https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/july-26-2026
"From the time he took office in January 2025, Trump and his cronies have not
simply challenged laws or constitutional provisions. They have acted as if the
Constitution doesn’t exist.
That’s an important distinction. The former accepts the constitutional order by
working within it to challenge it. The latter rejects the constitutional order
entirely.
Their actions align with the strategy of Nazi political theorist Carl Schmitt,
whose writings seem lately to have captivated leaders on the American right.
Schmitt opposed liberal democracy, in which the state enables individuals to
determine their own fate. Instead, he argued that true democracy erases
individual self-determination by making the mass of people one with the state
and exercising their will through state power. That uniformity requires getting
rid of opposition. Schmitt theorized that politics is simply about dividing
people into friends and enemies and using the power of the state to crush
enemies. As J.D. Vance described Schmitt’s ideas in 2024: “There’s no law,
there’s just power.”
Much of Schmitt’s philosophy centered around the idea that the power of a
nation that is based in a constitution and the rule of law belongs to the man
who can exploit emergencies that create exceptions to the constitutional order,
enabling him to exercise power without regard to the law. Trump—who almost
certainly has not read Schmitt himself—asserted this view in August 2025 to
justify deploying troops to American cities. “I have the right to do anything I
want to do,” he said. “I’m the president of the United States. If I think our
country’s in danger—and it is in danger in the cities—I can do it.”
Although the Republicans have control of both the House of Representatives and
the Senate—meaning Trump should be able to get his agenda passed according to
the normal constitutional order—since retaking office he has operated under
emergency powers. Back in April, Ben Diamond of Lawfare noted that Trump is on
track to issue six and a half times more emergency orders in his second term
than any other president this century issued during his entire term. That
number, Diamond suggests, is probably an underestimate because many of Trump’s
orders do not include the keyword “emergency” and so fly under the radar.
Trump’s imposition of a new round of tariffs on products from more than 60
countries, making up 99.4% of trade with the U.S., is a flashing red light."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
