The fear gripping large swaths of the American public under the second administration of Donald Trump is unprecedented in modern US history. The president’s brazen acts of retribution against political opponents, open hostility towards dissent, and disregard for democratic norms make it clear that he intends to wield power with even fewer restraints than before.
It is tempting to reduce the United States’ political crisis to the simple notion that poor choices at the ballot box yield poor outcomes.
However, the terrifying reality is that constitutional and legal safeguards, long assumed to be bulwarks against authoritarian rule, have proven alarmingly ineffective. That is because elite privilege and authoritarianism are part of the DNA of the US Constitution.
Inequality and privilege in the US Constitution
Despite the lofty rhetoric of liberty espoused by the founding founders, the constitution they drafted was not about freedom and equality for all.
As originally conceived, it was a deeply flawed, pro-slavery document drafted by an elite class of white male property owners whose primary concern was preserving their economic and political dominance. The so-called principles of liberty and democracy were designed to exclude most of the population, including enslaved people, women, and the poor.
Far from being a charter of universal rights, the US Constitution enshrined systemic inequality, ensuring power remained concentrated in the hands of a privileged few.
It is not a coincidence that the US lags behind much of the world in securing fundamental rights. Unlike many democracies, where constitutions explicitly recognise economic and social rights as fundamental to human dignity, the US Constitution contains no such guarantees. There is no constitutional right to healthcare, housing, a living wage, or basic economic security. This absence is not accidental; it reflects the priorities of a system designed to serve economic elites.
In the US, these protections remain elusive, dismissed as “radical” by an establishment bent on privileging wealth and power over human wellbeing. It is not surprising that the American government spares no expense for military power but refuses to extend the same urgency to its citizens’ socioeconomic security.
Unchecked executive power
While extending few economic and social rights to American citizens, the US Constitution grants US presidents wide-ranging power to do as they please.
Unlike leaders in most democracies, the US president wields extraordinary unilateral powers with little judicial or legislative oversight. The president can halt or pursue federal prosecutions, selectively enforce laws, control immigration policies, classify or declassify government secrets, override agency rulemaking, and purge “disloyal” officials—all without meaningful checks.
Foreign policy decisions, including treaty withdrawals and military interventions, require parliamentary approval elsewhere, yet American presidents can unilaterally exit treaties and deploy troops exploiting loopholes in the War Powers Resolution without congressional authorisation.
Emergency powers, which in most democracies require legislative oversight, are virtually unchecked in the US, allowing the executive to seize assets, impose sanctions, and redirect funds on the mere declaration of a national emergency.
In stark contrast to democracies where courts actively check executive overreach, the American judiciary consistently defers to the executive in foreign affairs even where there are gross violations of human rights. A damning example is the court case of Defense for Children International-Palestine v. Biden, where plaintiffs sought to hold the administration of former US President Joe Biden accountable for US support for Israel’s military actions in Gaza, arguing that American aid facilitated acts of genocide.
Despite acknowledging credible evidence, the court dismissed the case, reaffirming that even in cases involving human rights violations, the executive remains legally unaccountable.
Presidents’ invocation of national security has long been a pretext for the unchecked expansion of executive authority. Trump, like President George W Bush, has aggressively seized upon this precedent, using it not just for military interventions but also to justify domestic repression. Under the guise of national security, his administration is targeting immigrants and threatening to criminalise dissent.
The absolute nature of the president’s pardon power is also troubling. Unlike in other democracies where executive clemency is subject to oversight, the US Constitution imposes no meaningful limits on this power. Trump has taken this to an extreme, granting pardons to political loyalists, war criminals, and insurrectionists. In the hands of an authoritarian president, the pardon becomes a tool for undermining justice and consolidating power.
The role of the Supreme Court
The US Supreme Court, the judicial entity tasked with what is constitutional or not, has historically played a key role in entrenching white supremacy, privilege and inequality in the US.
