The challenges go beyond just ‘wokeness.’ Identity politics has corroded merit-based institutions, diversity mandates override individual rights, and bureaucracies have expanded their control over daily life. But at a deeper level the problem is institutional – a system of government that has drifted far from its constitutional foundations.
Trump promised to fix all of it. His administration has already moved to eliminate diversity programmes throughout the federal government. He has ordered an end to gender ideology in government documents. His new Department of Government Efficiency, led by Elon Musk, aims to slash regulations and shrink the administrative state.
These actions delight those who see the need for fundamental reform. Trump appears to be the champion they have waited for. Someone willing to take on both progressive orthodoxy and bureaucratic overreach.
But Trump’s recent post on social media should trouble every defender of liberty and limited government. “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law,” the President declared on Truth Social on 15 February and moments later on X. So pleased was the President with his tweet that he pinned it at the top of his profile.
Many of his supporters likely saw this as typical Trump rhetoric – provocative but ultimately harmless. The line echoes Napoleon Bonaparte, the French emperor whose pursuit of absolute power ended constitutional government in France. Like Trump, Napoleon justified his actions as necessary to save the nation.
But Trump’s declaration reflects an even darker strain of political thought. His claim that saving the country puts a leader above the law mirrors the arguments of Carl Schmitt, an influential constitutional theorist whose work provided the intellectual framework for authoritarian rule.
Writing in the 1920s and 1930s, Schmitt argued that true sovereignty means deciding when to ignore the law. His theory held that in times of emergency, a nation’s leader could – and should - set aside constitutional constraints. The sovereign is “he who decides on the exception.”
This was not mere academic theory. It provided the intellectual framework for dismantling German democracy in the 1930s. Now, ninety years later, Trump’s words and actions suggest he is following the same playbook.
Within weeks of taking office, Trump has issued more than fifty executive orders. Many push far beyond normal presidential authority, revealing a pattern of rule by decree rather than constitutional governance.
The administration’s aggressive use of emergency powers reveals its authoritarian tendencies. Trump has declared emergencies to justify a 25 percent tariff on Canadian and Mexican imports, citing a fentanyl crisis. He has proclaimed an energy emergency to expedite fossil fuel projects while halting renewable energy development. At the southern border, he has declared another emergency to suspend asylum rights guaranteed by federal law.
But perhaps most troubling are the orders that directly challenge constitutional principles. One declares that children born on American soil to undocumented immigrants are not citizens, attempting to rewrite the 14th Amendment by executive decree. Another claims unilateral authority to freeze billions in congressionally appropriated funds, including money for Medicaid and other essential programmes – a direct assault on Congress’s power. Each of these actions strikes at fundamental constitutional principles.
The judiciary’s response has been swift and forceful. Federal judges across multiple jurisdictions have issued sweeping injunctions against Trump’s most egregious executive orders, blocking his attempt to strip birthright citizenship and suspend asylum rights.
One court condemned the birthright citizenship order as a brazen violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, making clear that no president can erase constitutional rights by decree. Another ruled that Trump’s asylum ban “flouts the explicit language of the statute,” emphasising that executive power does not override laws passed by Congress. In a sharp rebuke to the administration’s overreach, a judge halted DOGE’s effort to access federal payment systems, warning that its interference threatened to destabilise critical government operations.
Yet these judicial rebukes have only hardened the administration’s stance. Vice President JD Vance openly questions judicial authority. “If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal. If a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that’s also illegal,” Vance wrote on social media. “Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.”
Vance's statement reveals a fundamental attack on constitutional government. If a president can decide which laws to follow and which court rulings to obey, America no longer has the rule of law. It has the rule of one man.
Trump’s vindictive purge of January 6 investigators exposes the corrupting authoritarianism at the heart of his presidency. Within weeks of taking office, his administration fired dozens of Justice Department prosecutors who worked on Capitol riot cases, justifying it as a response to ‘political weaponization’ at the DOJ. The FBI faced a similar purge, with senior executives dismissed and agents demoted—often for no reason other than their role in investigating the insurrection.
The administration’s approach is crude but effective: punish perceived betrayal and reward loyalty. Trump’s acting deputy attorney general – one of his former defence lawyers – even ordered the FBI to compile a list of all personnel who worked on Capitol riot cases. This witch hunt could target thousands of officials who simply did their jobs investigating the attack on Congress.
Trump has gone further, stripping Secret Service protection from former officials who crossed him. John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, and Brian Hook – who had received extended protection under Biden due to active Iranian assassination threats – lost their security details almost immediately upon Trump’s return. Despite intelligence warnings that these threats remained active, Trump dismissed concerns, remarking, “There are risks to everything.”
