What would happen if Donald Trump disbanded congress, suspended the Constitution, arrested “the enemy of the people” and instead ruled by emergency executive decree?
No such “emergency executive decree” power that has been granted to him. I suspect that he’d be impeached and removed from office and we’d have a President Pence.
What makes you think that he could do so?
Trump can do something only if falls within his Constitutional powers; or if he does it by force, seizing power in a coup. So you’ll have to explain which of these applies in your scenario.
All I can imagine is something like Michael Scott on The Office attempting to declare bankruptcy by standing up and shouting “I declare bankruptcy”.
People around him would smile and nod and do nothing.
Nothing, The constitution would still be force.
What would happen if Trump declared that he can fly like Superman.
I don’t think it’s that simple. The government’s powers are, let’s say “performative”. It’s a social construct that’s only real in a collective way. What would happen is some people who are loyal to him would act like it’s the case, but even more would likely balk at it and completely ignore it. It would cause a pretty big schism in the government and at the societal level. It doesn’t really matter if it’s the “text” of the law, it’s obviously not and the second it got up to any sort of judicial review it’d be an order that’s thrown out, but people would absolutely adhere to it during and after it getting struck down.
The only question, IMO, is how many, how dedicated they’d be, how long they’d stick to it, and how much damage it would cost. I’d like to say not even most of the Republicans would stick with it for too long, but honestly who the hell knows. Like if it’s just a bunch of SovCits using it as another excuse why the government doesn’t exist that’s different than half the Rs in the Senate and a bunch of ICE officials and cops in the deep south, or whatever.
I specifically meant Senate or House Republicans, specifically who often make at least a show of going with the President’s weird orders. Not to imply most Republican voters would, I have no idea what it would look like for some random average citizen to act like this was the case.
I’d imagine that even his most dedicated fans in Congress might take exception to being locked out of their workplace and losing their pay-cheques.
And that’s assuming someone (who - the military? the FBI?) would just go ahead and do it without legal clearance.
Might be time to brush up on Curzio Malaparte:
Technique of Revolution
I mean, at some point you have to define “suspend the constitution” and I’m not sure doing so necessarily entails what you’re saying. It’s not like there’s no precedent for, say, suspending Habeas Corpus (granted we have the suspension clause allowing that). It’s unclear what “suspend the constitution” means, but it doesn’t necessarily imply that Congress is dismissed (you could have what’s effectively a show-congress so you don’t look like as bad of a dictator, for instance). Really “suspend the contitution” doesn’t make much sense, because like, in what capacity? How? Suspend the Bill of Rights? The Interstate Commerce Clause (that would actually weaken the US government’s power)?
I assume the implication is “declare every part of the Constitution limiting the Executive’s power does not apply at the moment”, and that’s the part I can see people at least making a show of going along with. It does not necessarily imply the wholesale sacking of every other branch of government.
Vape shop employees would be forced to wear MAGA hats.
We had the same questions about Obama and Bush. The answers are still the same.
He can’t, therefore the question is moot.
What would happen? He’d be impeached by close of business tomorrow, majority Republican Senate or no. If the Republicans refused to remove him the GOP would face certain death.
God, I hope he tries.
I don’t think the question is quite moot, if we look beyond the most literal interpretation of it. Of course he doesn’t technically have the authority to do the first three of those things. But he does have the ability to say he’s doing them, and to call his followers to arms, to make outlandish claims, and so forth. He’s awfully skillful at encouraging and weaponizing hate and resentment; depending on how the plot unfolds, he might be able to get significant numbers of other politicians to join him.
I think he might have the ability to create quite a disturbance, and perhaps to disrupt our pattern of peaceful transition of power. It probably won’t happen, but how can we assert there’s not a significant chance?
[Moderating]
To the extent that this has an answer at all, it belongs in Great Debates. Moving.
Yes, this is what I’m saying. Any president has the ability to say, “y’know what? Fuck the constitution, call me Lord God Emperor”. The question is how many people will go along with it. Sure, Congress can vote to remove from office, but when the President has just declared themselves lord by fiat, things like “impeachment” implicitly don’t matter. The question is essentially:
- How many loyalists do they have?
- How well are they positioned to keep him from getting immediately shot or removed from power?
- If they are well positioned, how long can they hold out?
- How much damage can they do in the mean time?
Of course, with leaders with exceptionally well positioned loyalists, this can take the form of complete government usurpation into a Tyranical dictatorship (though oftentimes it takes a civil war). With leaders who are less well positioned, didn’t have as many loyalists as they thought, or who are just unlucky, this leads to a pretty quick coup after which normal operation is restored (albeit with significant damage to public faith in the office and a bunch of panic-measures put in place to deter it in the future).
This isn’t in any way limited to Trump. We can speculate how it would go down if Trump tried it tomorrow. Who would be loyal? How would they act? How hard would they actually care to defend him vs just let him go when it became clear things were going to go south if they kept at it? Is there a secret service operative he trusts that’s actually willing to just arrest him if he goes that far?
Legislation and documents like the Constitution are not physical, immutable laws of the universe. This isn’t like asking “what if the president traveled faster than the speed of light?” It’s a thing that any leader of any country can try to do that absolutely has an unknowable number of possible outcomes depending on the strength of their regime vs many other factors.
Can things collapse like that? Certainly.
But it’s extremely unlikely. Even impeachment in that case is unlikely. Far more likely is Pence calling the cabinet together and invoking the 25th amendment. Which is faster and, in such a case as laid out in the OP, easier to execute.
Yes, we could be at the point where the republic has already ended. But that would be evident already before Trump made such a proclamation. At that point it really falls to whether the individual armed services would follow Trump or their oaths. The first thing the military oath swears is allegiance to the Constitution. The President comes later. I think he’d have a rough time persuading the Joint Chiefs that their loyalty to him exceeds their loyalty to the constitution.
Not to mention the moneyed class in the US. A collapsed United States that is now a dictatorship would shrink the economy by 75% in a hurry. A great many firms would be wiped out and no one with money wants that.
While I agree it’s not going to happen, using Bush and Obama as examples doesn’t work. Individual 1 is quite a different situation. To repeat once again, The Trump presidency is not normal.