Jim suggests my warnings echo progressive hysteria. Nothing could be further from the truth. The threat Trump poses stems not from policy disagreements but from his systematic dismantling of checks on presidential power. His actions in just the first month of 2025 reveal a leader rapidly consolidating personal control while declaring himself above the law.
Take Trump’s approach to executive orders. Jim notes that Joe Biden issued more orders early in his term. But this comparison misses the point entirely. The issue is not quantity but substance — Trump consistently invokes emergency powers to override Congress, courts and the Constitution itself.
His declaration of a “border invasion” to suspend asylum rights exemplifies this overreach. Rather than work with Congress to reform immigration law, Trump simply decreed that America’s legal obligations to asylum seekers no longer apply. This is not normal policy implementation. It is rule by executive fiat.
For 150 years, American courts, Congress, and administrations have understood the 14th Amendment’s meaning. The drafters specifically debated this issue during congressional deliberations. Senator Jacob Howard, who introduced the citizenship clause, stated explicitly it would cover “every person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction,” excluding only children of foreign diplomats and hostile occupying forces.
Jim argues the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction” creates ambiguity. But this ignores not just the historical record but also repeated Supreme Court precedents.
In the 1898 Wong Kim Ark case, the Court held that a child born to Chinese parents was a citizen despite laws at the time barring Chinese immigration. The Court emphasised that “subject to the jurisdiction” simply meant subject to U.S. laws – a standard clearly met by children born to undocumented parents.
This understanding shaped a century of law and society. Every federal agency, from the State Department to the Social Security Administration, has operated on this principle. Millions of Americans have built lives and families relying on this settled interpretation. Even critics of birthright citizenship, like former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, acknowledged changing it would require a constitutional amendment.
If Trump believes this understanding is wrong, legitimate paths exist to change it. His administration could bring test cases arguing for a narrower interpretation, backed by historical and legal analysis. He could seek legislation clarifying citizenship rules within constitutional bounds. He could pursue an amendment through proper channels. Instead, he simply decreed that millions of Americans’ citizenship rights no longer exist.
The implications reach far beyond immigration policy. If presidents can unilaterally rewrite constitutional rights through executive order, what prevents a future administration from declaring the Second Amendment protects only muskets? Or that the First Amendment does not cover digital speech? Once we accept that presidents can override settled constitutional meaning by decree, no right remains secure.
Trump’s February 18 executive order, issued after my Quadrant column was submitted and not addressed in Jim’s response, provides another stark example of this pattern. It commands all independent regulatory agencies – including the Federal Trade Commission, Securities and Exchange Commission, Federal Election Commission and others – to submit their regulations, budgets and legal positions to White House review through the Office of Management and Budget.
For over a century, Congress designed these agencies to operate with meaningful independence from presidential control. Their commissioners have fixed terms and bipartisan requirements. They can only be removed for cause, not political disagreement. This structure allows them to enforce laws and protect the public interest without direct White House interference.
Trump’s order claims power to override these statutory protections. It would let his administration control everything from antitrust enforcement to election oversight through budget allocations and regulatory review. The White House could block investigations of allies or shape rules to punish opponents. Even if courts ultimately reject this power grab as unlawful, the order reveals Trump’s vision of unchecked presidential control.Perhaps most revealing is Trump’s pinned social media post proclaiming “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.” This was not some off-hand remark but a carefully chosen statement of principle. It echoes Napoleon Bonaparte’s justification for crowning himself emperor – the idea that a leader’s will supersedes all law when he deems it necessary to “save” the nation.
Vice-President Vance made this doctrine explicit, suggesting judges have no authority to constrain executive power in areas like immigration or law enforcement. Jim likens this to Lincoln’s clash with courts during the Civil War. But this comparison fails on multiple levels.
Lincoln faced armed rebellion threatening the nation’s survival. He sought and received congressional approval for emergency measures. Even at the height of civil war, he never claimed blanket authority to ignore courts as a matter of principle. When he suspended habeas corpus, he did so narrowly and temporarily, acknowledging it as an extreme measure requiring legislative backing.
