Beware Trump's two-pronged strategy undermining democracy David Cole

This month, we learned that, in the course of bombing a boat of suspected drug smugglers, the US military intentionally killed two survivors clinging to the wreckage after its initial air assault. In addition, Donald Trump said it was seditious for Democratic members of Congress to inform members of the military that they can, and indeed, must, resist patently illegal orders, and the FBI and Pentagon are reportedly investigating the members’ speech. Those related developments – the murder of civilians and an attack on free speech – exemplify two of Trump’s principal tactics in his second term. The first involves the assertion of extraordinary emergency powers in the absence of any actual emergency. The second seeks to suppress dissent by punishing those who dare to raise their voices. Both moves have been replicated time and time again since January 2025. How courts and the public respond will determine the future of constitutional democracy in the United States.

Nothing is more essential to a liberal democracy than the rule of law – that is, the notion that a democratic government is guided by laws, not discretionary whims; that the laws respect basic liberties for all; and that independent courts have the authority to hold political officials accountable when they violate those laws. These principles, forged in the United Kingdom, adopted and revised by the United States, are the bedrock of constitutional democracy. But they depend on courts being willing and able to check government abuse, and citizens exercising their rights to speak out in defense of the fundamental values when those values are under attack.

Trump, who evidently prefers “the rule of Trump” to the rule of law, has launched a two-pronged attack on these principles. The campaign against alleged drug smugglers is an example of the first tactic: declare a nonexistent emergency and invoke extraordinary authorities that would be unacceptable in ordinary times. Ordinarily, police can’t simply kill those they think might be distributing drugs; suspects must be arrested, tried and convicted, and even then they can only be sentenced to prison, not executed. (The death penalty is reserved for crimes involving homicide.) But by declaring that the metaphorical war on drugs is an actual “armed conflict”, and declaring that fishers carrying drugs are “narco-terrorists”, Trump has asserted the power to kill in cold blood – premeditated murder without trial.

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But courts can’t act alone. And if citizens duck and cover in the face of Trump’s assault, the courts will not be able to save us. Civil society institutions have been buoyed over the years by federal government support. Now that the government has turned against them, they can stand for freedom and the rule of law, or capitulate to illegal pressure. The choice should be clear.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/dec/14/beware-trumps-two-pronged-strategy-undermining-democracy