Elected Felon
We Are Living Through a Constitutional Crisis
Trump just started a war. Am I losing sleep? Why yes I am. Let’s dive in.
Our president just bombed Iran. Not some limited strike, not some symbolic response. He dropped bunker-buster bombs on three nuclear facilities without congressional approval and without any of the constitutional processes that are supposed to govern these decisions. This is an act of war conducted in direct violation of the Constitution.
Worse? It was all for nothing. Trump claimed these facilities were “completely obliterated,” but satellite imagery tells a different story. Iran had evacuated their materials days before the strikes. We spent hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to blow up empty buildings while risking American lives and breaking our foundational law.
The consequences? Iran retaliated against Israel and is now threatening to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The very thing Trump claimed he was preventing has been accelerated. They’ll move their nuclear program underground, beyond international inspectors, making us less safe than before.
But constitutional violations don’t stop at unauthorized wars. While Trump was bombing Iran, he also installed 88-foot flagpoles at the White House. Why 88? Because it’s code in white supremacist circles for “Heil Hitler.” When did he unveil them? The day before Juneteenth. This isn’t coincidence from the man who called neo-Nazis “very fine people.” He might as well have raised two giant middle fingers to the entire brown-skinned community in America.
Then there’s the immigration enforcement. Trump’s administration has arrested over 100,000 people in sweeps that have caught American citizens alongside immigrants. They’re demanding ICE arrest 3,000 people daily while building detention capacity from 41,000 beds to over 100,000. They’re spending 45 billion dollars on cages for human beings.
Here’s what should terrify every American: they’re using masked secret police to do it. ICE agents now operate in full face masks with no badges, no name tags, no identifying marks. They arrive in unmarked vehicles, dragging people away with no accountability. Every fascist regime in history has depended on secret police. America has never had one until now. It get’s worse. What’s to stop militant racist terror groups from copying the process and disappearing citizens in the night? How would we even know the difference?
When police can operate anonymously while exercising state power, you’re no longer living in a democracy. You’re living in a police state. And these tactics always expand.
Meanwhile, the man vetting everyone in Trump’s administration hasn’t completed his own background check. Sergio Gor, responsible for ensuring federal employees are trustworthy, is himself unvetted. Evidence suggests he might be using a false identity with possible Russian connections.
Trump is also making millions off the presidency through cryptocurrency schemes, foreign dinners costing investors 148 million dollars, and accepting a 400-million-dollar airplane from Qatar. These aren’t just ethics violations. They’re constitutional violations. The emoluments clause exists for exactly this reason.
Where is Congress? The Republican-controlled Congress is doing nothing. They’re watching our democracy crumble while either cheering or looking away. The courts have tried to intervene, with judges blocking deportations without due process to third-country concentration camps. But the Supreme Court just overruled them, allowing this administration to resume shipping people to places like South Sudan without meaningful opportunity to challenge their removal. That’s human trafficking, and it’s illegal. Even as Trump officials “openly flouted court orders,” the conservative majority rewarded their lawlessness.
This is the systematic breakdown of everything that made America a democracy. When the president can start wars without Congress, profit off his office without consequence, and send coded messages to white supremacists while rounding up legal immigrants with secret police, we are no longer living in a democracy.
Millions understood this on June 14th during “No Kings Day” protests in over 2,000 cities. They understood we don’t do kings in America.
But apparently protest isn’t enough. Every time someone says “This is just politics” or “Both sides do it,” they’re normalizing the destruction of our democracy. Every time the media treats constitutional violations like another political story, they’re enabling authoritarianism.
The institutions that should protect us are failing. The only thing standing between us and full authoritarianism is us. The American people.
So what do we do? We demand impeachment. Trump has violated his oath through emoluments violations, unauthorized wars, creating secret police and trafficking of humans without due process across international borders.
We flood the phones of our representatives daily. We organize sustained, peaceful demonstrations. We support local officials refusing to cooperate with unconstitutional federal overreach. We protect each other through mutual aid networks. We educate our neighbors about how bad this has become.
And we prepare for the long haul. Democracy is fragile and requires constant vigilance. The people of the Weimar Republic thought their institutions would save them too. They learned too late that democracy can disappear faster than you imagine.
We still have time. We still have tools. But we have to use them now, every single day, until this threat ends.
The choice is ours: resistance or complicity. Democracy doesn’t save itself. And right now, we’re losing it. The window is closing. Act now, or explain to your children why you didn’t.
I’ve built a short toolkit that you can use to get started. It includes a phone-your-legislator guide, a find-your-people guide, and a list of resources for organizing resistance. Check out the link to the companion page to this video in the show notes for more information.
This is Chris, the Amateur Ethicist. Thanks for crossing the road with me today. I’ll see you in the next video.
Featured Image Credit: The featured image is satirical artwork created by me using AI imaging tools. It depicts President Trump with devil horns and pointed ears, wearing a prison-orange jumpsuit, seated at a blood-spattered table representing the human cost of his policies. Behind him, the infrastructure of our constitutional democracy burns. The image portrays him as a figure without conscience or remorse—a devil who derives pleasure from the destructive work of his enablers. In America, no one can be king.