Other presidents challenged court rulings without denying judicial authority itself. Jefferson disagreed with Chief Justice John Marshall but implemented his decisions. Jackson opposed Worcester v. Georgia yet never claimed courts lacked power to review executive actions. Even FDR’s court-packing scheme acknowledged the Supreme Court’s constitutional role – he sought to change the institution’s composition, not deny its legitimacy.
Trump goes further, suggesting judicial review itself is illegitimate when it constrains his agenda. His administration argues courts cannot evaluate his emergency declarations or scrutinise his constitutional interpretations. This is not disputing particular rulings but rejecting the basic principle that courts can check executive power.
The systematic purge of Justice Department prosecutors and FBI agents reveals similar contempt for constitutional limits. Jim defends the mass removal of January 6 investigators as fair “reciprocity” for supposed past wrongs. But firing career officials for investigating presidential allies is not normal transition policy – it turns law enforcement into a personal political weapon.
Trump’s acting deputy attorney general – one of his former defence lawyers — ordered the FBI to compile a list of all personnel who touched January 6 cases. This mirrors classic authoritarian tactics: identify and remove anyone who might hold you accountable. A justice system cannot function if investigating wrongdoing becomes a firing offence.
Most disturbing is Trump’s withdrawal of Secret Service protection from former officials facing active Iranian assassination threats. Jim’s critique notably ignores this clear case of personal vengeance overriding core presidential duties. Even if John Bolton and others now criticise Trump, leaving them exposed to credible death threats breaks a fundamental responsibility – protecting American lives, especially those endangered by past government service.
Jim suggests that comparing Trump’s actions to historical examples of democratic decline amounts to hysteria. He argues that without concentration camps or mass repression, such parallels are meaningless. This fundamentally misunderstands how democracies die in the modern era.
Recent history offers sobering lessons. Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez maintained democratic forms while gradually concentrating power through emergency decrees and attacks on institutions. Hungary’s Viktor Orban preserved elections but hollowed out independent courts and media. Turkey’s Erdogan initially presented himself as a democratic reformer while systematically undermining checks on his authority.These leaders did not immediately abolish democracy. They operated through superficially legal means – emergency powers, executive orders, personnel changes. Each step was justified as necessary reform or response to critics. Courts were attacked as partisan obstacles. Law enforcement was redirected against opponents. Professional civil servants were replaced with loyalists.
Trump’s February 18 executive order targeting independent agencies exemplifies this pattern. Like other modern autocrats, he maintains the outward form of institutions while gutting their independence. The order preserves these agencies’ structures but subjects their every move to White House control – transforming independent regulators into instruments of presidential power.
The pattern repeats across cases. First comes the assertion of emergency powers to bypass normal constraints. Then attacks on courts and law enforcement to ensure impunity. Finally, the conversion of state institutions from independent checks into partisan weapons. At each stage, defenders minimise the threat. They dismiss historical comparisons as alarmist. They rationalise each erosion of democratic norms as justified by circumstances.
Only after institutions are sufficiently weakened does the mask fully drop. By then, the guardrails that could have stopped authoritarian consolidation have crumbled. The outward forms of democracy remain, but meaningful constraints on power have vanished.
Jim suggests we face a choice between bureaucratic tyranny and Trump’s executive assertiveness. But this frames the issue backwards. The real choice is between a government bound by law and one subject to a leader’s unchecked will. Trump’s actions point decisively toward the latter path.
Constitutional democracy requires not just elections but genuine limits on power. A president who claims authority to override courts, weaponise justice, and endanger critics is testing how absolute his control can become. Conservatives have long warned that unchecked power corrupts. That principle applies whether the power flows from unelected bureaucrats or elected strongmen.
No, Trump has not yet openly defied a Supreme Court ruling. But his words and actions suggest he sees no real barriers to his will – only obstacles to push aside when he deems it necessary. A leader who convinces enough supporters that national salvation requires absolute power can indeed become unstoppable. Recognising that risk is not hysteria but vigilance.
