Nearly one month into Donald Trump’s second term, the courts, the Congress, and the American people are facing the denouement of our democracy’s power. Each will have to decide to either enforce the Constitution or succumb, as Germany did, to dictatorship. The president has faced several court rulings that question whether his actions and policies are consistent with the Constitution of the United States that he swore to defend and uphold. The question now is, will he be prudent and begin to follow court orders, will Congress act, or must the American people shut the country down?
One court has ruled that he defied the Constitution’s 14th Amendment that defines citizenship and two other courts – so far – have put on hold his freeze on congressionally-authorized spending, his attempt to usurp the Article 1, power of the purse, rights of Congress. Here we see an ongoing parallel with how Hitler chose to govern, a parallel that must inevitably lead to a denouement in which we will learn whether Trump’s America goes the way of continued democracy or the hellish way of Hitler’s Germany.
