When our government functions properly, each President is elected because the majority of voters trust his/her leadership and largely agree with his/her policy proposals. When he/she assumes office he/she appoints department and agency heads and senior management who agree with his/her policies and are committed to implementing them. However, the vast majority of government employees (the civil service) hold their jobs because of their nonpartisan competence to execute the regular functions of government. Though elected to implement his/her promised policies, the President heads the government for the benefit of all Americans, not just those who voted for him/her.
Our current President, Donald Trump, has adopted a very different approach. At Charlie Kirk’s memorial service in Arizona on September 21, 2025, President Donald Trump gave a eulogy that stated his approach clearly. Following a speech by Charlie’s widow— Erika Kirk– who said she forgave her husband’s alleged killer and urged love for one’s enemies—Trump said, “That’s where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponent, and I don’t want the best for them. I’m sorry, Erika. Maybe you and the group can convince me otherwise, but I can’t stand my opponent”.
Since returning to office in January 2025, Trump has launched a sweeping campaign to use the federal government against those he perceives as political enemies, fulfilling his campaign promise of “retribution.” His actions have combined formal Justice Department prosecutions with broader administrative, financial, and regulatory retaliation against critics and opponents.
Justice Department Prosecutions
Trump’s Department of Justice (DOJ), led by Attorney General Pam Bondi, has indicted several high-profile critics including former FBI Director James Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and former National Security Adviser John Bolton. Many of these cases were initiated shortly after Trump publicly urged prosecutions on Truth Social or in speeches.
Expansion of Presidential Control
Under a broad interpretation of the “unitary executive” theory, Trump has expanded direct presidential control over previously independent agencies. He dismissed thousands of career employees in agencies such as the IRS and DOJ, replacing them with loyalists, and ordered investigations into opponents across multiple sectors, including education, media, and civil society. His administration’s “Weaponization Working Group” reportedly monitors and investigates state and federal officials who previously investigated or criticized him. Most concerning he has fired all Inspector Generals who monitor the executive’s compliance with the law.
Use of Financial and Regulatory Power
Trump has also leveraged federal contracting and tax policy to punish critics. Liberal law firms, universities, and media outlets that opposed him have been subjected to audits, funding withdrawals, or bans on federal contracts. The IRS—restructured under his direction—has reportedly targeted nonprofit organizations and universities seen as left-leaning, threatening to revoke tax-exempt status for political reasons.
Broader Campaign Against Civil Society
The administration’s actions have extended to immigration and education systems. Activists, international students, and visa-holders accused of criticizing Trump’s policies have faced deportation or visa revocations, according to multiple reports. Tourism and foreign students are important exports. Their reduction is adding to our trade deficit. Federal oversight of university curricula and media licensing has been tightened.
Political and Legal Reactions
Democratic lawmakers like Senator Chris Murphy have called these measures an “authoritarian use of presidential power,” warning that Trump’s systematic punishment of dissenters marks “one of the most dangerous moments America has ever faced”. Foreign governments and legal scholars have echoed fears of democratic backsliding as independent institutions are subordinated to presidential control.
In sum, Trump’s second administration has explicitly weaponized federal agencies to investigate, prosecute, and financially damage those viewed as enemies, blending legal action with bureaucratic pressure in what observers describe as an unprecedented campaign of political retribution. Trump’s spread of hate is intensified by his frequently claimed authority “to do whatever I want as president” based, he claims, on Article II of the US constitution.
Trump’s bullying has not stopped at our borders. He has attacked our friends with tariffs and sanctions losing allies right and left. The American beacon on the hill has sunk to the bully in your face. America’s place in the world is sinking fast. Will the Republicans on the Hill wake up and stop him. The Supreme Court has been a mixed bag.
Warren's space 
Warren,
Mostly accurate (I would say), but you are kind to the Supreme Court to call it a “mixed bag.” They should have kept Trump off the ballot (14th Am, Par 3), they should not have given the President “absolute immunity” — for anything. And it seems they are about to trash what is left of the Voting Rights Act — which could give Republicans up to another dozen House seats in the South. (Then we have all of those one-sentence rejections of carefully drafted lower court rulings.) History’s judgement on Chief Roberts is likely to put him on a tier with Roger Taney. Feel free to use above as a comment. FYI, Here are a few lines about the unitary executive theory from Laurence Tribe’s testimony statement on Alito as a Court nominee in 2006 (taken from pp 5-6). https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Tribe%20Testimony%20011206.pdf “If the theory trumps any and all power in Congress to structure investigations andprosecutions of the Executive Office of the President and the West Wing, then it trumps virtually everything evenwithout the extravagant theory of the OLC Opinion stripping Congress of foreign affairs powers except with respect toU.S. citizens. … “Judge Alito then proceeds to draw a dramatically simplified sketch of the “threetypes of federal governmental power,” asserting that there can be only those three because no others are mentionedand offering an account that, as far as I have been able to determine, has almost no roots either in the history of thefounding or in the immediate post-ratification history or in the more recent history…. “In her landmark study of the phenomenon, Dean ElenaKagan spells out these devices in great detail. Combining the results of her research with those of the research doneby Lessig and Sunstein, which reveals, among other things, that the very notions of “executive” and non-executiveactions were different for the founding generation and that categories like “administration” had altogether meaningsas well, it’s hard not to conclude that the “unitary executive” theory is a gerry-rigged contraption cooked up withstraightedge and scissors by people who had read the Constitution’s text and certain canonical Fedderalist Papersbut little else on the subject. That would certainly account for the repetitive use of the same few sources and phrases,such as Justice Scalia’s statement that the clause vesting “the executive Power . . . in a President of the UnitedStates” “does not mean some of the executive power, but all of the executive power,” 487 U.S. at 654 (dissentingopinion), and Judge Alito’s statement to the Federalist Society in November 2000 that “the Pfresident has not justsome executive power, but the executive power — the whole thing.” There follow the same (often patently fallacious)textual and structural arguments, the same failure to confront linguistic anomalies created by the theory, and thesame invocation of the functional arguments about “energy,” “accountability,” and a reduction in “dissention,” many ofwhich actually address the framers’ choice to have a singular rather than a plural presidency and not any questionabout congressional power under the Necessary and Proper Clause to structure the lines of authority within thebureaucracy or any question about the breadth of executive authority to act in the absence of statute in wartime or ofexecutive authority to act in the face of statutory prohibition in wartime.” *** On a different topic, here is a link to my review of Sekerke and Hanke’s Making Money Work in last week’s ABA Banking Journal. (A longer version will appear in an academic journal.) A new way to think about the creation of money
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ABA Banking Journal Guest Contributor
By Clark Johnson Review: Matt Sekerke and Steve H. Hanke, Making Money Work: How to Rewrite the Rules of Our |
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Clark