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President Trump’s declaration of war as a justification for using wartime powers to sidestep constitutional protections is indeed a war, but it is a war waged by the president against dissent, against due process, and against the very foundations of our constitutional republic.
This is what it means to weaponize the government.
When the government turns its power against its own people—through surveillance, retaliation, censorship, and intimidation—it ceases to serve the public and instead becomes a weapon of oppression.
Time and again, leaders have stretched—or outright shattered—the limits of power, weaponizing government power through unjust laws, surveillance, or outright suppression: John Adams silencing critics, Abraham Lincoln suspending rights, Woodrow Wilson jailing dissenters, FDR interning Japanese-Americans, Richard Nixon spying on political opponents, and so on.
Each power grab is a step toward the erosion of liberty.
And then there’s Donald Trump, who, having populated his administration with individuals more loyal to him than to the Constitution, is getting drunk on power.
The danger is not so much Trump as it is his enablers-to-abuse, the many minions within his administration and beyond who are eager to carry out unlawful orders, defy the courts, ignore Congress’ mandate, trample rights, and butcher the Constitution, all in the so-called name of putting America first.
If this keeps up, America, once looked upon as a bastion of freedom and economic opportunity, will be the last place anyone ever thinks of when they hear the words freedom, justice and equality.
Every action taken by the Trump administration in defiance of the rule of law—whether or not that action is motivated by a legitimate concern for national security—pushes us that much closer to the complete dismantling of our constitutional republic.
You can see the pattern forming already.
When anti-war protesters are made to disappear—snatched up late at night by plain-clothes men who refuse to identify themselves and then transported thousands of miles away, to a private prison in a state more favorable to dubious detentions—we are wading deep into authoritarian territory.
When Venezuelan migrants are rounded up and deported out of the country, heads shaven and in chains, without any due process—without being identified, without being charged formally with a crime, without getting a chance to plead their innocence against those charges and, if found guilty, then convicted—we are wading deep into authoritarian territory.
When Trump administration sycophants from the vice president on down are openly deriding and defying the courts while proclaiming the imperial supremacy of their exalted leader, we are wading deep into authoritarian territory.
Trump, adept at twisting facts and spinning lies, is working hard to insist that these end-runs around the rule of law are for our safety.
Don’t believe him. Words are cheap.
More importantly, don’t trust him. Bind him down with the chains of the Constitution.
The only real protection we have against tyranny is the rule of law, provided that you have a populace and a system of government that holds the rule of law as inviolable.
That is our real power: the extent to which we hold fast to the Constitution and demand that the government and its agents do so, as well.
The moment that we relent in that commitment is the moment that the Constitution loses its power to protect us against tyranny.
That is what is unfolding right now.
This is the devil’s bargain that we are being asked to enter into with Trump: empty promises and a one-way street to a dictatorship in exchange for our freedoms.
There can be no doubt about the nature of what is taking place right now.
If the president refuses to be held accountable, if he insists that his power is supreme, if he abuses the power of his office to wreak havoc and revenge, if he reduces our republic to rubble and tramples over the Constitution and disregards the rule of law, he is aligning himself with every despot, dictator and tyrant to have walked the earth.
We’ve been here before. We know how this story ends.
It takes time and effort and a willingness on the part of “we the people” to look beyond our differences and stand united in opposition to oppression, but when we do that, freedom prevails in the end.
Next year will be the 250th anniversary of the birth of this country, when America’s founders declared their independence from King George’s tyranny. What’s just as important, however, is what came before that: the small steps of rebellion, resistance and outrage that said, “enough is enough.”
Remember, the Constitution begins with those three beautiful words, “We the people.”
Those three words were intended as a reminder to future generations that there is no government without us: our sheer numbers, our muscle, our economy, our physical presence in this land.
If there is any means left to us for thwarting the government in its relentless march towards outright dictatorship, it rests with us.
Ultimately, that’s what the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution is all about: it affirms that “we the people” have all the power, and what powers we do not explicitly give to the federal government or the states, we retain. We may appoint government representatives to act in our stead, but we never relinquish that power altogether.
That’s where Trump and his Deep State handlers get it wrong. Speaking through him and his administration, they claim that this dismantling of the federal government is a bid to return power to local communities and state governments, but it’s not their government to dismantle, nor is it their power to return.
We are the government, and we are the power, and it’s time “we the people” reminded the government and its henchmen of that important fact.
The power still lies with us.
We must resist every attempt to erode our freedoms, demand accountability, and uphold the Constitution—before it’s too late.
The post Beyond the Law: What It Means to Weaponize the Government appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by John W. Whitehead – Nisha Whitehead.
John W. Whitehead – Nisha Whitehead | Radio Free (2025-03-21T05:55:41+00:00) Beyond the Law: What It Means to Weaponize the Government. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2025/03/21/beyond-the-law-what-it-means-to-weaponize-the-government/
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