Dec. 13, 2025 · Elections
The Constitution Is Dead: 34 of 35 Constitutional Scholars Agree (and the 35th Is Not So Bright)
You don’t just vote your way back from the openly “beating and disappearing people into unmarked vans” era of governance.
Bottom Line Up Front: You don’t just vote your way back from the openly “beating and disappearing people into unmarked vans” era of governance. The GOP has dozens of open and unpunished constitutional violations under their belt in 2025. One side breaks the rules without consequence and the other abides by them, this is a losing strategy and the stakes are the literal survival of humanity. Scroll to the end of the article for resources for effective response to authoritarian consolidation. If you’re looking to do something today, try calling your State AG and telling them “The Republican Party is primarily a criminal enterprise, please open a RICO investigation into their conduct.”
A constitution requires enforcement. The document itself holds no magic. It cannot interpret its own provisions or punish those who violate them. That work falls to courts, and ultimately to the Supreme Court. When that institution applies one standard to one party and a different standard to the other, at what point is it no longer binding?
What happens when enforcement only runs one direction?
When Democrats exercise executive power, the Supreme Court reads their authority through the narrowest possible lens. When Republicans do the same, the Court finds flexibility, deference, novel interpretations that expand presidential power beyond anything the text supports. The constitution still exists. It still binds one side. The other side has been released from its constraints by the very institution designed to enforce them.
The people who study constitutional law for a living have reached a near-unanimous conclusion.
In April 2025, the New York Times surveyed thirty-five of the nation’s leading constitutional law scholars. Thirty-four of them concluded that President Trump is acting unconstitutionally.¹ The one dissenter was Harvard’s Adrian Vermeule, known for arguing that the Constitution should be interpreted to maximize executive power. According to a Washington Post analysis, the administration has defied court orders in roughly one-third of the more than 160 lawsuits in which judges have issued substantive rulings.²
Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean of UC Berkeley Law School, put it plainly: “We are in the midst of a constitutional crisis right now. There have been so many unconstitutional and illegal actions in the first 18 days of the Trump presidency. We never have seen anything like this.”¹
Pamela Karlan of Stanford Law School went further: “It’s a constitutional crisis when the president of the United States doesn’t care what the Constitution says regardless of whether Congress or the courts resist.”¹
Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor, in dissent, compared what is happening now to Korematsu, the 1944 decision that blessed the internment of Japanese Americans and stands as one of the Supreme Court’s greatest moral failures. She warned that the government’s position means not only noncitizens but also United States citizens could be taken off the streets, forced onto planes, and confined to foreign prisons with no opportunity for redress. Then she wrote: “We are just as wrong now as we have been in the past, with similarly devastating consequences.”³
What follows is a documented record of constitutional violations in 2025, drawn from court rulings, Government Accountability Office findings, and the analysis of legal scholars across the ideological spectrum. The people who have devoted their professional lives to understanding the Constitution have identified these actions as violations of it.
The Supreme Court has provided cover for some of these actions, but that cover changes nothing about their constitutionality. The institution designed to check executive overreach has declined to do so. When the referee stops calling fouls, the fouls do not disappear. They simply go unpunished.
