Lewis Carroll’s famous Alice in Wonderland says it best about the status of our nation’s constitutional rule of law. Alice observes things have become “curiouser and curiouser,” and so has the political situation in this country. The president of the United States has been allowed to assume the power of an unrestrained authoritarian who governs by issuing numerous decrees labeled “Executive Orders” and which ignore existing laws, constitutional requirements or needed prior legal approval. These executive orders go unchallenged by Congress and are approved by the US Supreme Court. Congress has abandoned its constitutional obligation to enforce the laws it has passed or limit the presidential power as required in the Constitution.

The US Supreme Court has adopted a practice of approving his actions by what critics call  “the shadow docket,” where they issue an “emergency” ruling of approval without any accompanying explanation. In the last ten weeks, the court granted emergency relief to the Trump administration without any explanation seven times.  This procedure of allowing President Trump’s efforts to transform the American government lacks a fundamental characteristic of judicial rulings – an explanation of the court’s rationale.  As President Trump attacks critics by name-calling and punishments, including universities, the media, and anyone else, without restraint. He extracts millions of dollars from major corporations, media outlets, and major law firms for his personal benefit without regard to ethical constraints. He has gutted the governmental offices that are created to monitor governmental actions. He has created the U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), whose actions mimic  Hitler’s feared Gestapo, the German secret police. Masked and armed ICE agents enter homes, workplaces and even courthouses to handcuff and arrest people without warrants of arrest. These people are deported or imprisoned in detention centers without due process of law.

We have seen this assumption of dictatorial power culminating in Trump’s recent decision to simply ignore a law passed by Congress and approved by the Supreme Court involving the video app TikTok. During his first term as president, Trump led the effort to ban TikTok, the hugely popular video-sharing site, because he said it posed a threat to U.S. national security. As President, Trump signed an executive order to ban TikTok unless it was acquired by an American company, alleging the Chinese government was using the video-sharing service to surveil millions of Americans. During the Biden administration, Congress overwhelmingly passed a law imposing the obligation to sell it to an approved buyer within a limited period or see it banned. The law provided that if the owner cannot or refuses to sell TikTok, it would be unlawful for app stores and web hosting companies to distribute or update the app in the United States. The Justice Department could punish any company that works with TikTok or offers its app for download. The law says that companies that violate it can face civil fines up to $5,000 per user. The law was challenged and reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled unanimously to uphold it. The justices determined that the app’s ties to China posed national security risks, outweighing concerns about free speech for TikTok and its 170 million U.S. users.

Recently it was discovered that President Trump had signed an executive order directing the Justice Department not to enforce the law. He directed the Justice Department not to take action or impose penalties for failure to obey the law. In addition, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi has advised tech companies, including Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google, that they will not be sanctioned or punished for not following the law. None of the interventions by Trump or the Attorney General were made public. It only came to light when the New York Times filed a Freedom of Information request for information. The reason for this is unknown, but the law is opposed by a group of wealthy investors in the App.

Legal experts consider Trump’s action to set a significant new precedent about his claim that he or Attorney General Bondi have the power to permit companies to violate a law passed by Congress and approved by the U.S. Supreme Court. Alan Z. Rozenshtein, a University of Minnesota law professor, said: “For a pure refusal to enforce the law as Article II requires, it’s just breathtaking,” referring to the Constitution that says presidents must see that the laws be faithfully executed.

We now have a direct refusal to follow a valid law passed by Congress and approved by the Supreme Court and the claim of power to do so. If allowed to go unchallenged, it is a direct rejection of America’s constitutional rule of law and consent to authoritarian powers in the presidency. Will anything be done about it, or will this be the slippery slope of authoritarian rule in America? Shakespeare wrote about the consequences of ignoring valid laws:

“We must not make a scarecrow of the law,
Setting it up to fear the birds of prey,
And let it keep one shape, till custom make it
Their perch and not their terror.”

Lord Action was right when he wrote: “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.