The country commemorated Constitution Day this week, a day that recognizes the ratification of the United States Constitution in 1787. This op-ed will be the first in a series that outlines a cross-partisan vision to restore congressional authority, as outlined in Article I of the Constitution, and protect our system of checks and balances.
As we recognize Constitution Day this week, Americans aren’t just reflecting on the wisdom of the Founders — we are confronting a sobering question: Has Congress ceded so much power to the presidency that our system of checks and balances is at risk? From threats to deploy more National Guard members into American cities to unilateral action on trade, recent events have shown how far executive authority can be stretched. These aren’t simply policy disputes. They are direct challenges to the constitutional framework that has safeguarded our democracy for nearly 250 years.
The threats to our system of checks and balances did not emerge overnight. They are not the consequence of one man or one movement. For decades, Congress has steadily ceded its constitutionally granted authority to Republican and Democratic presidents. Each step may have seemed minor at the time, but together they have tilted the balance of power in ways the Founders warned would be dangerous.
Congress is defined in Article I — not II — of the Constitution for a reason. Our Founders understood that a concentration of power in the office of the president could lead to the type of tyranny they fought a revolution to end. They believed that a diversity of views in a representative legislature was a more dynamic and balanced way of governing. This is why the Constitution grants Congress specific and immutable powers, ensuring that no president could rule like a monarch.
Numerous important issues are competing for Americans’ attention at present. Defending the Constitution may seem abstract by comparison. However, according to a new national poll by Issue One and YouGov, Americans across the political spectrum overwhelmingly support our constitutional checks and balances. Nearly 1 in 3 voters (32%) ranked the president as having too much power as their top issue of concern, just below inflation (46%), jobs (34%), and immigration (34%). Perhaps even more striking, 79% of independents said that President Trump was going too far in trying to get his agenda passed without congressional approval.
Voters also expressed a clear preference for leaders who respect our system of government. 72% would prefer a candidate who acts with respect for institutions and rules, rather than ignoring the Constitution to act with greater speed and urgency, including nearly three-quarters of independents (73%) and a majority of Republicans (57%).
These findings point to a powerful truth: Americans value checks and balances, and they would back Congress if it stepped up to rein in executive overreach — opening the door for cross-partisan cooperation in an area where it is badly needed.
This week, Issue One has presented a reform agenda comprising six legislative proposals aimed at restoring congressional authority in key areas: trade, war powers, domestic military deployment, elections, and national emergencies. We will build on these proposals in greater depth in future installments of this op-ed series. Still, each proposal is rooted in the specific constitutional responsibilities outlined by the clauses of Article I — not partisan wish lists.
Unless we recommit to a republic based on constitutional principles, we will struggle to address the issues that voters care most about in a meaningful way. A government dominated by a single executive will inevitably drift toward serving the interests of the president, ultrawealthy donors, and special interests — not the American people.
Maintaining our republic is an active choice that each generation must recommit to. As Benjamin Franklin said on September 17, 1787, right after the Constitution was ratified, the United States was “A republic, if you can keep it.” This is why members of Congress must do their job and hold presidents accountable. Defending the Constitution is not a matter of left or right. It is about preserving self-government and ensuring that the United States remains a democracy where power ultimately rests with the people.
Nick Penniman is the founder and CEO of Issue One, a D.C.-based nonprofit focused on building bipartisan power to strengthen the foundations of American democracy.
image of U.S. President Donald Trump is displayed on a digital billboard in Times Square in New York on April 8, 2026.
Trump is stuck between two realities. Neither serves the American people
Normally, I worry that events may overtake a column. But not so with the Iran war.
I don’t worry about running afoul of a headline or Truth Social post from the president because what is said about the situation is no longer very relevant to the reality.
On April 8, Nick Catoggio, my Dispatch colleague, dubbed an earlier stoppage with Iran “Schrödinger’s ceasefire.” This was a reference to the famous thought experiment by the physicist Erwin Schrödinger, who was trying to explain the weirdness of “superpositionality” in quantum physics. A cat in a box is both dead and alive at the same time until you open the box. Schrödinger meant to illustrate the absurdity of the idea that particles aren’t any one thing, but a “cloud of probabilities.”
The Trump administration is stuck in a word cloud of probabilities of his own making. The war is over. The war is on. The war isn’t a war. We have a deal, but we don’t have a deal, but we’re about to have a deal. We destroyed Iran’s military. No, we left it intact. We want regime change. No we don’t. We already accomplished it. We “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program a year ago. We had to go to war in February to prevent nuclear war. The Strait of Hormuz is open, closed, or something in-between. No deal without “unconditional surrender.” Let’s make a deal!
This everything-all-at-once vibe can be disorienting, particularly since most Americans didn’t have a war with Iran on their bingo cards until the shooting had already started. President Trump didn’t prepare the country or consult with Congress beforehand because he thought it would all be a smashing success in a matter of weeks.
The miscalculation that started it all: killing Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and much of Iran’s senior leadership, on the first day of the war. To “the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand,” Trump announced on Feb. 28. “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”
I support regime change in Iran and shed no tears for Khamenei or his goons. But when you start a war by killing the regime’s top leaders, it’s not unreasonable for the remaining ones to conclude that you really intend regime change.
Khamenei was a murderous fanatic, but he was a fairly cautious one. He liked to threaten closing the Strait of Hormuz or attacking our regional allies, but he was reluctant to actually do it, fearing it would invite a regime change war. The mullahs and IRGC goons believed, not unreasonably, that if they lost their grip on power, they’d be lynched by the Iranian people they’ve brutalized for decades.
By starting with a regime change war, Trump removed any reason for the regime not to go for broke. When you have nothing to lose — particularly when you are a millenarian religious fanatic — a Persian Alamo strategy makes a lot of sense.
So Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz and attacked its neighbors.
But it turns out this wasn’t the Alamo. In the contest of wills, Trump blinked. The Iranian regime’s tolerance for punishment proved — so far — to be greater than Trump’s and that of our gulf allies. Militarily we could finish the job, but that would require ground troops and much greater economic turmoil. In a conflict Trump launched unilaterally without the prior support of Congress, NATO or the American people, Trump doesn’t have the political capital for that.
But that’s only half the problem. Trump wants the war over, but he doesn’t want to pay — militarily, economically, politically — what that would cost. So he wants to make a deal that ends it. But there is no deal available that wouldn’t come at an equally undesirable cost. Any deal that looks like what President Obama struck with the Iranians would be too embarrassing to bear. But the Iranians are convinced that they can get just such a deal, and they’re willing to drag things out as long as it takes.
The result: Trump’s in a box of his own making. He thinks he can talk his way out by simply asserting a reality that doesn’t exist. When the financial markets get nervous, he announces a breakthrough that is, at best, a possibility. When the Iranians agree to a deal that looks similar to one Obama might negotiate, Trump goes back to his threats.
It can’t go on forever. But I’m sure it’ll last until long after this column is forgotten.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.