Is American democracy sailing into troubled waters?
Roundup of thoughts from other writers
The Trump administration’s war on the checks and balances of democracy (and on an independent media, higher education, and pretty much anyone who defies or disagrees with the president) is escalating. In just the past few days, President Trump has:
Frozen $2.2 billion in research grants to Harvard after the university rejected government demands, including that it relinquish control over its own admissions, hiring, and curriculum. Harvard said it would not “surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.” In a further escalation, the IRS is now also planning to strip Harvard of its tax exempt status.
Called for the FCC to investigate and punish CBS with “maximum fines” and possibly the loss of its broadcast license because Trump didn’t like two reports that aired on “60 Minutes” about Ukraine and Greenland.
Ordered the Justice Department to launch criminal investigations into two former Trump administration officials, even accusing one of treason. Their crimes? Expressing an opinion. Chris Krebs rejected the president’s claim of voter fraud in 2020. And Miles Taylor wrote an op-ed about resistance to Trump within his own administration.
During a White House meeting, asked the president of El Salvador to build more prisons, as the U.S. considers ways to strip Americans of their citizenship so they can be sent to a prison in a foreign country.
Most ominously, appears to be openly defying a unanimous 9-0 ruling from the Supreme Court that instructed the administration to bring back a migrant who was mistakenly sent to a Salvadoran prison, even suggesting the Court has no jurisdiction over the president in the case.
As guardrails crumble, it’s not crazy to wonder if storms are ahead for American democracy. So I rounded up a collection of thoughts on the matter from people who know a thing or two about the topic.
Here are 10 thoughts from individuals across the political spectrum — neutral observers, liberals, and traditional conservatives. These are not comforting comments, but it’s where we are as a country.
1. We're Past the Tipping Point (Charlie Sykes, former conservative talk radio host and author of To The Contrary on Substack)
Maybe we missed the exact moment it happened. But last week, it was obvious that we have long since passed the tipping point. We’re not slouching toward it, or waiting for some imaginary redline to be crossed. After years of warning about threats to democracy, the rule of law, norms, corruption, toxic narcissism, it was all right there. Live in the Oval Office …
The man who has placed himself so flamboyantly above the law, essentially told the nine justices of the Supreme Court that they can fuq all the way off.
2. Trump is halfway to making America a police state (Edward Luce in the Financial Times)
At around noon on April 14 2025, America ceased to have a law-abiding government ...
The Oval Office drama offered a civics lesson to the world: America’s government pays greater respect to a foreign strongman than its own Supreme Court. Trump knows how to deliver gripping television. He was also making history. The official position of the world’s oldest constitutional republic is that the courts should have no say in who its executive deports and on what grounds. Foreign travellers to the US should beware … Americans should too.
3. Bring. Him. Home. (Jonathan Last at The Bulwark)
The old American order is dead. It ended on April 14, 2025, when a Latin American strongman sat in the Oval Office and discussed sending U.S. citizens to foreign concentration camps with the American president while they jointly defied the Supreme Court … This is our reality and I do not see how, after yesterday, anyone in America could fail to see it.
4. Trump Tests the True Limits of Presidential Power (Jeffrey Blehar in the conservative National Review magazine)
This is the latest … example of the new Trump administration’s willingness to test the law well past its limits and do so by demonstrating gleefully naked contempt for it. It is all too easy to see why it is being either cheered on or winked at by Trump’s supporters and regarded with indifference by the masses. But it should alarm you deeply …
It is not enough to write about this phenomenon with clinical detachment; it must be opposed. If not, I assure you that the spirits unleashed by (Donald) Trump and (Stephen) Miller, perhaps seemingly innocuous now, will eventually consume us all. I’m not here to persuade you. I’m here to warn you.
5. State Terror (Timothy Snyder, historian and author of On Tyranny, On Freedom and other books)
Yesterday the president defied a Supreme Court ruling to return a man who was mistakenly sent to a gulag in another country, celebrated the suffering of this innocent person, and spoke of sending Americans to foreign concentration camps.
This is the beginning of an American policy of state terror, and it has to be identified as such to be stopped.
6. Two Dictators Walk Into a Bar... (longtime conservative strategist and author Bill Kristol in The Bulwark)
After all these years in and around politics, I’d like to think I have a pretty strong stomach, but yesterday was sickening. (Donald) Trump and (El Salvador President Nayib) Bukele were having a great time. They were relishing the fact that innocent men had been snatched from their homes in the United States and sent by our government, lawlessly and with neither evidence nor due process, to an open-ended sentence in a ghastly prison in El Salvador. They were enjoying the prospect that even more people would be sent there, including some “homegrowns” who, Trump assured Bukele, will be the next to go.
This was not newsreel footage of two dictators meeting somewhere far away and long ago. This was yesterday. Here in Washington, D.C. In the Oval Office.
7. We Should All Be Very, Very Afraid (constitutional law experts Erwin Chemerinsky and Laurence Tribe in the New York Times)
Why hasn’t the Trump administration acted to secure Mr. Abrego Garcia’s release? … The answer can only be that it is using this case to establish a truly chilling proposition: that no one can stop the Trump administration from imprisoning any people it wants anywhere else in the world …
If the government can disappear any people it wishes, dump them in a Salvadoran dungeon and prevent any court in this country from providing relief, we all should be very, very afraid.
8. This Is How Democracy Collapses (Dan Pfeiffer, former Democratic strategist and author of The Message Box on Substack)
[The Trump administration] believes that Trump is more monarch than President and not subject to any checks and balances …
We are facing a constitutional crisis less than 100 days into Trump's presidency. If we take Trump at his word and watch how his administration is operating, we are headed towards a world where Trump sends American citizens to an El Salvadoran gulag without due process or recourse …
Things are happening fast and if we continue to hem and haw, it may be too late. The only weapon we have is public pressure. Time to start exerting it.
9. The Supreme Court Got It Badly Wrong (Joyce Vance, legal analyst and former U.S. Attorney)
If there were a map that showed democracy slipping into dictatorship, we would be at the spot marked “You are here.”
We shouldn’t sugarcoat the danger. Due process matters to immigrants and Americans alike. When the presidency refuses to honor it, we are all in danger … If Donald Trump can refuse to return a person he has illegally deported to a foreign prison where he is paying for him to be held in indefinite custody, then he can do it to American citizens, too.
10. Eulogy for a Republic (essay by a former U.S. diplomat in Persuasion)
I took an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States. Not a president. Not a party. Not even a flag. An idea … That journey took me everywhere: the White House, Congress, British Parliament, NATO, Brussels, the United Nations. I defended American policies in public and in private. Some I believed in. Others I questioned. But I always believed the people in the room were trying to do what was right.
What I learned during those years is this: our global leadership was never guaranteed. It was conditional—on our commitment to our ideals. Our friends, allies, even our critics believed in the story we told. They wanted us to be the country we claimed to be. That belief held the world together. It stabilized alliances. It gave hope …
But now, the myth has become armor. Anesthesia. A story we whisper so we can sleep while the house burns.
Lots to ponder. See you again in a few days.
Cover photo: Image via Shutterstock