By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent
Donald Trump has spent a lifetime evading accountability. As a private citizen, authorities fined Trump for refusing to rent to Black tenants, declared bankruptcy multiple times, lost a $90 million civil judgment for sexual assault, and a jury convicted him on 34 felony charges. However, none of that mattered once Trump seized the presidency again.
With Mitch McConnell’s help, Trump flooded the courts with loyalists and stacked the Supreme Court with cronies who ruled that he was immune from prosecution. Now, just three weeks into his second term, the first convicted felon to hold the presidency has made it clear: the law no longer applies to him. America’s system of checks and balances has collapsed, and a dictator now sits in the Oval Office.
Trump has shredded the very foundation of democracy, dismantling government agencies, ignoring court orders, and bending the Republican-controlled Congress to his will.
With Elon Musk’s backing, Trump shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development, gutting a program that fed and provided medical care to millions worldwide. This move has already threatened the lives of millions. With Musk pulling the strings and under his administration, airplanes seemingly fall out of the sky almost daily. Trump also fired 17 inspectors general without congressional notice, silencing watchdogs meant to prevent government corruption. He ignored a court-backed law requiring TikTok to sell or shut down.
“The president is openly violating the law and Constitution on a daily basis,” said Brendan Nyhan, a political scientist at Dartmouth College.
Trump’s actions have called the bluff of America’s constitutional system. Lawsuits are piling up, but courts move too slowly to contain his sweeping power grabs. Republican lawmakers refuse to act, either cheering him on or cowering in fear of political retribution.
North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis admitted that Trump’s actions “run afoul of the Constitution in the strictest sense.” His response? “Nobody should bellyache about that.”
Congress was meant to serve as a check on executive power, but today’s Republican Party has handed Trump complete control. They confirmed Russell Vought, a key architect of Project 2025, to lead the Office of Management and Budget after a marathon Democratic protest. Trump fired the chair of the Federal Election Commission despite her insistence that his action was illegal.
His administration has floated eliminating the Education Department, slashing food stamp programs, and imprisoning migrants in detention camps. The Fourth Geneva Convention, which the U.S. has upheld since World War II, prohibits forced deportations, but Trump has proposed the mass removal of 2.3 million Palestinians from Gaza—a move University of Michigan professor Juan Cole compared to the ethnic cleansing tactics of Stalin.
“I grew up in an America full of revulsion for Stalinism, and even the few Communists I ever met were critics of it,” Cole wrote. “Now, we have a new American Stalinism, as dismissive of individual and collective rights and liberties as Uncle Joe had been.”
Trump’s own former diplomat to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Chargé d’Affaires Harry Kamian, condemned Russia’s mass deportation of Crimean Tatars in 1944-47 as a crime against humanity. Yet, just three weeks into Trump’s second term, the U.S. follows the same playbook.
The courts remain one of the last remaining obstacles to Trump’s total rule. A judge blocked his attempt to strip birthright citizenship, and another halted his unconstitutional freeze on federal spending. However, Trump has ignored these rulings, refusing to release frozen funds despite direct judicial orders.
Los Angeles Times columnist Jackie Calmes described Trump’s second term as “a diktat a day.” He has purged thousands of protected federal employees, defied Congress’s control over federal spending, and attempted to dismantle legally established agencies.
“Trump’s Day 1 clemency for his nearly 1,600 fellow Jan. 6 insurrectionists was at least within a president’s express powers, as are tariffs,” Calmes wrote. “Much else is not.”
One of Trump’s most dangerous abuses of power is his alliance with Musk. The world’s richest man and a quarter-billion-dollar Trump campaign donor has embedded his own operatives in key government agencies, including the Treasury Department, USAID, the Education Department, and the Environmental Protection Agency.
At the Treasury, Musk’s handpicked team seized control of government-wide payment systems, gaining access to Americans’ financial data and prompting a top career official to resign. His next target: the Education Department. USAID, once the world’s largest provider of food aid, has been decimated, leaving humanitarian efforts in shambles.
Musk bragged about his takeover on social media, claiming, “I went over it with him in detail, and he agreed that we should shut it down.” Russia approved. Former President Dmitry Medvedev praised Musk’s intervention as “a smart move.”
Even among Republicans, there is a quiet acknowledgment that Trump’s power has gone unchecked. When pressed about Musk’s infiltration of federal agencies, Mississippi Senator Roger Wicker conceded, “Do I want Congress to exercise its right and power as a coequal branch of the federal government? Yes, I do.”
But Congress has done nothing. Senate Republicans are confirming Trump’s handpicked loyalists, standing by as he purges independent agencies, and enabling his consolidation of power. Litigation will come, but the process is slow, and Trump’s violations mount by the day.
“Whole lotta big cases coming the federal judiciary’s way,” said conservative Stanford Law professor Orin Kerr.
Calmes added they’re “forfeiting Congress’ constitutional status as a coequal branch of government, with unique legislative and spending powers. In the meantime, we just keep counting Trump’s days as dictator.”
