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authoritarianism
Trump Critics Fear 'Presidency Without Limits' as Supreme Court Hears Tariffs Case
One critic warned a Trump win “will cement a precedent that expands his power as executive in a dangerous and unprecedented way.”
Nov 05, 2025
As the US Supreme Court on Wednesday began hearing arguments on the sweeping powers claimed by President Donald Trump to impose tariffs on foreign goods, many critics warned that the court would create a "presidency without limits" if it ruled in his favor.
In April, Trump unveiled unprecedented tariffs on nearly every nation in the world using powers granted under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a law passed in 1977 that allows the president to regulate international commerce during major emergencies such as wars.
Many Trump critics believe that using this law as the legal foundation of a global tariff regime is a gross abuse of the law's original intent, and are urging the Supreme Court to shut it down.
Brett Edkins, managing director of policy and political affairs at Stand Up America, warned that granting the president this level of authority over the taxation of imported goods would "open the door to broader abuses of power" by emboldening Trump to usurp even more authority from the US Congress.
“We’re already dangerously close to a presidency without limits," he said. "It’s time for the right-wing majority on the court to stand up for our Constitution and serve as a check on Trump’s power, starting with this case."
Josh Orton, president of progressive legal advocacy organization Demand Justice, also said that the tariff case before the Supreme Court "is about far more than an economic debate or a trade-law dispute," given its implications for the separation of powers laid out in the US Constitution.
"Trump is demanding that the court hand him raw power over the economy," said Orton. "If Trump wins here, he won’t just raise costs on American families. He will cement a precedent that expands his power as executive in a dangerous and unprecedented way—letting any president unilaterally rewrite trade law, punish certain industries, harm consumers, or leverage international allies for personal gain."
Leor Tal, campaign director at the progressive advocacy coalition Unrig Our Economy, argued that the Supreme Court wouldn't even need to hear the case on the Trump tariffs if Congress reasserted its authority given under the US Constitution to levy taxes.
“As the Supreme Court hears a case with implications for whether Americans can afford groceries, school supplies, and more, people will remember that Republicans in Congress could end these disastrous tariffs today and should have done so a long time ago," she said. “These tariffs are nothing more than a tax on working Americans, and Republicans in Congress have voted time and again to keep them in place... Republicans in Congress must act immediately to repeal Trump’s tariffs and finally put working people first."
During Wednesday's hearing on the tariffs case, conservative Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch raised concerns about allowing the president to usurp congressional powers in perpetuity by issuing emergency declarations that Congress must then vote to revoke before it can resume its duties outlined in Article I of the US Constitution.
"So Congress, as a practical matter, can't get this power back once it's handed it over to the president," Gorsuch remarked. "It's a one-way ratchet toward the gradual but continual accretion of power in the executive branch and away from the people's elected representatives."
Sauer tried to counter this by pointing to former President Joe Biden agreeing in 2023 to sign bipartisan legislation ending the national health emergency caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Gorsuch, however, countered that this only occurred with the president's consent, and that it would otherwise take a supermajority to end a declared emergency if the president elected to veto the congressional resolution.
Gorsuch: So congress as a practical matter, can't get this power back once it's handed it over to the president.. one way ratchet toward the gradual but continual accretion of power in the executive branch and away from the people's elected representatives. pic.twitter.com/secLyWMX7H
— Acyn (@Acyn) November 5, 2025
Justice Sonia Sotomayor also grilled Sauer on concerns about separation of powers, and she noted that the Constitution explicitly delegates taxation powers to Congress.
"It's a congressional power, not a presidential power, to tax," she said. "You want to say tariffs are not taxes, but that's exactly what they are. They're generating money from American citizens, revenue."
Justice Sotomayor asks about tariffs being a kind of tax on Americans and compares President Trump's emergency tariff Executive Orders to President Biden's student loan forgiveness policy and a hypothetical climate emergency. pic.twitter.com/nD0MYgVjv3
— CSPAN (@cspan) November 5, 2025
Ahead of the Supreme Court hearing this week, Trump posted a frantic message on his Truth Social platform warning justices that his power to unilaterally impose tariffs was a matter of "life or death" for the United States.
""With a Victory, we have tremendous, but fair, financial and national security," he claimed. "Without it, we are virtually defenseless against other countries who have, for years, taken advantage of us."
Meanwhile, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said on social media Wednesday that "Trump’s tariffs are sending small businesses to an early grave."
"Trade authority begins and ends with Congress," the senator added. "I’ll keep battling to rein in Trump’s tariff madness and protect small businesses, farmers, and families."
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How Cheney's Destructive War on Terror Became Trump's Authoritarian War on Truth
In seeking to defend democracy at all costs, Dick Cheney helped build the machinery that would one day dismantle it. His war on terror became our war on truth, and the nation has yet to recover.
