In this episode of Democracy Works from The McCourtney Institute for Democracy, the team discusses democracy’s many doomsayers and how to heed their warnings for the future without falling into despair.
Podcast: On democracy's doomsayers
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U.S. President Donald Trump walks towards Marine One on the South Lawn on May 1, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Getty Images, Andrew Harnik
Trump’s First 100 Days on Trial
May 07, 2025
100 Days, 122 Rulings
Presidents are typically evaluated by their accomplishments in the first 100 days. Donald Trump's second term stands out for a different reason: the unprecedented number of executive actions challenged and blocked by the courts. In just over three months, Trump issued more than 200 executive orders, targeting areas such as climate policy, civil service regulations, immigration, and education funding.
However, the most telling statistic is not the volume of orders but the judiciary's response: over 120 rulings have paused or invalidated these directives. This positions the courts, rather than Congress, as the primary institutional check on the administration's agenda. With a legislature largely aligned with the executive, the judiciary has become a critical counterbalance. The sustainability of this dynamic raises questions about the resilience of democratic institutions when one branch shoulders the burden of oversight responsibilities.
The Prosecution: Legal Challenges to Executive Actions
Upon returning to office, President Trump took an aggressive approach to executive authority, unleashing a tsunami of orders aimed at radically reshaping federal policy. This strategy, designed to implement changes swiftly, seems to potentially outpace legal challenges. Nevertheless, the judiciary has actively engaged in reviewing these actions, resulting in numerous injunctions and rulings that underscore the constitutional limits of executive power.
In one high-profile case, New Jersey v. Trump, the administration’s attempt to end birthright citizenship for children born in the U.S. to undocumented parents was challenged and blocked. A federal judge found the order in conflict with the Fourteenth Amendment, and the administration’s appeal to the Supreme Court is pending.
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In Dellinger v. Bessent, an executive order seeking to reclassify senior civil servants as at-will employees—effectively removing their job protections—was halted with a preliminary injunction. The court determined the order violated civil service laws and posed risks to the function of government.
Meanwhile, in National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education v. Trump, the administration’s effort to freeze federal funding to institutions promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives was ruled an unconstitutional overreach. The court emphasized that policy disagreements do not justify infringing upon academic freedom and civil rights.
These cases illustrate a pattern of executive actions that the judiciary deems as overstepping legal and constitutional lines in the sand. The courts have thus far served as a vital check on the administration's expansive use of executive orders.
A Contemptible Congress
While the judiciary has actively engaged in reviewing executive actions, Congress has taken a more passive role. The passage of continuing resolutions (CRs) to avoid government shutdowns has inadvertently granted the executive branch increased discretion over federal spending. Unlike detailed appropriations bills, CRs extend existing funding levels without specific instructions, allowing the administration to redirect funds with minimal oversight.
This discretion has been utilized to withhold funding from programs such as climate research and DEI initiatives, aligning spending with the administration's priorities without new legislative mandates. The reliance on CRs, coupled with a lack of assertive legislative oversight, has contributed to an imbalance in the separation of powers.
Yet, even as the judiciary works to check the excesses of executive power, the legislative branch—the one designed by the Framers to be the first line of defense—has largely chosen to stand aside. If the courts have played prosecutor, Congress has spent much of its time playing the absent witness—sometimes unwilling, but just as often all too willing to let the executive branch redraw the lines it was supposed to defend. Nowhere has this been clearer than in the recent Senate vote over tariffs. The GOP-led Senate could have stood with the majority of American voters in disapproving the administration’s actions. Instead, it meekly acquiesced, declining to impose any limits on the president’s authority despite bipartisan concerns. The message was unmistakable: Trump’s consolidation of power would not face resistance from Capitol Hill.
A Test of Institutional Resilience
The first 100 days of President Trump's second term have tested the mechanisms of American governance. The judiciary has emerged as a central figure in maintaining constitutional checks and balances, responding to a surge of executive actions with rigorous legal scrutiny. However, the limited engagement from Congress raises concerns about the durability of this equilibrium. Sustaining a healthy democracy requires active participation from all branches of government and an informed public. If oversight becomes just the lonely burden of the judiciary, the system begins to tilt—slowly, but decisively—toward executive dominance.
