Summary
Senator Bernie Sanders condemned Trump’s order to freeze all federal loans and grants, calling it a “dangerous move towards authoritarianism” and “blatantly unconstitutional.”
The directive, exempting Social Security and Medicare, is expected to impact universities, nonprofits, food assistance programs, health centers, and disabled veterans.
Sanders emphasized that Congress holds the “power of the purse” and urged Americans to oppose the order.
Attorneys general are preparing legal challenges to overturn the freeze.
According to the Supreme Court, he is a king. I do not know why everyone hasn’t been absolutely freaking out about that ruling since it came down. According to that court, he is allowed to do literally anything as long as it’s an official act. This is not a rules-based society anymore.
You know what we do to kings?
Nothing
Live under their rule until they appoint another king/queen and then they die.
Weirdly enough, many if not most kings in history were not absolute monarchs and had to follow some rules and expectations or risk losing their power (and possibly life).
I read a book not too long ago with a line along the lines of “every nation is in some ways a republic”. It was in the context of someone trying to convince a monarch on a course of action, but they hadn’t realized their opponent had already convinced everyone directly below the monarch to do the opposite. There was no outcome where the monarch’s decision mattered, because without their knowledge their choice was actually going to impact if they got to keep their throne.
The constitution is just an established set of rules. The president is only the person those rules say gets to do certain things. Political power grows from the barrel of a gun, but at its core it is the ability to make people use those guns and to ensure that the only consequences they face are a pension and maybe a medal.
The ruling is that he can’t be prosecuted for official acts. Not that he can do them.
He can order the moon to reverse its orbit without getting in trouble, but the moon doesn’t have to obey.
The biggest power he has is over the administrative state. Lots of executive agencies create regulations because of power granted to those agencies by Congress. Things like the FAA, EPA, FTC, SEC, ATFE, etc. A President can fuck up all those regulations.
But what Trump is already running into is the fact that his power doesn’t extend to overturning items passed by the legislature. His birthright citizenship order didn’t last a day. A judge has already thrown out the freeze because Congress pases budgets, not the executive.
He couldn’t overturn the ACA last time around because it was a law passed by the legislature. Even though he controls the ATF and can control some of their interpretations, he can’t declare machine guns and silencers legal because the NFA is a law passed by Congress.
And even his power over the administrative state is in some danger because over the overturn of Chevron deference last year that allows judges to ignore the opinions of administrative agency holdings.
That ruling removes any kind of criminal check on the president.
Theoretically there is still a congressional check, via impeachment, but we have learned that is not terribly viable given how difficult it is to convict.
There is the check provided by the 25th amendment, but again, the hurdle is so large that it may not be viable.
Of course there is also a political check, via elections and the 22nd amendment, but that takes years to kick in under the best circumstances, and has limited immediate influence on a second term president.
There is also violence. The president could be checked by an assassin, for example. But that is extremely unlikely.
Under the rules, the president has a limited scope of action as you’ve described. The problem arises when the president decides to overstep those rules, violate laws, or do things that the constitution assigns to other branches. We are in a situation where the checks on such overreach are vanishingly weak as described above. trump is already attempting such violations, such as with the freeze yesterday. Yes, a court has intervened for now, but there is every reason to believe that will be reversed or overturned. But, even if it isn’t, consider what happens if the president chooses to violate the courts ruling.
I understand that the president can’t literate do anything. But no king in history has ever actually has unlimited power and we are in the early days of this new imperial presidency. This is a group project between all three branches. Both congress and the court are working diligently to enshrine the president as a king and the populace has shown little willingness to resist any of this. I would argue that we are effectively there already, but I suppose there are a few remaining hypothetical threads holding him back.
Yes, it’s bad.
But we’ve already had some small judicial pushback, and from Republican judges.
We need to throw wrenches into every gear we can for 2 years, and it’s going to suck, but we can get there.
Though what’s neat politically (and horrible socially), is the stuff he can do is the sort of thing that will result in severe economic consequences. That’s the number 1 indicator of how the next election will turn out. Trump and the GOP are lighting fire to their own rope right now.
There’s enough GOP senatorial seats up for re-election in 2026 that if he fucks up bad enough he and Vance could be removed from office in January 2027, giving the Dems the White House and the ability to pack the Court before his term is even half-finished.
I don’t think the GOP will give him enough rope to do that to their party.