Nov 05, 2025
When Richard Cheney died, it marked more than the end of a political life. It marked the closing of an American chapter, one that began in the smoke of the Twin Towers and stretches to the chaos of today. Between those two moments lies the tragedy of Cheney’s legacy: a man who claimed to defend democracy while systematically undermining its moral foundations.
Cheney was not a showman or a populist firebrand. He was austere, secretive, and precise—a master of bureaucratic power. Yet few figures in modern history have reshaped the nation’s moral and legal architecture as thoroughly. In his determination to protect Americans, he normalized fear. In his effort to preserve liberty, he institutionalized its violation.
After September 11, Cheney became the chief engineer of America’s “War on Terror.” Torture was rebranded as “enhanced interrogation,” mass surveillance legalized under the Patriot Act, and the rule of law quietly rewritten in the name of necessity. Drone strikes, secret prisons, preemptive war — all were justified as temporary measures to secure the homeland. But what began as emergency measures became permanent instruments of power.
Donald Trump did not create this destructive architecture of control; he inherited it.
What began in black sites abroad found its echo in cages at the southern border and in the assault on democratic norms at home.
Cheney and Trump despised one another, one a cold technocrat, the other a performative populist, but their philosophies were aligned in principle. Both believed the ends justify the means. Both treated human dignity as negotiable. Cheney authorized torture to protect Americans from terror. Trump uses that logic to justify cruelty against immigrants, journalists, and political opponents. The moral exception Cheney carved for national security became Trump’s template for political dominance.
The irony is brutal. The man who professed to honor institutions helped birth a movement that scorns them. The leader who claimed to defend freedom helped create conditions for its dismantling. Cheney’s “war on terror” became Trump’s “war on truth.” What began in black sites abroad found its echo in cages at the southern border and in the assault on democratic norms at home.
Cheney was not a cynic; he was a believer. That is what makes his legacy tragic. He genuinely thought America could preserve its dignity while denying it to others. He mistook pragmatism for wisdom and necessity for virtue. In doing so, he opened a door that democracy has not yet closed.
Two decades on, the consequences are visible everywhere: in the surveillance economy, in militarized policing, in the normalization of fear, and in political leaders who wield cruelty as strategy. Cheney gave America the vocabulary of exception. Trump turned it into the language of rule.
The tragedy is not Cheney’s alone, it is ours. By allowing the moral compromises of the past to stand unchallenged, we learned to live with a democracy that operates on exceptions, a freedom bounded by checkpoints, and a conscience dulled by fear.
If America is to escape the shadow of Cheney’s legacy, and prevent its lessons from being exploited againit, must reclaim what both men forgot: the true strength of democracy lies not in its power to destroy its enemies, but in its refusal to become them.
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Stormtroopers in Suburbia
Chicago is hundreds of miles from Canada and 1,500 miles from Mexico, but US Customs and Border Patrol turned my peaceful suburb upside down on Halloween.
Nov 04, 2025
It can’t happen here.
I live in a quiet, affluent suburb just north of Chicago. Our house is on a brick street, surrounded by well-maintained homes with manicured lawns.
On Halloween day, leaves from 100-year-old oak and maple trees were turning yellow, amber, red, and orange. Landscapers with lawnmowers, leaf blowers, and rakes had begun annual fall cleanups. The setting resembled a Normal Rockwell painting.
As an attorney, I’m trained to make distinctions. A legal precedent that otherwise seems problematic can become irrelevant if the advocate can persuade the court to distinguish it. “The facts of that case are distinguishable from this one, your Honor” is every litigator’s rhetorical tool.
But that skill is fraught with dangerous traps. Distinctions in the service of selective perception and confirmation bias can facilitate complacency.
It Can’t Happen Here
I’ve followed President Donald Trump’s deployment of the military on America’s streets. I watched the Los Angeles mobilization. The chaos and violence was and is disturbing, to say the least. But California is distinguishable from Chicago. For starters, it’s 2,000 miles away.
That can’t happen here.
When Trump sent troops into Washington, DC, that was distinguishable too. DC is a special situation where the federal government has unique powers.
Portland? Again, it’s thousands of miles away.
That can’t happen here. Besides, I had faith that the courts would keep Trump’s troops from running amok.
It Can Happen Here
Before Trump moved his fight to Chicago, he posted ominously: “I love the smell of deportations in the morning… Chicago is about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR.”
He wasn’t kidding. Three weeks later, a Black Hawk helicopter circled overhead as hundreds of armed officers raided an apartment building below. The assault occurred about 25 miles from my home. But the South Shore area is a world away from my north suburban life.
