Unchecked ...

Illustration by Paul Spella. Source: Douglas Sacha / Getty.

The supremes have been doing it for years, creating a de facto king instead of a president, something the Founding Fathers understood better than most as Noblesse Oblige ruled in Europe without restriction. Now we have a problem as the worst SC in history has flat backed to the extreme in the creation of something truly frightening to behold, a king in the making and ... we did it to ourselves.

In the normal course of history, the president of the United States is a figure who inspires optimism in the American people. The 47th president prefers to stir feelings of fear, vulnerability, hopelessness, and political inevitability—the sense that he, and only he, can rescue the nation from looming peril. Since his second inauguration, Donald Trump has seized authoritarian control over the federal government and demanded the obedience of the other powerful institutions of American society—universities, law firms, media companies. The question weighing heavily on the minds of many Americans is whether Trump will subvert next year’s midterm elections or the 2028 presidential election to extend his reign.

With his every word and deed, Trump has given Americans reason to believe that he will seek a third term, in defiance of the Constitution. It seems abundantly clear that he will hold on to the office at any cost, including America’s ruin.

The Founders of our nation foresaw a figure like Trump, a demagogue who would ascend to the presidency and refuse to relinquish power to a successor chosen by the American people in a free and fair election. Writing to James Madison from Paris in 1787, Thomas Jefferson warned that such an incumbent, if narrowly defeated, would “pretend false votes, foul play, hold possession of the reins of government.” Were that moment ever to come, the Founders believed, it would mark the demise of the nation that they had conceived, bringing to a calamitous end the greatest experiment in self-government ever attempted by man.

1816 portrait

Why Madison mattered ...

During the first Congress, Madison took the lead in advocating for several constitutional amendments to the Bill of Rights.[103] His primary goals were to fulfill his 1789 campaign pledge and to prevent the calling of a second constitutional convention, but he also hoped to safeguard the rights and liberties of the people against broad actions of Congress and individual states. He believed that the enumeration of specific rights would fix those rights in the public mind and encourage judges to protect them.[104][105] After studying more than two hundred amendments that had been proposed at the state ratifying conventions,[106] Madison introduced the Bill of Rights on June 8, 1789. His amendments contained numerous restrictions on the federal government and would protect, among other things, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and the right to peaceful assembly.[107] While most of his proposed amendments were drawn from the ratifying conventions, Madison was largely responsible for proposals to guarantee freedom of the press, protect property from government seizure, and ensure jury trials.[106] He also proposed an amendment to prevent states from abridging "equal rights of conscience, or freedom of the press, or the trial by jury in criminal cases".[108]

To prevent a permanent standing federal army, Madison proposed the Second Amendment, which gave state-regulated militia groups and private citizens, the "right to bear arms". Madison and the Republicans desired a free government to be established by the consent of the governed, rather than by national military force.[109]

This all started with Nixon, the Unitary Presidency and Vietnam, a "war" based on a lie. 

Richard Nixon is associated with the unitary executive theory through his actions that pushed the boundaries of presidential power, which scholars would later label as having "unitary" characteristics. While Nixon's administration began with an initial plan to let cabinet members have more independence, his actions, particularly regarding the Watergate scandal and his attempts to cover it up, demonstrated a strong belief in and use of presidential control over the executive branch.

Official Portrait 1972