One of the most essential underpinnings of a democracy is the rule of law that everyone, from highest to lowest, must abide by. We all know that isn’t perfect, that a kid of colour is more likely to go to jail for the possession of a little marijuana than a celebrity is, that robbing a corner store is likely to get a harsher penalty than robbing hundreds of people of millions of dollars in a failed ponzi scheme. But the accepted idea is that no one is above the law in a democracy, the elected leaders included. The very concept of a democracy includes “all equal under the law”.
The US Supreme Court eroded that underpinning of American democracy in 2024 when they ruled that a US president could not be charged with crimes related to his or her office while in office or once out of office, in perpetuity. This opened the door for Trump, already indicted for crimes during his first term in office, to get off scot free, which he did. But even more alarmingly, it opened the door for him to do whatever he liked in his second term, knowing that he was, quite literally, now above the law. That ruling deliberately opened the door to a dictatorship under a leader who chose to apply that new ruling to exempt himself of any control by law.
The question has been, up until now, will Trump take that opportunity to start to rule outside the bounds of the courts, of American law, and of the American Constitution? The answer, as of yesterday, is in the affirmative. Trump is now in breach of court orders and shows no sign that this will be the only time he ignores the courts to do whatever he wants. He has already twisted the Constitution to suit himself and he has repeatedly ignored the constitutional role of the once independent Department of Justice to mitigate the excesses of any one leader, instead suborning it to his complete control. So he has been on this path for the last two months, but yesterday, barely two months since his inauguration, he crossed the final line between president of a democracy to dictator in a dictatorship.
In other words, the great American democratic experiment is over. However much we might want to prevaricate, knowing that Trump has deliberately refused to obey the courts, has deliberately done exactly what he wanted to do despite being explicitly forbidden to by the courts means that American democracy is dead. The USA is now simply another failed experiment that has ended, like so many, in a dictatorship.
Up until today, Trump came dangerously close to destroying the last tattered remnants of American democracy when he repeatedly delayed obeying court injunctions to reverse his defunding of USAid, amongst other things. His delays sent up red flags to anyone paying attention. However, no one was sure if he was simply delaying or refusing to obey the injunctions. American presidents, like their counterparts in many democracies, occasionally play for time with such delays. So what has tipped the nation from a democracy to a dictatorship? Such a simple thing, such a ‘minor’ thing except to the handful of people affected. Why declare his dictatorship openly over such a minor issue?
Part of the reason is that this ‘minor issue’ fully displays the ruthless but petty cruelty we can expect from the new regime in Washington. For yesterday, against multiple court orders, Trump had all trans women in prison transferred to men’s prisons. It affects about 20 women in all, unlike so many of Trump’s edicts which have affected hundreds or even thousands. Thus it would have been so simple for him to step away from this edict. Instead he chose this issue to step over the line, perhaps hoping that being such a ‘minor’ issue affecting so few people, his critics would not notice until he had finished consolidating his power. And unless there is a huge and immediate uprising of the American people against what he has just quietly done, he will be able to finish consolidating his power in short order.
Trump’s decision to deliberately defy the court rulings against moving the trans women prisoners to male prisons is the final nail in the coffin of American democracy. Trump’s takeover of the American government as dictator is complete. The rule of law is over in the US. Oh, he might obey some court injunctions if it suits him, but in defying the courts yesterday, he made it clear that he considers himself completely outside the law. That is the role only dictators take. However you try to argue it away, the US is now in the hands of a ruthless, lawless dictator. That makes the US an autocracy or, more accurately, a dictatorship. But language minutiae aside, American democracy was shattered yesterday. It is dead. Long live the king!
(8 March, 2025)
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