Keep the guardrails intact

Trump is already challenging democratic norms. It’s up to us to maintain them.

All eyes are riveted on Donald Trump’s motley appointments to top jobs. His appointments so far range from garish (a Fox & Friends host for secretary of defense) to appalling (Matt Gaetz for attorney general??!!!).

Keep a watch not on the spectacle but on the growing threats to the rule of law. How will a man who ran vowing to be a “dictator” on “day one” test the Constitution’s constraints? This weekend, he made a demand that would not test those guardrails but crash through them.

Under the Constitution, the Senate must confirm cabinet secretaries. Trump now insists that lawmakers should let him name his cabinet as “recess appointments” without a vote, a move that would require the Senate to adjourn for long periods of time.

In the National Review, conservative Ed Whelan called this “a terrible anti-constitutional scheme.” Alexander Hamilton in the Federalist had explained why: Without these basic checks and balances, presidents will choose officials from those “possessing the necessary insignificance and pliancy to render them the obsequious instruments of his pleasure.”

Presidents of both parties have long chafed at Senate obstruction. But the Supreme Court unanimously curbed the power to make recess appointments in 2014. If the Senate goes along with Trump’s demand, it will be the first loud sound of the Constitution ripping.

In fact, the story of this time will be written not just in Trump’s actions but how all of us respond.

Trump has vowed the biggest mass deportation in history, what he enthused would be a “bloody story.” This goes well beyond tightening the border, addressing the overwhelmed asylum system, or other goals with broad public support. Trump plans to rely on largely untested federal laws that give chief executives great power — the Insurrection Act, the National Emergencies Act, and even the remaining part of the notorious Alien and Sedition Acts from 1798, last used to detain Japanese nationals during World War II.

But that will not be the end of the story. Congress may be supine, but governors and mayors can make it much harder for Trump to use military force to grab and detain millions of immigrants. Public opinion can mobilize. And the courts have a duty to curb unlawful abuse of power. Will they?

It is at times like these when some of the most creative and important policy and political innovations emerge. This will be a period of ferment on the center and left. This is the kind of moment when new ideas, new groups, new leaders, and new strategies emerge. We can think anew.

In the end, what will count is not just what we are against, but what we are for. There is an urgent need to craft a modern, compelling agenda for reform and change. Believe it or not, Trump ran a policy-heavy campaign. Mass deportation, across-the-board tariffs . . . these were ideas, like them or not. Kamala Harris had policy ideas of her own — including her support for Supreme Court term limits, the Freedom to Vote Act, and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act — but more was clearly needed to convince voters.

Democrats controlled at least part of one branch of the federal government for all but two years since 2006, a circumstance that constrained imaginations and policy ambitions. Initiative often came from those in power rather than those outside government. Well, freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.

Reformers must aim to understand the country and its values, to escape our own bubbles. We need to shake off our own biases. We must redouble our efforts to make common cause with allies across the ideological and political spectrum. Voters plainly want action: This was a “change” election, as nearly every national contest has been since the financial crash in 2008. Progress will come not by some lurch to the left that mirrors MAGA extremism. Rather, we should have faith that there is a vital center committed to core civic values but eager for new thinking and action. No placebo policies.

That is at the heart of the Brennan Center’s mission. We crafted the proposals for automatic voter registration, redistricting reform, and small donor public financing that are central to the Freedom to Vote Act. We champion Supreme Court term limits to ensure that no one has too much power for too long. What other ideas are being incubated today that will fuel the reform campaigns of tomorrow? What, in other words, comes after Trump?

I’m particularly fond of a quote from the great architect Daniel Burnham. “Make no little plans,” he said. “They have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably will not themselves be realized.” Resistance is not enough. Bold ideas, rooted in the core civic values of freedom, opportunity, and democracy, have always been how this country renews itself after trauma and setbacks. It can again — a mobilization for the Constitution that starts now.

IMAGE: Mark Wilson/Getty