Defiance of Court Orders
On March 15, 2025, Chief Judge James Boasberg issued a temporary restraining order barring deportations under the Alien Enemies Act and explicitly ordered deportation flights turned around. The administration sent three flights to El Salvador anyway.⁴ Officials claimed the planes were over international waters when the order came.⁵
On April 16, 2025, Judge Boasberg ruled there was probable cause to find the government in criminal contempt, writing that the Constitution does not tolerate willful disobedience of judicial orders, especially by officials who have sworn an oath to uphold it.⁶
DOJ whistleblower Erez Reuveni, a career attorney, filed a complaint alleging that Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove told subordinates at a March 14, 2025 meeting that DOJ would need to consider telling the courts “fuck you” and that the planes needed to take off no matter what.⁷ The administration fired Reuveni in April 2025.⁸
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland resident with a 2019 court order barring his deportation to El Salvador, was sent to CECOT prison on March 15, 2025. The government admitted this was an administrative error.⁹ Judge Paula Xinis described the deportation as “wholly lawless” and ordered the government to ensure his return by April 7, 2025.¹⁰
On April 10, 2025, the Supreme Court unanimously ordered the administration to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return.¹¹ The administration interpreted “facilitate” to mean it had no obligation to actually seek his release. He remained imprisoned until June 6, 2025, nearly two months after the Supreme Court order.¹²
Judge Xinis later found that DOJ attorneys did not just stonewall but affirmatively misled the tribunal.¹⁰
Noah Feldman of Harvard Law School observed that since 1865, no president has refused to follow a direct order from a federal court.¹³
Due Process Violations
On May 16, 2025, the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that the administration violated due process rights of Venezuelan migrants, stating that notice roughly 24 hours before removal, devoid of information about how to exercise due process rights, surely does not pass muster.¹⁴
Immigration enforcement operations have detained at least seven U.S. citizens, including Andres Hermosillo of Arizona, held for 10 days despite telling officials he was from the U.S., and Leticia Jacobo, a native of Phoenix and member of the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, held for deportation in Iowa.¹⁵
President Trump suggested in April 2025 that “homegrowns are next” regarding sending U.S. citizens to CECOT.¹⁵ David Bier of the Cato Institute responded that this is obviously unconstitutional and obviously illegal, with no authority in any U.S. law to deport U.S. citizens and certainly not to imprison them in a foreign country.¹⁵
Alien Enemies Act Abuse
On March 14-15, 2025, President Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua without standard due process. This marked the first peacetime use of the Act, which had previously been invoked only during the War of 1812, World War I, and World War II.¹⁶
The administration deported over 250 people to El Salvador’s CECOT prison within days.¹⁶
Katherine Yon Ebright of the Brennan Center called Trump’s use of the Act a flagrantly illegal power grab.¹⁷
On September 2, 2025, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act was unlawful. Judge Leslie Southwick, a George W. Bush appointee, wrote that Tren de Aragua was not the kind of organized force or engaged in the kind of actions necessary to constitute an invasion or predatory incursion.¹⁸
Impoundment Control Act Violations
The Government Accountability Office issued at least six formal findings in 2025 that the administration violated the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 by withholding congressionally appropriated funds.¹⁹
Affected programs include $5 billion for electric vehicle infrastructure, approximately $8 billion in National Institutes of Health grants, $2.2 billion in Harvard University research grants, Head Start funding, Institute of Museum and Library Services grants, and FEMA emergency programs.¹⁹
OMB Director Russell Vought dismissed GAO findings as non-events with no consequence, rearview mirror stuff, and has argued the Impoundment Control Act itself is unconstitutional.¹⁹ No court has ever accepted that position.
Professor Zachary S. Price of UC Law San Francisco wrote in the Stanford Law Review that all the conventional considerations in constitutional interpretation cut against such a power.²⁰
First Amendment Violations
In Trump’s first 80 days, the administration issued 18 executive orders affecting free speech, involving 20 federal agencies and generating approximately 30 lawsuits raising First Amendment claims.²¹
Executive orders targeting the law firms Perkins Coie, WilmerHale, Jenner and Block, and Susman Godfrey imposed sanctions including suspension of security clearances and barred attorneys from federal buildings. Courts struck down all four orders on First Amendment grounds.²²
In the Susman Godfrey ruling, Judge Loren AliKhan found the order was based on a personal vendetta and a shocking abuse of power. Her June 27, 2025 permanent injunction stated that the order is unconstitutional from beginning to end.²²
Mark Lemley of Stanford Law explained that Trump is not targeting these firms because they have allegedly engaged in wrongdoing but because they represented parties that sued Trump personally. That is unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination.²³
ICE arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate and lawful permanent resident, on March 8, 2025 for pro-Palestinian protest activism. Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a memo citing Khalil’s beliefs, statements or associations as the basis for deportation.²⁴ On June 20, 2025, a federal judge ordered his release.²⁵
The United States dropped to 57th place in the 2025 World Press Freedom Index.²⁶ The Committee to Protect Journalists declared freedom of the press is no longer a given in the United States.²⁷
Administrative Procedure Act Violations
As of late April 2025, at least 202 lawsuits challenged Trump administration actions, with approximately 118 explicitly citing APA violations.²⁸
On December 8, 2025, Judge Patti Saris struck down Trump’s wind energy moratorium as arbitrary and capricious, finding that the sole factor the defendants considered in deciding to stop issuing permits was the president’s direction to do so.²⁹
The September 3, 2025 ruling in the Harvard case found the administration engaged in both First Amendment retaliation and APA violations, using antisemitism as a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically motivated assault on this country’s premier universities.³⁰
Appointments Clause Violations
A 14-state lawsuit alleges Trump violated the Appointments Clause by granting Elon Musk sweeping powers over government operations without Senate confirmation.³¹
On May 28, 2025, Judge Tanya Chutkan ruled the lawsuit could proceed, finding that states plausibly allege that Musk makes decisions about federal expenditures, contracts, government property, and the very existence of federal agencies.³¹
This is the record. Court rulings. GAO findings. The near-unanimous assessment of constitutional scholars.