If conservatives indulge authoritarian methods because they advance certain policies or crush opponents, they may wake to find democracy’s guardrails have crumbled. The cost of complacency may be the end of American democracy as we know it.
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
His declaration of a “border invasion” to suspend asylum rights exemplifies this overreach. Rather than work with Congress to reform immigration law, Trump simply decreed that America’s legal obligations to asylum seekers no longer apply. This is not normal policy implementation. It is rule by executive fiat.
For 150 years, American courts, Congress, and administrations have understood the 14th Amendment’s meaning. The drafters specifically debated this issue during congressional deliberations. Senator Jacob Howard, who introduced the citizenship clause, stated explicitly it would cover “every person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction,” excluding only children of foreign diplomats and hostile occupying forces.
Jim argues the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction” creates ambiguity. But this ignores not just the historical record but also repeated Supreme Court precedents.
In the 1898 Wong Kim Ark case, the Court held that a child born to Chinese parents was a citizen despite laws at the time barring Chinese immigration. The Court emphasised that “subject to the jurisdiction” simply meant subject to U.S. laws – a standard clearly met by children born to undocumented parents.
This understanding shaped a century of law and society. Every federal agency, from the State Department to the Social Security Administration, has operated on this principle. Millions of Americans have built lives and families relying on this settled interpretation. Even critics of birthright citizenship, like former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, acknowledged changing it would require a constitutional amendment.
If Trump believes this understanding is wrong, legitimate paths exist to change it. His administration could bring test cases arguing for a narrower interpretation, backed by historical and legal analysis. He could seek legislation clarifying citizenship rules within constitutional bounds. He could pursue an amendment through proper channels. Instead, he simply decreed that millions of Americans’ citizenship rights no longer exist.
The implications reach far beyond immigration policy. If presidents can unilaterally rewrite constitutional rights through executive order, what prevents a future administration from declaring the Second Amendment protects only muskets? Or that the First Amendment does not cover digital speech? Once we accept that presidents can override settled constitutional meaning by decree, no right remains secure.
Trump’s February 18 executive order, issued after my Quadrant column was submitted and not addressed in Jim’s response, provides another stark example of this pattern. It commands all independent regulatory agencies – including the Federal Trade Commission, Securities and Exchange Commission, Federal Election Commission and others – to submit their regulations, budgets and legal positions to White House review through the Office of Management and Budget.
For over a century, Congress designed these agencies to operate with meaningful independence from presidential control. Their commissioners have fixed terms and bipartisan requirements. They can only be removed for cause, not political disagreement. This structure allows them to enforce laws and protect the public interest without direct White House interference.
Trump’s order claims power to override these statutory protections. It would let his administration control everything from antitrust enforcement to election oversight through budget allocations and regulatory review. The White House could block investigations of allies or shape rules to punish opponents. Even if courts ultimately reject this power grab as unlawful, the order reveals Trump’s vision of unchecked presidential control.Perhaps most revealing is Trump’s pinned social media post proclaiming “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.” This was not some off-hand remark but a carefully chosen statement of principle. It echoes Napoleon Bonaparte’s justification for crowning himself emperor – the idea that a leader’s will supersedes all law when he deems it necessary to “save” the nation.
Vice-President Vance made this doctrine explicit, suggesting judges have no authority to constrain executive power in areas like immigration or law enforcement. Jim likens this to Lincoln’s clash with courts during the Civil War. But this comparison fails on multiple levels.
Lincoln faced armed rebellion threatening the nation’s survival. He sought and received congressional approval for emergency measures. Even at the height of civil war, he never claimed blanket authority to ignore courts as a matter of principle. When he suspended habeas corpus, he did so narrowly and temporarily, acknowledging it as an extreme measure requiring legislative backing.
Other presidents challenged court rulings without denying judicial authority itself. Jefferson disagreed with Chief Justice John Marshall but implemented his decisions. Jackson opposed Worcester v. Georgia yet never claimed courts lacked power to review executive actions. Even FDR’s court-packing scheme acknowledged the Supreme Court’s constitutional role – he sought to change the institution’s composition, not deny its legitimacy.
