Trump has triggered a constitutional crisis. The only way he succeeds now is if we let him.
Congress has abdicated its constitutional duty, but the judiciary has been a backstop against Trump's actions that undermine the legitimacy of the U.S. constitutional structure.
In the weeks since Donald Trump took the oath of office for the presidency for the second time, his administration has taken several actions that undermine the legitimacy of America’s constitutional structure.
He has attempted to reinterpret the 14th Amendment to revoke birthright citizenship from persons born within the United States, freeze all federal spending, shut down several federal agencies, remove heads of independent federal agencies, and fire entire swaths of the civil service.
Trump has taken these actions to aggrandize executive power and weaken the legislative and judicial branches.
Congress, with narrow Republican majorities in both chambers, has mostly acquiesced. These actions directly undercut Congress’s powers — notably its powers to direct federal spending and oversee the federal agencies it created through legislation.
Senate Republicans, including Dave McCormick, have proceeded with business as usual, confirming or signaling the likelihood of confirming Trump’s controversial and unqualified nominees who seek to implement his destructive agenda. House Speaker Mike Johnson has said he “wholeheartedly” agrees with Trump’s spending cuts.
Although Congress has abdicated its constitutional duty, the judiciary has been a critical backstop against Trump.
Dozens of lawsuits have been filed across the country seeking to stop Trump’s orders from going into effect, and federal judges have begun weighing in. Two federal judges blocked the enforcement of Trump’s birthright citizenship order, and a third issued an order preventing the funding freeze from happening.
The Trump administration’s actions are unethical and abusive at best, and flagrantly violative of the Constitution at worst.
The Trump administration, however, has indicated its dangerous willingness to disobey those judges’ orders and divest power from the judiciary. Elon Musk, who Trump hired as a “special government employee,” attacked a federal judge as corrupt and called for him to be impeached because he blocked Musk from accessing U.S. Treasury Department data.
Vice President JD Vance escalated the Trump administration’s confrontation with the judiciary when Vance, a Yale-trained lawyer, said, “Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.” Trump himself also attacked the judges as “highly political.”
But judges are obligated to constrain the executive’s power when the law so requires. Implicit in Vance’s statement is that the Trump administration’s power in these instances is legitimate — it is not. Relative to our governmental system, the Trump administration’s actions are unethical and abusive at best, and flagrantly violative of the Constitution at worst.
As Erwin Chemerinsky, leading constitutional law scholar and dean of the law school at the University of California, Berkeley, has said, “systematic unconstitutional and illegal acts create a constitutional crisis.”
And as Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, defines it, a constitutional crisis is one where a branch of government “blatantly, flagrantly, and regularly exceeds its constitutional authority — and the other branches are either unable or unwilling to stop it.”
The constitutional crisis is already underway.
If the Trump administration decides to defy judicial orders, daring the other branches of government to stop him, he will have hastened the potential collapse of our constitutional order.
All is not lost, however. Our constitutional republic demands much of our elected officials and the people they seek to govern.
Our government and elected officials still respond to public pressure.
We must clearly acknowledge that our institutions are being destroyed with no plan for ensuring the continuation of lifesaving services on which millions rely. We must be steadfast in our efforts to improve and preserve our republic for posterity, and committed to the rule of law because no one — not even the president or the richest man in the world — is above it.
Our government and elected officials still respond to public pressure. They, for now, still respond to concerted action that seeks to uphold the Constitution. And they prefer to avoid backlash that undermines their authority.
That is why it is imperative you contact your federal representatives, Republican and Democratic, by phone, email, or in person. Make your opposition another reason why, in their calculation for deciding whether to support this administration’s actions, the costs outweigh the benefits.
We need not agree Trump has the power he claims to have. It is not a foregone conclusion he and his lackeys will eviscerate the Constitution. The only way they will is if we let them.
Devontae Torriente is a civil rights lawyer based in Philadelphia.