The danger lies not in the temporary assertion of power but in the normalization of it. You don’t have to be a Constitutional law scholar to recognize that when checks and balances rely on a single branch to function, the republic risks becoming structurally unbalanced. The ongoing challenges underscore the importance of vigilance, accountability, and institutional courage in preserving the foundational principles of the republic.
This all begs the question: What is to be done? Congress must get off the sidelines and reassert its constitutional responsibilities, beginning with full appropriations bills that constrain executive discretion and meaningful oversight hearings that clarify the scope and limits of presidential power. Courts must continue to defend legal norms without being drawn into partisanship. But the broader task belongs to the public: to demand transparency, resist apathy, and reaffirm that no leader is above the law. Democracy, after all, is not self-executing—it must be defended, deliberately and continually, by those it serves.
Robert Cropf is a professor of political science at Saint Louis University.
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U.S. President Donald Trump signs executive orders in the Oval Office at the White House on April 23, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Getty Images, Chip Somodevilla
Trump 2.0’s Alleged Trifecta Crisis
Apr 30, 2025
On July 25, 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave a radio address to 125 million Americans in which he coined the term “first 100 days.” Today, the 100th day of a presidency is considered a benchmark to measure the early success or failure of a president.
Mr. Trump’s 100th day of office lands on April 30, when the world has witnessed his 137 executive orders, 39 proclamations, 36 memoranda, a few Cabinet meetings, and numerous press briefings. In summary, Trump’s cabinet appointments and seemingly arbitrary, capricious, ad hoc, and erratic actions have created turmoil in the stock market, utter confusion among our international trade partners, and confounded unrest with consumers, workers, small business owners, and corporate CEOs.
Interestingly, a recently published UMass/YouGov poll found that 26 percent of the people who voted for Trump have lost their confidence and appeal for our 47th president.
It appears The New York Times was the first media agency to report, on just the 18th day of Trump’s 2.0 presidency, that Trump was creating a constitutional crisis. That claim has been reported in multiple major news agencies, spoken in town hall meetings, and observed in thousands of public protests with demonstrators from all political persuasions requesting Congress and the Supreme Court to stop our democracy from turning into an authoritarian dictatorship.
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On March 25, I sent an e-mail to authoritarian scholar Barbara McQuade (who is a professor at the University Michigan Law School, previous U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, and author of “Attack from within”) seeking her expert opinion on what citizens would most likely witness when a constitutional crisis has occurred and on recommended action citizens should take.
Two days later, McQuade replied to my inquiry: “If a president were to deliberately violate a court order, I think we could consider that a constitutional crisis,” and she added, “Citizens can do many things to push back against abuse of power, such as vote, write to their member of Congress, or participate in a protest, but I think the most effective thing a citizen can do is to talk to their friends and neighbors to explain their concerns and rally support.”
Republican Peter Wehner, who served as the speechwriter for three GOP administrations (i.e., Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush) and senior fellow at Trinity Forum — an American faith-based non-profit Christian organization — feels Trump has created not one, not two, but three crisis situations. Wehner stated in an April 19 Wall Street Journal article, “It seems as if we are moving at a rapid speed toward a genuine constitutional crisis, a genuine separation-of-powers crisis, and a genuine checks-and-balances crisis.”
You can decide if any of the following actions and published repercussions put America in the precarious dilemma of being in a constitutional crisis:
- Trump has openly defied federal court directives, refusing to halt deportation flights to El Salvador and return an illegally deported Maryland man.
- Trump has eliminated and/or dismantled federal agencies — like USAID — by executive order, bypassing Congressional authority.
- Trump has claimed the right to withhold or redirect federal funds appropriated by law, undermining Congress’s constitutional power of the purse.
- Trump has fired civil service-protected employees, a violation of federal law.