Trump goes further, suggesting judicial review itself is illegitimate when it constrains his agenda. His administration argues courts cannot evaluate his emergency declarations or scrutinise his constitutional interpretations. This is not disputing particular rulings but rejecting the basic principle that courts can check executive power.
The systematic purge of Justice Department prosecutors and FBI agents reveals similar contempt for constitutional limits. Jim defends the mass removal of January 6 investigators as fair “reciprocity” for supposed past wrongs. But firing career officials for investigating presidential allies is not normal transition policy – it turns law enforcement into a personal political weapon.
Trump’s acting deputy attorney general – one of his former defence lawyers — ordered the FBI to compile a list of all personnel who touched January 6 cases. This mirrors classic authoritarian tactics: identify and remove anyone who might hold you accountable. A justice system cannot function if investigating wrongdoing becomes a firing offence.
Most disturbing is Trump’s withdrawal of Secret Service protection from former officials facing active Iranian assassination threats. Jim’s critique notably ignores this clear case of personal vengeance overriding core presidential duties. Even if John Bolton and others now criticise Trump, leaving them exposed to credible death threats breaks a fundamental responsibility – protecting American lives, especially those endangered by past government service.
Jim suggests that comparing Trump’s actions to historical examples of democratic decline amounts to hysteria. He argues that without concentration camps or mass repression, such parallels are meaningless. This fundamentally misunderstands how democracies die in the modern era.
Recent history offers sobering lessons. Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez maintained democratic forms while gradually concentrating power through emergency decrees and attacks on institutions. Hungary’s Viktor Orban preserved elections but hollowed out independent courts and media. Turkey’s Erdogan initially presented himself as a democratic reformer while systematically undermining checks on his authority.These leaders did not immediately abolish democracy. They operated through superficially legal means – emergency powers, executive orders, personnel changes. Each step was justified as necessary reform or response to critics. Courts were attacked as partisan obstacles. Law enforcement was redirected against opponents. Professional civil servants were replaced with loyalists.
Trump’s February 18 executive order targeting independent agencies exemplifies this pattern. Like other modern autocrats, he maintains the outward form of institutions while gutting their independence. The order preserves these agencies’ structures but subjects their every move to White House control – transforming independent regulators into instruments of presidential power.
The pattern repeats across cases. First comes the assertion of emergency powers to bypass normal constraints. Then attacks on courts and law enforcement to ensure impunity. Finally, the conversion of state institutions from independent checks into partisan weapons. At each stage, defenders minimise the threat. They dismiss historical comparisons as alarmist. They rationalise each erosion of democratic norms as justified by circumstances.
Only after institutions are sufficiently weakened does the mask fully drop. By then, the guardrails that could have stopped authoritarian consolidation have crumbled. The outward forms of democracy remain, but meaningful constraints on power have vanished.
Jim suggests we face a choice between bureaucratic tyranny and Trump’s executive assertiveness. But this frames the issue backwards. The real choice is between a government bound by law and one subject to a leader’s unchecked will. Trump’s actions point decisively toward the latter path.
Constitutional democracy requires not just elections but genuine limits on power. A president who claims authority to override courts, weaponise justice, and endanger critics is testing how absolute his control can become. Conservatives have long warned that unchecked power corrupts. That principle applies whether the power flows from unelected bureaucrats or elected strongmen.
No, Trump has not yet openly defied a Supreme Court ruling. But his words and actions suggest he sees no real barriers to his will – only obstacles to push aside when he deems it necessary. A leader who convinces enough supporters that national salvation requires absolute power can indeed become unstoppable. Recognising that risk is not hysteria but vigilance.
If conservatives indulge authoritarian methods because they advance certain policies or crush opponents, they may wake to find democracy’s guardrails have crumbled. The cost of complacency may be the end of American democracy as we know it.
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
16 comments:
TDS. Trump was elected on his campaign promises - there are no surprises. He has a mandate.
