his Ferrari for the rest of this term? Will he ever be able to consign Jeffrey Epstein to his rear-view mirror? And how badly does Trump want to convert his fake crown into a real one? Father Time alone suggests that the likelihood of a man in his 83^rd year starting a Constitutionally-precluded third term is remote.  Francis Fukuyama and Kathy Hochul will probably be among those who hope so.

Is the U.S. already in an authoritarian phase, as Fukuyama says? If so, what are the chances that it is just an authoritarian-lite brand which will not take root long term? With their own countries in mind, many in Europe - as well as in the U.S. - will probably also be among those who hope so.