Donald Trump did not break democratic institutions |
He simply revealed how much their ability to restrain political power has eroded
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Donald Trump’s disregard for international law and the U.S. Constitution has become increasingly blatant—and the institutions meant to restrain him are no longer responding with the force they once did.
The framers of the American government understood that democracy depends on friction. Checks and balances exist to slow power, compel justification and require agreement among competing institutions, so that no single branch can dominate the system. For most of its 250-year history, that design worked. It carried the United States through wars, scandals and political upheaval. The federal government was deliberately divided into legislative, judicial and executive branches so that no one could rule unchecked. During Donald Trump’s first term, those mechanisms still held often enough to limit his most extreme impulses.
What has changed is not the architecture of democracy, but its resilience—and that loss of resilience is neither accidental nor acceptable. For decades, the institutions meant to enforce accountability have been weakened or sidelined.
Democracy has not suddenly collapsed under Trump, but has been weakened as the institutions meant to restrain power lost their capacity to act.
Courtesy Truth Social