This systematic revenge against law enforcement, oversight officials and critics follows a chillingly familiar script. They mark the slow erosion of constitutional democracy—an unravelling that, if unchecked, will be difficult to reverse.
Would-be autocrats rarely declare themselves dictators overnight. Instead, they gradually accumulate power by declaring emergencies, dismissing institutional checks as illegitimate, and replacing professional bureaucracies with personal loyalists.
Some conservatives argue that extraordinary measures are needed to combat woke ideology and administrative overreach. They see Trump’s methods as crude but necessary - the only way to defeat entrenched progressive power in universities, corporations, and government bureaucracies.
However broken America’s democracy has become, the answer is not to break it further. Trump does not defend the Constitution – he tramples it. He does not restore order – he thrives on chaos. He does not challenge authoritarianism – he embodies it. A movement that claims to stand for liberty cannot rally behind a man who would discard it the moment it obstructs his will. Conservatives are right to defend America’s values and institutions. But they should not let that battle blind them to the far greater danger Trump represents.
Trump’s assault on constitutional constraints threatens democracy itself. Once leaders successfully claim the power to override courts and ignore laws, that power rarely returns to the people or their institutions. Every authoritarian regime in modern history has begun with a leader declaring emergencies, dismissing institutional checks as illegitimate, and gradually gathering absolute power.
The Supreme Court has no army to enforce its decisions. It relies on the executive branch - and ultimately the President – to respect its authority. If Trump refuses, the court’s power becomes merely advisory. With Republicans controlling Congress and showing no appetite for impeachment, the judiciary stands as the last institutional barrier to unrestrained presidential power.
The current moment echoes past crises of constitutional democracy. German conservatives in the 1930s thought they could use Hitler to achieve their policy goals while controlling his worst impulses. In 1920s Italy, business leaders and traditional conservatives backed Mussolini as a counterweight to the left. In both cases, they discovered too late that authoritarian power, once unleashed, consumes its enablers along with its opponents.
This pattern has repeated throughout modern history. In Argentina, conservatives supported Juan Perón’s rise to power, seeing him as a bulwark against communism. In Venezuela, business leaders initially backed Hugo Chávez as an alternative to corrupt traditional parties. In each case, the authoritarian leader gradually accumulated power until no institution could check their will.
The tools are remarkably consistent: declare emergencies, dismiss courts as illegitimate, replace professional bureaucrats with loyalists, and claim the right to ignore laws in service of saving the nation. Trump’s actions and rhetoric now follow this template with disturbing precision.
The United States now approaches a similar crossroads. Trump’s administration has quickly moved beyond normal policy disputes into the realm of constitutional crisis. His claim of authority to override courts, ignore Congress, and rule by decree presents Americans with a stark choice: They can defend their constitutional system, with all its frustrating checks and balances, or they can embrace an authoritarian leader who promises to impose their preferred policies by force.
The former path preserves liberty, even when policies disappoint. The latter leads, inevitably, to tyranny. Those who think Trump’s authoritarianism serves conservative ends should remember that power, once unleashed, outlives its wielder. The precedent Trump seeks to set would be available to every future President – including those with very different ideological aims.
America’s founders created a system of checks and balances precisely to prevent the concentration of power they had fled in Europe. They knew that liberty depends not on the character of individual leaders, but on binding all leaders within constitutional constraints.
That system now faces its greatest test since the Civil War. The question is whether enough Americans – particularly those who share Trump’s concerns about bureaucratic overreach and institutional decline – will choose to defend America’s constitutional democracy. History suggests that once a democracy surrenders its constitutional principles for temporary political advantage, there is rarely a path back.
For conservatives who cherish limited government and the rule of law, the choice should be clear. The institutions of American democracy may need reform, even dramatic reform. But destroying the constitutional order that protects American freedom is not reform – it is revolution. If conservatives support Trump’s authoritarian turn, they may find they have helped create precisely the kind of unlimited state power they have always opposed.
Roger Partridge is chairman and a co-founder of The New Zealand Initiative and is a senior member of its research team. He led law firm Bell Gully as executive chairman from 2007 to 2014. This article was first published HERE
Trump promised to fix all of it. His administration has already moved to eliminate diversity programmes throughout the federal government. He has ordered an end to gender ideology in government documents. His new Department of Government Efficiency, led by Elon Musk, aims to slash regulations and shrink the administrative state.
