Donald Trump Ignores the Fundamental Principles of the US Constitution

If the presidency of the United States were a reality show like the one that made Trump famous, and if civic education were the topic of the “game” today, the presenter would utter those five fateful words: “Mr. Trump, you are FIRED!”

The profound significance of the judgment issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals is not in freezing the immigration ban on people with legal visas coming from seven countries chosen by the president. The executive order signed by Trump is approximate, generic and irrational, the work of a dilettante. However, a new edition of the executive order has been revised and corrected by advisers better prepared than his daughter Ivanka’s husband and the Rasputin of the extreme right, Steve Bannon, who both influence and indulge Trump. According to lawyers like professor Alan Dershowitz, who is certainly not a Trumpist, the revised executive order could have a chance of passing judicial scrutiny.

The unhealthy heart at the center of the decrees poorly fired out by the president is found in the word used by one of his lawyers in order to give the White House’s “ukase” a tone of irreversibility: “unreviewable.”* To put it plainly, Trump’s representatives have claimed that this head of state and government is not subject to judicial review or revision.

Hence, as it was with Nixon in the 1970s and Clinton in the 1990s, in rejecting this argument, the courts have reminded Trump of what all those who have had to take the test for citizenship well know: that the government of the United States consists of three distinct, equal powers: the executive branch, the legislative branch and judicial branch. And any attempt to assert the supremacy of one over the other will collide inexorably against the Constitution.

Asking to be exempt from review and from any audit by the courts, and thereby asserting his unassailable primacy, Trump has made a mistake that would have prevented him from passing the exam that immigration officers carry out, in addition to the exam that a middle school class takes: he has ignored the fundamental principle of the Constitution. And if he is obstinate enough to govern by firing off decrees, like an Eastern satrap, like Bashar Assad, or Kim Jong Un, in order to please the minority of Americans who voted for him, he will edge perilously close to a minefield of possible crime and impeachment.**

Responding with rounds of tweets, even in capital letters, will not help Trump escape the constitutional trap he is sliding into through vanity and lack of preparation. The Court of Appeals has simply reminded him that he was elected to be president, not emperor, and that the United States is not one of his (failed) casinos or a reality show.

*Editor’s note: The term “ukase” refers to an imperial order or decree issued in czarist Russia, having the force of law.

**Translator’s note: Satrap is defined as an especially despotic ruler, subordinate official or a petty tyrant. The author is alluding to the idea that Trump sees himself as an emperor rather than a president.