America Under Siege: Fear and the Unchecked Presidency |
There are moments when the danger facing a nation is not announced by sirens or declarations of war, but by something quieter and more corrosive: fear—abroad and at home—paired with the normalization of lawlessness at the very top of power.
The United States is living through such a moment.
A growing number of economists, constitutional scholars, and foreign-policy experts—including Professor Jeffrey Sachs—have warned that the country is now operating under an effectively unchecked presidency, and this is very dangerous. What once sounded theoretical has become tangible. Executive conduct has crossed from aggressive policy into outright violations of constitutional structure, international law, and basic norms of human dignity—leaving Americans and foreign populations alike unsure where law ends and coercion begins.
Consider Venezuela. A sitting head of state was forcibly apprehended and remains detained despite long-established principles of head-of-state immunity recognized by both international law and US courts. No congressional declaration of war was issued. No authorization for the use of military force was granted. Yet naval deployments, explicit threats of escalation, and coercive demands have proceeded as if constitutional limits were optional.
This is not a policy disagreement. It is a rupture of the separation of powers.
A republic cannot survive this indefinitely.
Under the Constitution, Congress—not the President—decides when the nation enters hostilities. When force is used without that authorization, the injury is not foreign; it is domestic. It alters the legal obligations of service members, bypasses elected representatives, and establishes precedents that future presidents will inherit and may get to expand. What is done once without consequence becomes permissible forever.
The international consequences are equally severe. When restraint is publicly described as conditional on “cooperation,” the message is unmistakable: compliance is demanded under threat. Under international law, consent extracted through coercion is no consent at all. Agreements reached in such conditions are void, unstable, and corrosive to global order. They invite retaliation, miscalculation, and escalation.
Against this backdrop, the President’s own conduct has crossed from provocation into mockery.
Posting a mug-style image of himself online with the caption “Interim President of Venezuela” is not political satire—it is a display of contempt for a population already living under the shadow of military threat. Venezuelan civilians fear for their lives. Survivors of armed attacks have described, in horrific detail, the killing of guards and soldiers by US troops acting like mercenaries with no mercy, aligned with US objectives, sparing only the President and his wife to........