These actions delight those who see the need for fundamental reform. Trump appears to be the champion they have waited for. Someone willing to take on both progressive orthodoxy and bureaucratic overreach.
But Trump’s recent post on social media should trouble every defender of liberty and limited government. “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law,” the President declared on Truth Social on 15 February and moments later on X. So pleased was the President with his tweet that he pinned it at the top of his profile.
Many of his supporters likely saw this as typical Trump rhetoric – provocative but ultimately harmless. The line echoes Napoleon Bonaparte, the French emperor whose pursuit of absolute power ended constitutional government in France. Like Trump, Napoleon justified his actions as necessary to save the nation.
But Trump’s declaration reflects an even darker strain of political thought. His claim that saving the country puts a leader above the law mirrors the arguments of Carl Schmitt, an influential constitutional theorist whose work provided the intellectual framework for authoritarian rule.
Writing in the 1920s and 1930s, Schmitt argued that true sovereignty means deciding when to ignore the law. His theory held that in times of emergency, a nation’s leader could – and should - set aside constitutional constraints. The sovereign is “he who decides on the exception.”
This was not mere academic theory. It provided the intellectual framework for dismantling German democracy in the 1930s. Now, ninety years later, Trump’s words and actions suggest he is following the same playbook.
Within weeks of taking office, Trump has issued more than fifty executive orders. Many push far beyond normal presidential authority, revealing a pattern of rule by decree rather than constitutional governance.
The administration’s aggressive use of emergency powers reveals its authoritarian tendencies. Trump has declared emergencies to justify a 25 percent tariff on Canadian and Mexican imports, citing a fentanyl crisis. He has proclaimed an energy emergency to expedite fossil fuel projects while halting renewable energy development. At the southern border, he has declared another emergency to suspend asylum rights guaranteed by federal law.
But perhaps most troubling are the orders that directly challenge constitutional principles. One declares that children born on American soil to undocumented immigrants are not citizens, attempting to rewrite the 14th Amendment by executive decree. Another claims unilateral authority to freeze billions in congressionally appropriated funds, including money for Medicaid and other essential programmes – a direct assault on Congress’s power. Each of these actions strikes at fundamental constitutional principles.
The judiciary’s response has been swift and forceful. Federal judges across multiple jurisdictions have issued sweeping injunctions against Trump’s most egregious executive orders, blocking his attempt to strip birthright citizenship and suspend asylum rights.
One court condemned the birthright citizenship order as a brazen violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, making clear that no president can erase constitutional rights by decree. Another ruled that Trump’s asylum ban “flouts the explicit language of the statute,” emphasising that executive power does not override laws passed by Congress. In a sharp rebuke to the administration’s overreach, a judge halted DOGE’s effort to access federal payment systems, warning that its interference threatened to destabilise critical government operations.
Yet these judicial rebukes have only hardened the administration’s stance. Vice President JD Vance openly questions judicial authority. “If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal. If a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that’s also illegal,” Vance wrote on social media. “Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.”
Vance's statement reveals a fundamental attack on constitutional government. If a president can decide which laws to follow and which court rulings to obey, America no longer has the rule of law. It has the rule of one man.
Trump’s vindictive purge of January 6 investigators exposes the corrupting authoritarianism at the heart of his presidency. Within weeks of taking office, his administration fired dozens of Justice Department prosecutors who worked on Capitol riot cases, justifying it as a response to ‘political weaponization’ at the DOJ. The FBI faced a similar purge, with senior executives dismissed and agents demoted—often for no reason other than their role in investigating the insurrection.
The administration’s approach is crude but effective: punish perceived betrayal and reward loyalty. Trump’s acting deputy attorney general – one of his former defence lawyers – even ordered the FBI to compile a list of all personnel who worked on Capitol riot cases. This witch hunt could target thousands of officials who simply did their jobs investigating the attack on Congress.
Trump has gone further, stripping Secret Service protection from former officials who crossed him. John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, and Brian Hook – who had received extended protection under Biden due to active Iranian assassination threats – lost their security details almost immediately upon Trump’s return. Despite intelligence warnings that these threats remained active, Trump dismissed concerns, remarking, “There are risks to everything.”
This systematic revenge against law enforcement, oversight officials and critics follows a chillingly familiar script. They mark the slow erosion of constitutional democracy—an unravelling that, if unchecked, will be difficult to reverse.
Would-be autocrats rarely declare themselves dictators overnight. Instead, they gradually accumulate power by declaring emergencies, dismissing institutional checks as illegitimate, and replacing professional bureaucracies with personal loyalists.