Professor Laurence Tribe of Harvard compared Trump’s approach to royalty: “I compare it to King Henry VIII. Not even King George III had this kind of power, because he needed Parliament. This president thinks he doesn’t even need Congress.”³²
Michael C. Dorf of Cornell Law called the pattern of court defiance an existential threat to American constitutional democracy.³³
So here we are. One side has made clear, through action after action, that it does not consider itself bound by the Constitution, by statute, or by court order. The Supreme Court provides cover when asked and occasionally issues rulings that the administration simply ignores.
The constitutional order depends on voluntary compliance backed by institutional enforcement. When compliance ends and enforcement fails, what remains is a piece of paper.
We keep asking what we can do within the system. We keep filing lawsuits and winning them. We keep waiting for the guardrails to hold. But the guardrails are not holding. The lawsuits are being ignored. The system is not self-correcting.
We keep waiting for the line they won’t cross. They’ve already crossed it. They sent the military into American cities. Their agents beat people in the streets and disappeared them into foreign prisons. They told the courts to go fuck themselves and kept the planes in the air. They ignored a unanimous Supreme Court order for two months. They withheld billions Congress appropriated and called the findings “non-events.” If none of that ended the constitutional order, what would? If they cancel elections, what enforcement mechanism remains?
There is a reason we hesitate to say what comes next. To question the binding force of the Constitution feels like heresy. We have been taught to revere this document, to see it as the foundation of everything. Abandoning that faith feels like giving up on the country itself.
But faith in a document that one side openly defies while the other side remains bound by it amounts to unilateral disarmament. The people who swore to uphold the Constitution abandoned it. They decided those words meant less than power, money, or integrity.
If one party has walked away from the constitutional order entirely, with the Court’s blessing, why does that order still bind us? At what point does a contract that only one side honors stop being a contract at all?
The answer will determine whether constitutional democracy in America is something we fight for, or something we mourn.
So what do we do?
We stop waiting for federal permission and start building the infrastructure for state-level democratic resilience. That’s what the free booklets at buymeacoffee.com/theER are for. Intro to Soft Secession. Opposition Guide to Tax Warfare. Grab Them by the E.A.R.R (intro activist training booklet). A tri-fold pamphlet you can hand someone at a city council meeting. Download them. Print them. Use them. All for free.
References
Alemany, J., Barrett, D., & Dawsey, J. (2025, July 21). Trump accused of defying about a third of major court orders since taking office. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/07/21/trump-court-orders-defy-noncompliance-marshals-judges/
J.G.G. v. Trump, 605 U.S. ___ (2025) (Sotomayor, J., dissenting).
Katersky, A., & Barr, L. (2025, March 15). Trump administration ignores judge’s order to turn deportation planes around: Sources. ABC News. https://abcnews.go.com/US/trump-admin-ignores-judges-order-bring-deportation-planes/story?id=119857181
Basu, Z., & Swan, J. (2025, March 16). How Trump’s White House defied a judge’s order halting deportations. Axios. https://www.axios.com/2025/03/16/trump-white-house-defy-judge-deport-venezuelans
Montoya-Galvez, C. (2025, April 16). Judge: ‘Probable cause’ to hold U.S. in contempt over Alien Enemies Act deportations. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2025/04/16/g-s1-60696/judge-contempt-alien-enemies-act
Ainsley, J. (2025, July 10). Documents back up DOJ whistleblower’s claim that top official intended to ignore court orders. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/10/politics/justice-department-ignore-court-orders-emil-bove-erez-reuveni
Ainsley, J. (2025, June 24). Fired Justice Department lawyer accuses agency of planning to defy court orders. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2025/06/24/g-s1-74316/justice-department-immigration-whistleblower
FactCheck.org. (2025, April). Due process and the Abrego Garcia case. https://www.factcheck.org/2025/04/due-process-and-the-abrego-garcia-case/