That can’t happen here.
It Did Happen Here
Chicago is hundreds of miles from Canada and 1,500 miles from Mexico, but US Customs and Border Protection (CBP, or Border Patrol) turned my peaceful suburb upside down on Halloween.
Clear, sunny skies and a temperature in the mid-50s were perfect for the season. Soon the youngest trick-or-treaters, dressed in costumes that they had carefully selected or made, would emerge from elementary schools and descend on the neighborhood. Parents escorting their kids past spooky lawn displays would remain on the sidewalk as their children summoned the courage to ring the bell or knock on the door and say, “Trick or treat!”
But this Halloween, Nextdoor—a community engagement and communication site that usually includes information on gas leaks, water main breaks, traffic jams, and lost pets—had two disturbing videos of events a few blocks from my home.
The first victim was Hispanic—a 30-something delivery driver for Target. A resident with a smartphone started filming as she came upon the scene. Parked at the curb was the driver’s old maroon minivan. In the middle of the street alongside the van was a grey Chevrolet Tahoe with California license plates. The delivery driver’s doors and rear of the van were open, revealing his yet-to-be delivered packages.
For what’s now happening on the streets of America, the 21st-century adaptation should be: “If you see something, pull out your smartphone and film it. Then post it—everywhere you can.”
Two soldiers in military fatigues with CBP patches on their sleeves stood next to him. A third soldier who had been behind the wheel of the Tahoe joined the scene as the resident stopped her car to continue filming. The men were equipped for battle: masks covering everything but their eyes, helmets, body armor, and holstered sidearms. The driver provided some sort of identification card and waited nervously while one of the soldiers analyzed it.
“Are you ICE?’ the resident asked.
“Border Patrol, ma’am,” one of the soldiers answered.
“How do you sleep at night?”
“Great,” he answered as one of his colleagues nodded vigorously. “Just doin’ our job, ma’am.”
“Why are you here?” she inquired.
“We’re everywhere, ma’am.”
A few minutes later, one of the soldiers returned the driver’s identification card to him and shook his hand, saying, “Here you go, man. You’re all set, man.”
As the second soldier shook the driver’s hand, the first soldier turned to the camera and said, “Did you get that ma’am?”
He thought that he somehow deserved praise for the manner in which he had forcibly interrupted a citizen’s delivery route for no reason other than the color of the man’s skin and the sorry state of his van.
The two soldiers returned to their cars. As they drove away, the delivery driver turned to the camera, smiled, and said, “Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it.”
He was one of the lucky ones. The government doesn’t track the number of US citizens it has held in detention facilities. So Pro Publica investigated and found that Immigration agents have held more than 170 American citizens, including nearly 20 children: “They’ve been kicked, dragged, and detained for days.”
The victim of the second Halloween episode in my suburb wasn’t as fortunate as the Target delivery driver. A resident’s video of that encounter showed a landscaper running down the street as three soldiers chased him. The video didn’t reveal what happened next.
Nextdoor videos and the Chicago Tribune documented other Halloween arrests in the nearby suburb of Evanston. In one videotaped incident, three soldiers detained two landscapers. A third landscaper was released after insisting that he was an American citizen—but only after they put him in handcuffs.
A witness who recorded a different incident in Evanston said, “They had yanked his shoes off, they were shoving him on the ground multiple times. It got to the level where they punched him. They kicked him. They slammed his head on the ground.” A video seemed to corroborate that account.
When It Becomes Personal, It Becomes Real
As word of the Border Patrol’s activities spread throughout the community, schools implemented a “soft” lockdown—closed campus, no outdoor recess, all Halloween festivities moved inside. The community had to protect innocent children from the trauma that its own government was inflicting on all of us.
Trump branded his Chicago deportation surge “Operation Midway Blitz.” It’s apt. “Blitz” is not only a football term, but also shorthand for Hitler’s early surprise attacks on neighboring countries at the start of World War II. Trump is “blitzing” his own country—and ours.
What can one person do? After 9/11, the ubiquitous catchphrase was: “If you see something, say something.”
For what’s now happening on the streets of America, the 21st-century adaptation should be: “If you see something, pull out your smartphone and film it. Then post it—everywhere you can.”
Observing an experiment changes it. The CBP soldiers who detained the Target delivery driver knew they were being filmed. So did the guys who handcuffed a landscaper before eventually letting him go. Perhaps those outcomes would have been the same without the scrutiny of a camera, but with more than 170 “mistaken” federal abductions, there’s no way to know for sure.
There are no longer any meaningful distinctions.
It can happen here. It is happening now. It’s happening to US citizens. And if it can happen in my peaceful suburb, it can happen where you live too.
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