Some conservatives argue that extraordinary measures are needed to combat woke ideology and administrative overreach. They see Trump’s methods as crude but necessary - the only way to defeat entrenched progressive power in universities, corporations, and government bureaucracies.
However broken America’s democracy has become, the answer is not to break it further. Trump does not defend the Constitution – he tramples it. He does not restore order – he thrives on chaos. He does not challenge authoritarianism – he embodies it. A movement that claims to stand for liberty cannot rally behind a man who would discard it the moment it obstructs his will. Conservatives are right to defend America’s values and institutions. But they should not let that battle blind them to the far greater danger Trump represents.
Trump’s assault on constitutional constraints threatens democracy itself. Once leaders successfully claim the power to override courts and ignore laws, that power rarely returns to the people or their institutions. Every authoritarian regime in modern history has begun with a leader declaring emergencies, dismissing institutional checks as illegitimate, and gradually gathering absolute power.
The Supreme Court has no army to enforce its decisions. It relies on the executive branch - and ultimately the President – to respect its authority. If Trump refuses, the court’s power becomes merely advisory. With Republicans controlling Congress and showing no appetite for impeachment, the judiciary stands as the last institutional barrier to unrestrained presidential power.
The current moment echoes past crises of constitutional democracy. German conservatives in the 1930s thought they could use Hitler to achieve their policy goals while controlling his worst impulses. In 1920s Italy, business leaders and traditional conservatives backed Mussolini as a counterweight to the left. In both cases, they discovered too late that authoritarian power, once unleashed, consumes its enablers along with its opponents.
This pattern has repeated throughout modern history. In Argentina, conservatives supported Juan Perón’s rise to power, seeing him as a bulwark against communism. In Venezuela, business leaders initially backed Hugo Chávez as an alternative to corrupt traditional parties. In each case, the authoritarian leader gradually accumulated power until no institution could check their will.
The tools are remarkably consistent: declare emergencies, dismiss courts as illegitimate, replace professional bureaucrats with loyalists, and claim the right to ignore laws in service of saving the nation. Trump’s actions and rhetoric now follow this template with disturbing precision.
The United States now approaches a similar crossroads. Trump’s administration has quickly moved beyond normal policy disputes into the realm of constitutional crisis. His claim of authority to override courts, ignore Congress, and rule by decree presents Americans with a stark choice: They can defend their constitutional system, with all its frustrating checks and balances, or they can embrace an authoritarian leader who promises to impose their preferred policies by force.
The former path preserves liberty, even when policies disappoint. The latter leads, inevitably, to tyranny. Those who think Trump’s authoritarianism serves conservative ends should remember that power, once unleashed, outlives its wielder. The precedent Trump seeks to set would be available to every future President – including those with very different ideological aims.
America’s founders created a system of checks and balances precisely to prevent the concentration of power they had fled in Europe. They knew that liberty depends not on the character of individual leaders, but on binding all leaders within constitutional constraints.
That system now faces its greatest test since the Civil War. The question is whether enough Americans – particularly those who share Trump’s concerns about bureaucratic overreach and institutional decline – will choose to defend America’s constitutional democracy. History suggests that once a democracy surrenders its constitutional principles for temporary political advantage, there is rarely a path back.
For conservatives who cherish limited government and the rule of law, the choice should be clear. The institutions of American democracy may need reform, even dramatic reform. But destroying the constitutional order that protects American freedom is not reform – it is revolution. If conservatives support Trump’s authoritarian turn, they may find they have helped create precisely the kind of unlimited state power they have always opposed.
Roger Partridge is chairman and a co-founder of The New Zealand Initiative and is a senior member of its research team. He led law firm Bell Gully as executive chairman from 2007 to 2014. This article was first published HERE
11 comments:
To The Author of this Posted Opinion piece.
You " equate Trump " to an authoritarian approach to accomplishing his " tasks'.
Does this equation also extend to his approach to dealing with Ukraine. My belief is when one is ' assisting a Nation at war ', who wishes to seek a peace deal, that you have that Nation at the negotiating table, not sitting in the cafeteria.
His tone, rhetoric, and his (apparent) temper at not getting his own way is now becoming something that -
- has those in Europe
- across America
> becoming concerned as to an outcome.
His Vice President's speech at Munich has not helped either.