Dale, D. (2025, December 11). Judge orders Abrego Garcia to be immediately released from immigration detention. WHYY. https://whyy.org/articles/judge-ruling-kilmar-abrego-garcia-release-immigration-detention/
Mangan, D. (2025, April 10). Supreme Court upholds order on Kilmar Abrego Garcia. CNBC. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/10/supreme-court-trump-kilmar-abrego-garcia.html
Barrett, D., & Sacchetti, M. (2025, December 11). Kilmar Abrego García released from ICE custody. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/12/11/trump-abrego-release-deportation/
Feldman, N. (2025, February 4). Trump is testing our constitutional system. It’s working fine. Bloomberg. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-02-04/trump-is-testing-our-constitutional-system-it-s-working-fine
Quay, G. (2025, May 16). Supreme Court finds Trump violated migrant due process rights with speedy deportations. Courthouse News Service. https://www.courthousenews.com/supreme-court-says-trump-violated-migrants-due-process-rights-keeping-pause-on-deportations-under-wartime-authority/
Gonzales, R. (2025, April). ‘Homegrowns are next’: Trump hopes to deport and jail U.S. citizens abroad. NPR. https://text.npr.org/nx-s1-5366178
Human Rights Watch. (2025, May 1). United States: Repeal the Alien Enemies Act: A human rights argument. https://www.hrw.org/report/2025/05/01/united-states-repeal-the-alien-enemies-act/a-human-rights-argument
Ebright, K. Y. (2025). Brennan Center analysis of Alien Enemies Act. Brennan Center for Justice.
W.M.M. v. Trump, No. 25-40191 (5th Cir. Sept. 2, 2025).
Summers, J. (2025, May 23). Trump’s White House says the GAO is wrong on held-up EV funds. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2025/05/23/nx-s1-5409080/trump-white-house-impoundment-gao
Price, Z. S. (2025). Trumpian impoundments in historical perspective. Stanford Law Review Online. https://www.stanfordlawreview.org/online/trumpian-impoundments-in-historical-perspective/-
Poynter Institute. (2025, April). President Trump said he ‘brought back free speech.’ His first 100 days tell a different story. https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2025/president-trump-freedom-speech/
Susman Godfrey LLP v. Trump, No. 1:25-cv-00000 (D.D.C. June 27, 2025).
Stanford Law School. (2025, April 2). Unconstitutional attack on law firms? Stanford’s Mark Lemley discusses how legal scholars are pushing back against President Trump’s executive orders. https://law.stanford.edu/2025/04/02/unconstitutional-attack-on-law-firms-stanfords-mark-lemley-discusses-how-legal-scholars-are-pushing-back-against-president-trumps-executive-orders/
Global Freedom of Expression, Columbia University. (2025). In the matter of: Mahmoud Khalil. https://globalfreedomofexpression.columbia.edu/cases/in-the-matter-of-mahmoud-khalil/
Stark, L. (2025, April 13). What’s next in the case of Mahmoud Khalil after immigration judge says he can be deported? CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/13/us/mahmoud-khalil-deportation-ruling-appeals
Reporters Without Borders. (2025, May 2). World press freedom plummets with ‘alarming deterioration’ in US under Trump. France 24. https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20250502-alarming-deterioration-of-us-press-freedom-under-trump-says-rsf
Committee to Protect Journalists. (2025, May 5). Trump’s impact on U.S. press freedoms. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2025/05/05/nx-s1-5384970/press-freedom-no-longer-a-given-in-u-s-according-to-cpj-report
Just Security. (2025). Litigation tracker: Legal challenges to Trump administration actions. https://www.justsecurity.org/107087/tracker-litigation-legal-challenges-trump-administration/
Schroeder, P. (2025, December 9). Federal judge throws out Trump order blocking wind energy development. CT Mirror. https://ctmirror.org/2025/12/09/judge-throw-out-trump-order-blocking-wind-projects/
President and Fellows of Harvard College v. United States Department of Education, No. 1:25-cv-00000 (D. Mass. Sept. 3, 2025).
State of New York v. Trump, No. 1:25-cv-00000 (D.D.C. May 28, 2025).
Bloch, M. (2025, May 29). Harvard’s Laurence Tribe draws brutal parallel between Trump and a ruthless royal tyrant. HuffPost. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/laurence-tribe-donald-trump-harvard-historical_n_6838045ae4b0e2e0f9a18983
Dorf, M. C. (2025, March 19). Trump’s Justice Department plays dirty. Justia Verdict. https://verdict.justia.com/2025/03/19/trumps-justice-department-plays-dirty
Subscribe by email →