What sort of American democracy does Mr Partridge refer to?
We certainly witnessed American democracy and judicial extremism over the last four years. The abuse of power by the swamp was outrageous. America has a new leader who has a first hand account of how corrupt the legal system is as these unelected charlatans try to block policies that the American voters wholeheartedly endorsed. TDS is still alive and well.
Trump was elected by millions of Americans to correct inherent wrongs perpetrated over the past four years. Regarding deportees: The deportees are in fact hardened criminals from notorious gangs, most of whom entered the country illegally. The US citizens want illegal immigrants deported, full stop. They have enough legal immigrants applying for citizenship. Unbiased media reports that the trade tariffs are also a correcting mechanism of existing trade imbalances. The judiciary, like here have become extremely radicalised so need to have checks and balances put in place, as we should here.
Europe also has great discontent within each countries borders(becoming deeply divided as we are here). Many do not want the Ukraine war to continue. Trump is not conceding to all Putins demands without referring to Ukraine, if you read reputable sources. However, he needs to concede something or the war will continue ad infinitum.
Trump was elected by Americans, for Americans and now has his highest approval rate ever.
What the writer doesn't understand is that ordinary citizens(millions of them) are not stupid and they can have a viable opinion. It is called democracy.
Trump has had a negative voter rating in the polls taken in March (more disapprove than approve).
While I believe that Trump is woefully inadequate to make the radical changes needed to arrest the crisis America has got itself into, this author obviously doesn't understand how power works. How it works is that you get into power, exercise power, and then justify your exercise of power later.
This is a prime example regarding just one existential crisis facing America:
"His declaration of a “border invasion” to suspend asylum rights exemplifies this overreach. Rather than work with Congress to reform immigration law, Trump simply decreed that America’s legal obligations to asylum seekers no longer apply. This is not normal policy implementation. It is rule by executive fiat."
Why is "border invasion" in scare quotes here, as if it wasn't a demonstrable fact? Just in the last 4 years, 4,000,000 illegal immigrants (not "asylum seekers") have been actively allowed into the country by the previous administration (ignoring the similar complicity of 30 years of previous administrations).
How does facilitating such a vast and transformative influx sit with Roger's idea of "constitutional democracy"? Where in the Constitution is the Article allowing massive illegal immigration? When was the democratic mandate for this policy ever asked for and received? Nowhere, and never, are the respective answers.
Trump should be using the military to round up and eject millions upon millions of non-Americans who have no right to be there, and who aren't wanted by most Americans. That is what is required.
As above, now that Trump can exercise power, he should do it and then worry about justifying it later.
MAGA has morphed into "Miriam Adelson's Goals Achieved".
Sure more Americans voted for Donald Trump than the next candidate. But the American people, like voters anywhere, aren't the slightest bit interested in high ideals and doing the right thing for their country. In short, they are ignorant, emotive and irrational creatures and can be played by a populist leader, like any ignorant mob can be played. So, if they cannot bother paying attention, they get what they deserve. Donald Trump. A bit like Jacindamania really. But American voters will pay the price for their ignorance, exactly like New Zealanders were forced to do when they gave Labour a second term. But at least our system, flawed though it may be, allowed us to get back on track once Labour's excesses became too blatant for our voters to stomach. Partridge's article shows why Americans may not get that opportunity.
Re: Jonesy above,
"Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." - Winston Churchill
Dear B.V. Interesting to see that you 'quote Sir Winston Churchill'.
if I may add, a Man before his time, even in his youngers years as a Politician ' derided by those around him for the words he spoke ', yet strange as the Years rolled on, just how correct and accurate he was, in what he saw and/or perceived ahead of the developing World.
It is this same Man, that in England and i believe in America is openly (again) derided, with words used that can not be printed here.
Can one assume, those words of past (like your comment) will be proven (again) to be True?
Rationale, I have not heard over 70 years a single Politician, anywhere, that was an articulate orator, that could with the spoken word, make people believe - and sadly that applies more so to American Political People. Probably others as well.
