How We Got Into This Mess: When Leaders Push Past the Constitution and the Supreme Court Stops Holding the Line

A lot of people talk about the Constitution, but how many people actually understand what it says or why the Founders wrote it the way they did? The Founders had one big goal: to make sure no one person or group could grab too much power. Remember, the Founders had lived under a King and didn’t like it. They wanted the exact opposite for the United States of America. They built a system with guardrails - limits - to protect everyone's rights and not just the rights of those holding power. These guardrails only work when two things happen: 1. Leaders respect the limits 2. The Supreme Court enforces the limits. Over the last several years, both of those things have broken down. That is how we ended up in the mess we’re in today.

You have to ask yourself, “What did the Founders actually want?” I think the Founders cared about a few simple ideas: No one is above the law, the President must follow the rules like everyone else, people must have real voting rights, Congress makes the laws and not the President, courts protect rights, not weaken them, and power must be shared and not concentrated. That is the whole point of the Constitution. It’s not complicated. It’s basic common sense. It was written so we all could understand it.

When a president acts like the rules don’t apply, the system starts to crack. Many analysts have pointed out that Donald Trump has often acted like the Constitution shouldn’t limit him. This isn’t about whether you voted for him or not. It's about whether the rules apply. There are examples of that throughout Trump's presidency. These examples include: arguing in Trump v. United States that a president should have broad immunity, suggesting parts of the Constitution could be “terminated”, pressuring officials to overturn certified election results, and attacking judges when they rule against him. The Founders would have seen this as giant warning signs. Why? Because they didn’t want a president who could act without limits. They didn’t want a king. They wanted a president who could be held accountable. That is why we have the Supreme Court - to enforce those limits. But that’s where the second problem comes in.

Many feel that the Supreme Court has weakened the rights the Founders intended to protect. Over the last 20 years, mainly over Roberts' tenure as Chief Justice, the Supreme Court has made rulings that scholars say weaken the guardrails the founders built. Voting rights have been weakened. Shelby County v. Holder and Brnovich v. DNC made it easier for states to restrict voting. The Founders believed voting was the very heart of the republic and would not want to have fair elections weakened. Rucho v. Common Cause was a ruling that stated that federal courts can’t stop extreme gerrymandering. The founders warned about factions rigging the system, and that is what gerrymandering is: factions rigging the system. Gerrymandering is also voter suppression that has been practiced in states like Wisconsin and Ohio, long before Texas did it. It is intended to weaken the voice of the majority.

We also see rulings that have weakened the limits on presidential power. With rulings like Trump v. United States and Seila Law v. CFPB, we see the Presidential immunity and executive control over watchdog agencies expanded. The Founders had rejected kingship, and these rulings brought us closer to the very reasons that we revolted in the first place. West Virginia v. EPA and Loper Bright v. Raimondo weakened congressional power and made it much harder for Congress to do its job. The Founders gave Congress the most power for a reason. Congress is the people's voice, and remember, they envisioned a government “of the people, for the people, and by the people.”

This Supreme Court has also weakened stable rights through the ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson. It was the Supreme Court overturning a long-standing precedent that shook the idea that rights are secure, especially women’s rights. The Founders believed in stability, and the courts were the vessel that was supposed to supply that stability. In my opinion, they have opened the door to attack other rights we have taken for granted, and thought were guaranteed, such as free speech, and of no state-sponsored religion.

When you put the two problems together, Trump's Presidency and Chief Justice Roberts Supreme Court, you see the vision of the founders slipping away and our rights slipping away with them. Here is the simplest way to explain it: A president pushes past the limits, the Supreme Court weakens the checks on the limits, and the rights the Founders cared about start to erode. The right to vote, the right to fair election, the right to be protected from unchecked executive power, and the right to a government that answers to the people. Rights like these don’t disappear overnight. They fade slowly, ruling by ruling and action by action.

This is exactly what the founders warned us about. The founders didn’t fear foreign enemies. They feared concentrated power like a King. They feared leaders who wanted more authority than the Constitution allowed. They feared courts that failed to enforce limits. But I think most of all is that they feared a public that stopped paying attention. They warned that if guardrails ever failed. The republic would be in danger. That is the moment we’re living in.

The question is now simple. Do we still want the country the Founders built? A country where no one is above the law. Where voting rights are real. Where power is shared and not hoarded. If the answer is yes, then we have to face the truth that the guardrails are bending and, in some cases, are breaking. Once they break, they are very hard to put back together.

If you were to tell me that this is a Republican thing or a Democratic thing or the Republicans' fault or the Democrats' fault, twenty years ago, I would have said yes, it was both of their faults. But not today. For the last twenty years, we have seen more and more of a government that is for sale to the highest bidder, and that bidder is not the American people. Ever since Citizens United, the for-sale sign has been up, and billionaires, foreign and domestic, are buying the Supreme Court and the Republican Party. We can see the results of the environmental policies that are going by the wayside. The tax breaks being given to billionaires are causing our growing debt to worsen. We can see by the greed that has gripped the executive branch of the Government. You can see by the lavish gifts being given to our Supreme Court Justices. And “WE the People,” we are not even being thought about anymore.