- Trump is attempting to end birthright citizenship by executive action, a constitutional right under the 14th Amendment.
- Trump has withheld funds from universities without legal justification.
- Trump has revoked visas solely because of the holders’ expressed viewpoints, violating First Amendment protections.
- Trump has attacked federal judges, questioning their legitimacy and authority, which erodes the independence of the judiciary.
- Trump has created DOGE without Congressional approval, challenging the separation of powers.
- Trump has set tariffs on our trading partners as opposed to Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution that grants Congress the explicit power to “lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises” and to “regulate Commerce with foreign Nations.”
Polling by the revered and non-political Reuters/Ipsos found 83 percent of Americans feel “Trump must obey federal court rulings even if he doesn’t want to” (April 20). Wall Street Journal polling has shown that “voters want to keep constitutional guardrails in place that constrain a president’s power” (April 4).
Keep in mind, as of April 23, there have been 208 legal challenges to the Trump administration’s actions (Just Security – New York Univ. School of Law). Additionally, a probable Trump-related contempt of court opinion was issued by U.S. District Court Chief Judge James Boasberg, which, if ordered, could lead to incarceration (Law News, April 23).
If you are concerned about Mr. Trump’s endeavors, consider the advice offered by law professor McQuade: participate in peaceful rallies, support political candidates committed to upholding constitutional democracy, communicate with your two Senators and Representatives about your concerns, and visit with friends about the trifecta crisis that is becoming more evident by political scientists, authoritarian scholars, constitutional law experts, and registered voters like you and me.
Steve Corbin is a Professor Emeritus of Marketing, University of Northern Iowa.
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Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Liz Truss speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the Gaylord National Resort Hotel And Convention Center on February 20, 2025 in Oxon Hill, Maryland.
Getty Images, Andrew Harnik
America’s Liz Truss Problem
Apr 21, 2025
America is having a Liz Truss moment. The problem is that America doesn’t have a Liz Truss solution.
Let me take you back to the fall of 2022 when the United Kingdom experienced its own version of political whiplash. In the span of seven weeks, no less than three Prime Ministers (and two monarchs, incidentally) tried to steer the British governmental ship. On September 6, Boris Johnson was forced to resign over a seemingly endless series of scandals. Enter Liz Truss. She lasted forty-nine days, until October 25, when she too was pushed out the black door of 10 Downing Street. Her blunder? Incompetence. Rishi Sunak, the Conservative Party’s third choice, then measured the drapes.
What most people remember of the Truss premiership is the Daily Star wager that a head of lettuce would last longer than Truss. The lettuce won. But Truss’ stint as Prime Minister—the shortest ever, I should note—holds some lessons for America today.
Truss suffered from a self-inflicted political wound. She tried to push through an aggressive tax cut at a time when the financial markets were edgy and inflation was high. She also pledged to increase government spending to counter those stinging inflated prices. As it turned out, hers was a foolish fiscal plan—tax reductions and public spending increases don’t exactly go hand-in-hand—and it failed spectacularly. The tax cuts never materialized, prices didn’t decrease, and the Pound lost a ton of its value. Truss was out.
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Her plan was to uproot the existing fiscal conventions, to dislocate the British financial landscape through radically bold and risky economic policy. She envisioned a new domestic world order.
Sound familiar? President Trump is trying to kindle a similar revolutionary spark. He wants a new world order too, and he’s going to use giant tariffs—or at least the threat of giant tariffs—to realize his ambition. Like Truss, he is wagering the future of his country’s financial footing on an experimental and radical strategy. Like Truss, he is leveraging a plan that is almost impossible to simulate. And like Truss, he is staking the country’s very reputation, at home and abroad, on this untested ante.
Americans can only hope that Trump’s tariff train hasn’t gone completely off the rails, as the tax one did for Ms. Truss. Because here’s the thing: The Brits’ system of government enjoys at least one massive guardrail that the U.S. system cannot duplicate: Their head of government, their party leader, their administrative public face, indeed their constitutional chief, can quickly be replaced.