I love Churchill's aphorisms but I don't know whether I would have liked the man, especially not the young man, typical spoilt-brat arrogant upper-scum character than he was. But perhaps the same is true of other people I quote and whom I might not have liked had I ever met them in the flesh.
Rather than being a man ahead of his time, I consider Churchill a product of his time which means he was, inter alia, a racist, misogynist and few other naughty -ists by today's standards. Hence he cops a lot of flak nowadays.
Yes Barend , he may have been all of those things during his earlier years (perhaps none more so during his time as First Lord of the Admiralty when he oversaw the botched Gallipoli campaign where so many uof our finest young men needlessly died) but my reading of 20th century history suggests his finest hour was during the early part of WW2 when Britain stood alone against the Nazi armies who had all but conquered the rest of Europe.
It is difficult to imagine any other person being more suited to the role when virtually all they had, apart from the heroic character of the British armed forces and the stoic resistance of the non combatants, was his oratory.
It is hard to believe that, at the time, it was enough.
I doubt we will ever see a similar situation again where one man was able to positively influence world events to the extent that he did during those dark days.
While generally agreeing with Clive Bibby's comments on Churchill, he is not quite correct re the ill-fated Gallipoli Campaign. Churchill did not 'oversee' it. The concept was his and, had it succeeded, may well have shortened the war. It was the unbelievably incompetent Imperial generalship that failed. Security was non-existent. (I've read an actual letter from a Kiwi soldier written a month before the landing when he says that the talk on the streets of Cairo was that they were going to land on the Dardanelles. Compare that to the Normande landings, a massively bigger operation and the Germans had no idea where or when it was going to happen.) Then on the day, the troops were landed on the wrong beach.
Trump is the American reaction to normalising judicial activism and bureaucratic overreach. When you sow wind you harvest storms!
Trump is doing well. I consider this guy has excessive case of TDS. Joe Biden did whatever he wanted including disregarding the law and allowing millions of people to walk through the border. But he wasn't a threat to democracy?
Well I like Trump for his attack on DEI , CRT , gender agenda , climate change craziness , disassociating America from WHO and possibly preventing another covid scam.and dismantling the Education Department which was promoting DEI , CRT and gender rubbish telling them instead to concentrate on the basics and allow parents control of their own children's education. I also agree with his plan to attempt to stop the war in Ukraine and the Middle East . I loved Vance's talks to the European Union on the appalling lack of free speech and other Western freedoms like praying silently near abortion clinics , for goodness sake. I also like his appointment of RF Kennedy junior to reform the health sector looking into childhood vaccinations , better nutrition and more. Others have written on the illegal immigration of criminals from Mexico etc.which I agree with. Maybe some of these may be introduced in a tyrannical way but they are correct . A benign dictator is the best government someone wise once said and if Trump behaves like this in some instances well so be it. America under Biden was totally corrupt and quite on the wrong path. The general population are not stupid . It's academics who have become ideologues of foolish Marxism.
I think the Trump has an irksome personality but many of his policies are spot on. I would vote for him and thank God he may help the Western World reestablish traditional values. and not self destruct.
Ironic to see Churchill being held up as a defender of democracy, when in reality he was an unrepentant imperialist and racist, and a defender of elite privilege. The British voting public may have sensed this when they democratically tipped him out of office in 1945.
Seems they preferred the free stuff on offer by Attlee to the continued blood, sweat, and tears promised by Churchill. And despite Ewan McGregor's attempt to deploy hindsight in Churchill's defense, Churchill's legacy for New Zealanders will always be framed in the context of culpability for our two biggest military disasters, first in Gallipoli, and, a generation later, in Greece and Crete, all in furtherance of the demands of Empire. And we have the Americans to thank for our avoiding a third disaster in the Pacific by defending us while Churchill was refusing to release Freyberg's men for the defense of their own homeland. So don't pretend Churchill was at any time defending democracy. He needed to win the war for totally different reasons. Perhaps a more pertinent measure of the man is his arrogant boast that “I have not always been wrong. History will bear me out, particularly as I shall write that history myself".
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