In being an observer of matters of recent times, concerning Ukraine I would ask -
- monies given/granted/loaned by the Biden Administration, is there a written record of "Conditions of advancing said monies "(which was a cross several advancements) - ever reviewed by Trump or his team? To me this would be a factor in discussing the matter with the President of Ukraine (face to face), not by social media. If there is an issue, surely one would "go ask Joe Biden" - or is that s step to far.
- Ukraine Mineral wealth - suddenly we are being told of ../ so I ask how long have people known of this, and why it was not an active process many years ago? Or has this information " been placed in Trumps ear by Putin " to gain a leverage for compensation for Russia? Recent media notes - state that should America gain access, Ukraine will not be the richer for such mining.
There is at the moment active videos, by/from many sources - currently available to see on YouTube and the verbal statements do not have a ' ring of confidence ' for either Trump, NATO and Ukraine, let alone the rest of Europe.
There are many checks and balances within the US governmental system. I believe Congress has power over the President if he overreaches his authority. We can see that any government has a small window of opportunity to make changes. Therefore in my view, if leaders are elected by the people to instigate change, they need to make those changes. The president can't prevent democratic elections to take place. The people should ultimately hold the power and should rightly be very dissatisfied if, like in New Zealand, their wishes are totally ignored. The reason Trump was elected is because the majority of Americans were very unhappy with the path the incumbents under Biden, were taking.
But it was OK when Uncle Joe and Jacinda did the same sort of thing. ..??!!
Carl Schmitt's "state of exception" principle is not normative, it is descriptive: that is, it is not about what SHOULD or COULD be the case, it is about what IS the case, without exception (no pun intended) in any system, as a first principle.
That is, there is always someone/some group who, precisely because they HAVE power, are able to give themselves an "exception."
Better, then, for someone with whom you agree to be in power, rather than someone else with whom you disagree.
The trouble is it takes an extreme person to punch back hard against extremists. I would regard the last NZ Labour Government as more extreme than anything Trump is doing. Ardern was trying to dismantle NZ Democracy and even though she has left, the structures put in place now exercise control.
Wow. Do you think he might be copying Jabcinda, and those out of control kiwi judges?
Am just relieved that all your writers are not members of the Trump cheer-squad - and I guess the NZ Initiative can't remain respectable and become a set of Trump fanboys. What's happening in the US is very worrying, and its international effects should be of concern too. Trump is always just about Trump: he's an inadequate and defective human being, and that was obvious from the time he became prominent in politics (if not before, if you followed his business enterprises). He's hence now the toy of Musk and Putin.
Trump learnt from his first term, the entrenched system will bend and twist until you have gone. Sacrificing pawns to keep the system untouched. He is going about this the only way, break it and the bring back the good.
However, it is scaring those that control the trillions of dollars splashed recklessly every year. They are finding it hard to be so smug when they are going backwards.
As for the judges, how easy has it become to find a suitable lower level federal judge who can block the government from doing what it was voted in to do. The system needs fixing, not tinkering with, as we are finding here. Luxon and his advisors are keen for the status quo. No rocking the boat. Claim to want to create a small government, but not actually do it. Just keep the idiots happy and carry on.
Of course it's OK for the left to quietly take apart democracy bit by bit and up until now never be challenged by the conservative element who watch as society degrades.
It's passed time to correct things and this is the only way .
And for the whole of the West.
All governments are dictatorial, especially western democracies elected this century on mandates that quite frankly, have been ignored.
Isn't Donald Trump just turning the ship around and draining the swamp.
Good luck to him, l believe American unity and the restoration of individual freedom is important to this man.
Remember, braking eggs is mandatory to a good omelet.
“He who saves his Country does not violate any Law,” Trump boasted on Truth Social and X.
The chaos of the first Trump administration has been replaced with a disciplined plan to throttle what is left of America’s anaemic democracy. Project 2025, the Center for Renewing America and the America First Policy Institute compiled in advance detailed blueprints, position papers, legislative proposals, proposed executive orders and policies.
The Trump administration’s war with the deep state is not a purgative. It is not about freeing us from the tyranny of intelligence agencies, militarized police, the largest prison system in the world, predatory corporations or the end of mass surveillance. It will not restore the rule of law to hold the powerful and the wealthy accountable. It will not slash the bloated and unaccountable spending — some $1 trillion dollars — by the Pentagon.
All revolutionary movements, on the left or the right, dismantle the old bureaucratic structures. The fascists in Germany and the Bolsheviks in the Soviet Union, once they seized power, aggressively purged the civil service. They see in these structures, correctly, an enemy that would stymie their absolute grip on power. It is a coup d'état by inches. Now we get our own.
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/the-purge-of-the-deep-state-and-the
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