Liz Truss could float a genuinely radical and potentially calamitous idea and, if it didn’t stick, she could be sacked. Pursue an idea that causes domestic and international panic and the shelf life of any British chancellor is short. Donald Trump can’t be sacked. His shelf life is fixed by the Constitution: Four years. That’s a long time, far longer than the five days it took to replace Truss with Rishi Sunak.
In my four decades as a faithful student of the U.S. Constitution, I never imagined that I would question the wisdom of the Framers’ decision to separate the branches. But then again, I never imagined a president who held such disdain for the very conventions and traditions—and the rule of law—that made the office of the president so dignified and reverential. I’m now questioning.
Our system of separation of powers—unlike the parliamentary system in Great Britain—allows the U.S. Congress to shrug at the incoherence of the White House. There is little at stake for the individual members of Congress when the President is issuing controversial executive orders and playing fast and loose with America’s standing in the world. Aside from impeachment and conviction—a toothless process more political now than anything else—Congress has no ability to fire a rogue president.
Not so in Great Britain. The Prime Minister is a member of Parliament, an elected legislative official, so if she is incoherent or too radical or too risky, she can simply be replaced by another member of parliament from the majority coalition party. Hence the lightspeed transition from Truss to Sunak. It’s not a pleasant situation, and it triggers a spate of hand-wringing in London and elsewhere. But it is relatively painless and frequently invoked.
Once again, America’s Constitution is showing its age. A governing charter written for a virtuous and noble George Washington has a hard time standing up to an egoistic and mercenary Donald Trump.
It’s time for constitutional change. A number of proposals have surfaced that get us a bit closer to the British model without sacrificing the principle of separate powers. How about a constitutional amendment that allows for a Congressional vote of no confidence in the President? Or one that offers a national recall election? The bar for each of these possibilities would have to be extraordinarily high so that neither is used as casual political fodder. We’re experiencing too much partisan grandstanding these days.
Or maybe we should rethink the 25th Amendment. Article IV permits the Vice President and a majority of the principal officers of the executive departments to replace the President if he is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” That is surely unlikely in this environment where those principal officers are hand-selected by the very leader they’re appraising.
No, I’m referring to the next clause of the 25th Amendment, the one that empowers Congress to appoint “[an]other body” to declare a President unfit. That “other body” could be an independent commission, a bipartisan conclave, or a representative sample of everyday citizens. It could be anyone. I could even imagine that it would be a good role for Article III judges on “senior status.” My point is that we might need that “other body.” Now and in the future.
If all this sounds strange, it probably is. Constitutional reform is always a bit out there. But before we completely dismiss the notion that Congress might invoke Article IV of the 25th amendment maybe we should ask ourselves if the proposal is any more bizarre than a process whereby a majority of legislators from the lower house can impeach a president but he isn’t convicted and removed from office, except by a vote of two-thirds of the upper house.
Make more sense? I’m not so sure.
Beau Breslin is the Joseph C. Palamountain Jr. Chair of Political Science at Skidmore College and author of “A Constitution for the Living: Imagining How Five Generations of Americans Would Rewrite the Nation’s Fundamental Law.”
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Part One, The Impact of Trump’s Executive Actions: The Federal Workforce
Apr 16, 2025
Project Overview
This essay is part of a series by Lawyers Defending American Democracy, explaining in practical terms what the administration’s executive orders and other executive actions mean for all of us. Each of these actions springs from the pages of Project 2025, the administration's 900-page playbook that serves as the foundation for these measures. The Project 2025 agenda should concern all of us, as it tracks strategies adopted by countries such as Hungary, which have eroded democratic norms and have adopted authoritarian approaches to governing.
Project 2025’s stated intent to move quickly to “dismantle” the federal government will strip the public of important protections against excessive presidential power and provide enormous and unchecked opportunities for big corporations to profit by preying on America's households.
In Part One of the series, we address attacks on the federal workforce, specifically, through the removal of protection for tens of thousands of federal workers underExecutive Order 14171 and through large-scale reductions in force directed under Executive Order 14201.
