GOP Pols and Judges Are Accomplices in Democracy’s Destruction

Second, both congressional Republicans and the federal judiciary have allowed Trump to essentially govern entirely through the executive branch, taking over numerous tasks that are normally and constitutionally the purview of the legislative branch. From cutting funding from colleges because he disagrees with their diversity policies to laying off hundreds of thousands of federal workers to capturing Nicolás Maduro, Trump has accomplished the vast majority of his agenda without legislation. This is unprecedented, and a huge abdication of responsibility from the Republicans in the other two branches of government.

Even when Congress is controlled by the same party as the president, congressional approval is often an important check on the president and a means of ensuring a more democratic process of governing. Policies like gutting the Department of Education and overthrowing the Venezuelan government are so controversial and stupid that they likely would not have received enough votes to pass on Capitol Hill. Even if they had, formal votes in Congress would have allowed members in both parties, the news media, activists, and ultimately the American public a major role in sorting out these issues.

Instead, what’s happened over the last year is that Trump and his aides take sweeping policy actions, and then congressional Republicans either defend them or, more often, simply look the other way and pretend nothing is going on. Republican judges, including on the U.S. Supreme Court, often side with Trump in these very expansive uses of federal power, even though they constantly ruled against executive orders when Barack Obama and Joe Biden were in office.