In the court case of Plessy v. Ferguson of 1896, the court provided constitutional legitimacy to racial apartheid, an injustice that persisted well into the 20th century. The legal system did not simply tolerate racial subjugation; it actively upheld and enforced it.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court routinely struck down attempts at economic regulation, blocking minimum wage laws, labour protections, and antitrust enforcement on the grounds that such measures violated principles of federalism and the so-called freedom of contract. These rulings were less about protecting liberty and more about shielding the wealthy elite from democratic accountability.
It was only during the mid-20th century, particularly under the Warren Court, that the judiciary embraced a rights-based discourse aimed at expanding civil liberties and protecting marginalised communities. Landmark decisions, such as Brown v. Board of Education (1954), Gideon v. Wainwright (1963), Miranda v. Arizona (1966), and Roe v. Wade (1973), did away with the principle of separate but equal in education, entrenched the right to fair trial procedures and a women’s right to reproductive choices. These among other cases signalled a shift towards a more inclusive interpretation of constitutional rights.
However, this period of judicial progress proved short-lived. The elevation of a conservative majority on the Supreme Court has returned the institution to its original DNA — favouring elites to the detriment of women and minorities.
Over the past two decades, the court has systematically dismantled many gains of the rights revolution, rolling back voting rights, eroding reproductive freedoms, and weakening labour protections.
The influence of money in American politics has further cemented this reality, ensuring the government remains beholden to elite interests rather than the electorate. The Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. FEC accelerated this decline by legalising the unfettered flow of corporate money into political campaigns.
The Supreme Court has also played a key role in the expansion of executive power. Nowhere is this clearer than in the Supreme Court’s 2024 decision in Trump v United States, which effectively granted presidents broad immunity from criminal prosecution for actions taken while in office—further insulating the executive branch from legal accountability.
The court has also granted the executive nearly unfettered control over law enforcement. In the case of United States v. Nixon (1974), the court reaffirmed that the executive branch holds exclusive authority over prosecutorial decisions, emphasising that the president and the attorney general retain broad discretion in determining whom to prosecute, what charges to bring, and whether to pursue a case.
Similarly, in Heckler v. Chaney (1985), the court explicitly held that an agency’s decision not to enforce a law — akin to a prosecutor’s decision not to bring charges — is presumptively unreviewable, as it falls within the realm of executive discretion. Together, these cases reinforced the principle that the executive has nearly absolute discretion in prosecutorial matters, shielded from judicial interference.
Trump has exploited this fully. He has openly declared his intent to investigate and prosecute political adversaries, threatening the foundational democratic principle of impartial justice. In a constitutional democracy, no individual should live in fear of arbitrary government actions. However, the current legal framework offers little protection. Even if targeted individuals are acquitted, the financial and emotional toll can be devastating.
A sobering reality
Trump is not an aberration, but the predictable product of a system that privileges elites, sustains global domination, and shields the presidency from accountability. The fear many Americans feel today is warranted, but it reflects a deeper misunderstanding: this is not a departure from the norm, but a continuation.
The belief that the US Constitution inherently protects against despotism has always been an illusion. From slavery and the genocide of Indigenous peoples to Jim Crow, the internment of Japanese Americans, the Red Scare, the “war on terror”, and repression of dissent against the Israeli genocide of Palestinians, American history reveals that power consistently trumps justice.
The stark reality is that the US Constitution, despite its veneration in American political culture, is an outdated and inadequate document for addressing the challenges of the modern world. It was written by and for a narrow class of elites who could not have envisioned a diverse, industrialised, and globally connected society. The structural deficiencies of the constitution — its lack of social and economic protections, its overreliance on an unelected judiciary appointed for life, its reliance on corrosive money in politics, its deeply undemocratic electoral system — have left the country ill-equipped to confront the crises of the 21st century.
This is not a fleeting crisis, but the culmination of a constitutional system that was not designed to safeguard against tyranny. The pressing question is no longer whether American democracy is in crisis, but what it will take for the public to confront this sobering reality.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