From Public Service to Presidential Loyalty
Beginning on Inauguration Day, President Trump has moved swiftly and steadily to dismantle the federal government. If successfully implemented, his stream of executive orders and related actions will result in the destruction of government as we know it, replacing it with a new operational system where conflicts of interest abound, checks and balances are gone, and government workers are chosen based on loyalty to the President instead of the duty to serve the public. Fact-based decisions made by professionals will become a thing of the past.
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Project 2025 – The Destruction of Government Agencies
Executive Orders 14171 and 14201 come straight from the Project 2025 chapter entitled, Central Personnel Agencies: Managing the Bureaucracy. The intent of this chapter is to essentially replace the federal workforce with a decentralized and privatized system.
Executive Order 14171 achieves the goals of Project 2025 by removing due process and other employment for thousands of federal workers by reclassifying as many as 50,000 members of the civil service as “Schedule F” employees. This enables the administration to fire these employees without due process and to replace them with political appointees. Media reports describe a process where hiring focuses more on loyalty to the President than on merit.
Executive Order 14201 complements that directive through mandated, large-scale, and widespread reductions in the federal workforce, without any requirement that such firings be based on performance, productivity, or merit.
Why This Matters
These Executive Orders empower the administration to fill positions that were once occupied by nonpolitical employees with unqualified loyalists. Although some high-level government workers are typically replaced following a change in federal administration, the vast majority are not. This stability enables the government to perform vital services without interruption, by people with expertise in health, safety, law enforcement, national security, and other crucial areas.
Civil service protections were created more than a century ago in response to the corruption of the “spoils system” in which government jobs were rewarded for political loyalty. They were designed to protect government workers from political interference, allowing them to serve the public while shielded from political pressure.
The executive orders ignore this history and will have direct impacts on the public by reducing the quality of government services and jeopardizing public health and safety. The examples are many and include:
- Public safety is threatened when experienced federal workers are summarily fired and replaced with political appointees who may lack expertise in such vital areas as fighting infectious and chronic diseases; investigating deadly accidents; responding to natural disasters; ensuring airline safety; protecting our air and water and the safety of food and medicine; and safeguarding nuclear weapons.
- Eviscerating the workforce at such agencies as the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Social Security Administration will gut services supporting those who served in the military and older Americans who rely on Social Security.
- The administration’s widespread indiscriminate firings, without regard to merit or function, even go beyond Project2025’s directives, obliterating the traditional approach to terminating employees based on performance reviews, eliminating duplication, and implementing small strategic changes based on program effectiveness.
The executive orders will result in cuts to essential government services and increased costs for taxpayers.
- When needed functions are cut, the government may fill the vacuum with private contracts, often at a higher cost. This opens the door to private profiteering at taxpayer expense.
- When politics, not expertise, governs hiring and firing, new employees constantly need training due to increased turnover, raising costs.
The executive orders will open the door to patronage systems and corruption and will eliminate vital expertise.
- Politically motivated firings eliminate knowledgeable, skilled employees and reduce critical services.
- As we learned from the implementation of authoritarian playbooks in countries such as Hungary, dismantling the civil service leads to corruption and fraud as well as the loss of needed expertise.
They also threaten the independence and integrity of agency officials.
- These executive orders will enable the President, cabinet secretaries, and other high-level presidential appointees to fire large swaths of the federal bureaucracy at will. They will reward campaign donors and supporters with government jobs while punishing those who supported an opposing candidate but are otherwise qualified to serve.
- Federal employees whose boss is a public official run the risk of feeling pressured to benefit that official instead of the public.
Key Takeaway
This creation of a practice of governance that rewards supporters, friends, and loyalists and that reduces the size of federal agencies without regard to the services they provide will reduce needed services and threaten our health and safety. It should raise alarms for all those who believe that federal employees must be free to provide crucial services without political interference.
Lawyers Defending American Democracy is dedicated to galvanizing lawyers “to defend the rule of law in the face of an unprecedented threat to American Democracy.” Its work is not political or partisan.
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