Luttig: The End of Rule of Law in America

[Nevilledog]

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/05/law-america-trump-constitution/682793/

No paywall link
https://archive.li/qJPUd

The president of the united states appears to have long ago forgotten that Americans fought the Revolutionary War not merely to secure their independence from the British monarchy but to establish a government of laws, not of men, so that they and future generations of Americans would never again be subject to the whims of a tyrannical king. As Thomas Paine wrote in Common Sense in 1776, “For as in absolute governments the king is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other.”

Donald Trump seems also not to understand John Adams’s fundamental observation about the new nation that came into the world that same year. Just last month, an interviewer from Time magazine asked the president in the Oval Office, “Mr. President, you were showing us the new paintings you have behind us. You put all these new portraits. One of them includes John Adams. John Adams said we’re a government ruled by laws, not by men. Do you agree with that?” To which the president replied: “John Adams said that? Where was the painting?”

When the interviewer pointed to the portrait, Trump asked: “We’re a government ruled by laws, not by men? Well, I think we’re a government ruled by law, but you know, somebody has to administer the law. So therefore men, certainly, men and women, certainly play a role in it. I wouldn’t agree with it 100 percent. We are a government where men are involved in the process of law, and ideally, you’re going to have honest men like me.”

And earlier this month, a television journalist asked Trump the simple question “Don’t you need to uphold the Constitution of the United States as president?” Astonishingly, the president answered, “I don’t know.” The interviewer then asked, “Don’t you agree that every person in the United States is entitled to due process?” The president again replied, “I don’t know.”

This is not a man who respects the rule of law, nor one who seeks to understand it.

*snip*

[dalton99a]

1. "Honest men like me"

and Musk, Miller, Vance, Thune, Johnson, etc.

[The Blue Flower]

2. Elect a criminal, you get a lawbreaker

Anyone find that hard to understand?

[peacebuzzard]

3. elect an idiot you get a shitshow.

thats it in a nutshell.

[GB_RN]

9. You Insult Idiots Everywhere...

By equating Cantaloupe Caligula the Corpulent with them. 😁

[peacebuzzard]

10. you are right

I should have said jackass instead, or creep, or weirdo, although he is a brainless one with maybe only one functioning neuron.
I didn't mean to offend the innocent and kind.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

4. trump and his supporters "are a clear and present danger to American democracy,"

Link to tweet

[mwmisses4289]

5. Trump?!? Honest?!?

[DENVERPOPS]

6. And the bottom line is

Putin is ecstatic and walks around smiling every hour of every day........He and his pawns, Trump and the Republican Party, as well as their Trump humping voters are helping Putin destroy the U.S.'s Economy, Democracy, and our beloved constitution without starting a war with us, or having to fire a single rocket or missle.......

[Iamscrewed]

7. Spoiled brat

He has never been held to account for his crimes in any way that we would be and because of that he will never understand or respect the rule of law.

[BaronChocula]

8. A republic

if you can keep it. And if voters' brains don't shrink to the size of a dime.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

11. Here is a free link to the whole article

Here is a free link to this article

The 47th president seems to wish he were king—and he is willing to destroy what is precious about this country to get what he wants.
https://bsky.app/profile/jamiegangel.bsky.social/post/3lp4tbgvimk2g

Link to tweet

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/05/law-america-trump-constitution/682793/?gift=R6Ij5wXU0pVLJK9HazQRQR8Yz6y5uW_WQrXcKfNfHUg&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

Thus far, Trump’s presidency has been a reign of lawless aggression by a tyrannical wannabe king, a rampage of presidential lawlessness in which Trump has proudly wielded the powers of the office and the federal government to persecute his enemies, while at the same time pardoning, glorifying, and favoring his political allies and friends—among them those who attacked the U.S. Capitol during the insurrection that Trump fomented on January 6, 2021. The president’s utter contempt for the Constitution and laws of the United States has been on spectacular display since Inauguration Day.

For the almost 250 years since the founding of this nation, America has been the beacon of freedom to the world because of its democracy and rule of law. Our system of checks and balances has been strained before, but democracy—government by the people—and the rule of law have always won the day. Until now, that is. America will never again be that same beacon to the world, because the president of the United States has subverted America’s democracy and corrupted its rule of law......

When Trump again assumed the presidency in January, he—like every American president before him—swore an oath to faithfully execute the laws of this nation, as commanded by the Constitution. In the short time since, Trump hasn’t just refused to faithfully execute the laws; he has angrily defied the Constitution and laws of the United States. In America, where no man is above the law, Trump has shown the nation that he believes he is the law, even proclaiming on social media soon after assuming office that “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.”

From the moment he entered the White House on January 20, 2025, Trump has waged war against the rule of law. He not only instigated a worldwide economic crisis with his hotheaded, unlawful tariffs leveled against our global trading partners and our enemies alike; he deliberately provoked a constitutional crisis with his frontal assault on the federal judiciary, the third and co-equal branch of government and guardian of the rule of law—grabbing more and more power for nothing but power’s sake......

The 47th president of the United States may wish he were a king. But in America, the law is king, not the president.

Donald Trump may wish he could dictate his unconscionable global tariffs; dispense with due process and deport whomever he pleases, citizen and not; and vanish away huge swaths of the federal government without check or rebuke. He may wish he did not have to contend with the First and Fourteenth Amendments, the free press, or the Constitution’s birthright-citizenship guarantee. He may wish he could ignore the Constitution’s elections clauses and run America’s elections from the White House. And he may wish he could intimidate the nation’s lawyers and law firms from challenging his abuse of power and commandeer them to do his personal bidding.