Yes, you correctly outlined the proper actions for the individuals and the progression of obstruction. You did not address how it gets enforced when all those steps okay out.
The premise is Trump ignores court orders, but it’s likely he would pursue appeals as well. Then it goes to the SC.
If the Supreme Court and Congress both refuse to hold the Executive in check, then the Constitution doesn’t matter. Trump can walk all over it with impunity.
The last Constitutional remedy is elections, but there’s a serious question about the integrity going forward.
Trump could assign the election process to DOGE to “ensure election integrity”, and then Musk and his cadre could do whatever.
I know this is all projection at the moment. We will have to see what happens.
In words, ceremony and lip service, the Roman Republic lasted three hundred years after Augustus destroyed it (if it wasn’t already destroyed by Marius, Sulla and Caesar before him). The Roman Senate, de facto powerless since at least 30 BC, lasted until the 600s and was still considered a great status symbol for the wealthy, and commanded some popular respect the whole time, despite having zero real political power.
In the same way, I expect Americans will be pretending and/or arguing about whether the Constitution is still in effect and whether we’re still a democracy under the rule of law, for generations after it has already become irrelevant in daily practice.
In fact, it could be argued that’s already happened. The Interstate Commerce clause has been essentially ignored for a century. The Fourth Amendment has been dead at least since enough American documents, private information and conversations have been online and subject to dragnet spying by both foreign and domestic agencies. Executive orders have been treated like royal decrees in the absence of a functional Congress for at least a generation now. Rich folks have always gotten off scott free for offenses regular folks would be massacred in the streets by police for, and indeed the police regularly get pats on the back and awarded medals for heinous crimes committed while on duty.
I mean, I hate Trump and what he’s doing to my country, but I’m also quite skeptical of the idea that the US was always safely and securely under “the rule of law” until the minute Trump showed up. It’s just not that simple.
Perhaps, or things could collapse or explode in the next four years. But the odds say you are probably right.
I don’t think the Constitution is fully dead. I think Congress and the Supreme Court are abdicating their authority and letting the Executive overreach. The effect is a neutered Constitution, but right now, Congress or the courts or both could step in and restrain the Executive. If they were to exercise their authority and the Executive fail to comply, then we would be in a crisis that is the brink of failure.
But the Constitution is severely ineffective with both other branches of government abdicating authority or supporting the administration’s overreaches.
I mean, the Republicans in Congress have failed to do anything about:
Trump attempting to conspire with Russia to affect a Presidential election;
Threatening a foreign country to support lies about a political opponent to effect an election;
Arguing in bad faith over election integrity to overturn an election;
Instigating an insurrection that threatened killing members of Congress including the Vice President to overturn an election;
Getting re-elected after having done all the previous;
Trampling the rights of foreign citizens in this country, with or without legal status;
Canceling government programs and agencies that Congress funded through their power of appropriation;
Firing huge numbers of federal workers in violation of the legal processes established by Congress to prevent that type of political purging;
Arguing that the courts shouldn’t have any power over the Executive Branch;
And whatever else I’m missing in my list.
But Congress could still choose to act. They just haven’t shown any willingness to do so while Republicans control the majorities in both houses.
The Supreme Court has abetted the erosion of the Constitution via their creative reinterpretations of previous established precedents and case law and by their confusing and serious weakening of their own authority via ruling on Presidential immunity.
They could still act to limit his powers in several pending litigations when those eventually reach their review via appeals, but that will take time, and they have demonstrated a willingness to support his agenda counter to the demands of reasonable interpretation of the Constitution, so the current makeup of the court is complicit in Trump’s excesses.
If the courts are unable to act to stop the illegal actions of the Executive, then we will find that crisis. If they are just unwilling, then they will be making the Constitution weaker. An undefended authority is a ceded authority that creates precedent for future abuse.
The closing clause is the most likely scenario, but likely over the precipice rather than any “brink”. Historically, each time Congress has surrendered power to the Executive, they have failed to claw it back. Our ever more powerful executive is a result of the Civil War, World Wars, other military and crisis moments, and each has entrenched the position of the executive. Trump has learned a series of patterns, where if he just ignores demands (legal, financial and other) placed against him they will go away. He is NOT going to unlearn that lesson if the SCOTUS or Congress finds their spine.
Various flavors of hot or cold Civil war is probably the best that could happen, and the people at the top of the “enforcement” groups have been, or are in the process of being replaced with people who have already told the Senate that they have no obligation beyond their own personal judgement to enforce the court’s wills against President Trump.
I, in a sick, sad way, am wondering if I’ll live long enough to see a Vader-moment, where the main flunky of some future glorious leader mentions in passing how the Imperial Congress has been dissolved (possibly literally!) and that the trappings have been abandoned. I do think that the historical scenarios of a rubber stamp but prestigious Senate (or Russia’s Duma) will likely persist for the foreseeable future however.