There’s a tendency to confuse the rule of law with obedience to the rules of a regime.
Within that confusion lies one of the multiple, dangerous threats posed by our current administration–a threat that became manifestly clear when Trump pardoned the January 6th insurrectionists. Autocrats can devise rules; the rule of law, however, is defined as a durable system characterized by four universal principles: accountability, just law, open government, and accessible and impartial justice.
Those elements are entirely foreign to MAGA and Trump. (Let’s face it–Trump wouldn’t even be able to define those terms…)
The chaos of the Trump administration, and the breadth of its attacks on democratic governance, have operated to distract public attention from its ongoing assault on the rule of law, and its persistent substitution of rules benefitting plutocrats and autocrats for laws benefiting society.
A recent issue of the American Prospect addressed that under-appreciated assault.
A functioning economy depends on a basic principle: cheaters shouldn’t win. But Donald Trump has tossed aside that principle, and that has real consequences. When the rules disappear, the worst actors thrive and everyone else pays the price.
In our new print issue, we examine how the collapse of financial enforcement and consumer protection is opening the floodgates to a golden age of scams. Under Trump, the referees have left the field. Civil penalties go unenforced. White-collar fraudsters are rewarded with pardons. Entire arms of the government designed to prevent theft, abuse, and discrimination are being dismantled.
It’s an intentional choice to let exploitation run wild. If there’s a way to game the system, someone’s doing it—and now they’re doing it with the government’s blessing.
The issue documented a variety of scams that have gained new security against government enforcement. One article reported on the multiple ways in which the gutting of the CFPB–the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau–has facilitated a wide variety of rackets and frauds. Another article delved into the failures of the Department of Education under Trump to protect student loan recipients from predatory lenders.
An article titled “Three Coin Monte” described what the magazine calls “the greatest and most brazen tale of corruption in history”– Trump’s crypto project. That article outlined “how Trump is using his ‘shitcoin’ to monetize the presidency and create new avenues for influence peddling.”
There’s also an explanation of a scam involving merchant cash advances. These are transactions in which tycoons sell what are effectively payday loans to small businesses and ruin their livelihoods. (We are told that one of those “tycoons” was on Trump’s pardon list in 2020; he’s back in jail, for now.)
These investigative articles are just a few examples of what happens when government fails in what has always been considered a foundational task: to prevent some citizens from taking advantage of others, to prevent the strong (or unscrupulous) from harming the weak and/or naive.
Donald Trump’s government has corrupted the very concept of law. The evidence is overwhelming: the gutting of the Department of Justice, the indiscriminate labeling of immigrants as “criminals” as justification for masked ICE agents’ thuggish behaviors, the appalling arrests of elected lawmakers on transparently false premises, orders from the administration to the EPA directing the agency not to enforce environmental rules against fossil fuel companies, the Trump family’s failure to even try to mask its monetization of the Presidency…the list goes on.
When the rule of law is replaced with rules favoring the predatory, when people in positions of authority sneer at the very notion of ethics and ethical behavior, when elected members of Congress fail to exercise their constitutional oversight responsibilities, ordinary citizens lose respect for the very concept of law. Corrupt regimes encourage lawbreaking by people who wouldn’t otherwise be scofflaws. Cynicism explodes. The trust on which societies rely evaporates.
The central goal of Project 2025 was to replace the rule of law with rules allowing selected people to exercise unrestrained and arbitrary power–power to give their sycophants and fellow-travelers free reign to plunder, but–more fundamentally– to facilitate the remaking of America into the Lily-White “Christian” nation of Project 2025’s fantasies.
In Henry VI, Shakespeare wrote “First you kill all the lawyers.” The authors of Project 2025 understood why that’s wrong. First you kill the rule of law.
Congress is in dire need of a colonic; Johnson is the blockage causing the impacted bowels of the House. He will never allow the 3rd impeachment of Trump to be posted; have the remaining actual Republicans (IF there are any at this point) the strength of character and Americanism to activate their own regulatory change that anyone in the House can request to change the Speaker and will anyone follow suit? They have that tool which they have used before which ended with Johnson as Speaker; the power of Trump pushed MAGA and other weakened characters in the House to vote to support Trump’s puppet.
“When the rule of law is replaced with rules favoring the predatory, when people in positions of authority sneer at the very notion of ethics and ethical behavior, when elected members of Congress fail to exercise their constitutional oversight responsibilities, ordinary citizens lose respect for the very concept of law.”
How long will House members sit mute and idle as Trump ignores the ethics which once guided the Republican party as viable leaders of this nation. We didn’t agree with them but accepted them as the elected president and other officials and began working to change that situation in the next election. I have seen no upholding of possible Democratic candidates to lead us back to democracy, Rule of Law and upholding the Constitution. The pitiful E-mails, surveys and social media posts provide little hope for change and every one of them ends with SEND US MONEY but what do they do with it when they receive it?
This is the most dangerous FOLLOW THE MONEY situation this nations has found itself locked in. Musk and his collegiate members of DOGE have taken away jobs, money and are selling off government buildings and public lands and the rising economy prevents average Americans to have money to support ourselves but want us the send them what little money we do have. PACs need to be done away with, they suck donors dry and we do not know what they actually do with the money they receive as donations. We have seen no alleviation of the stress and fear we are living with and no sign of hope for change. David Hogg is right in his belief that we need to clear out those old white men who, probably like myself, sit wondering “How could this happen to America?” How could a president bomb an enemy simply by his own order; which moves us closer to his 2016 comments and aims, “Why can’t we just nuke ’em?” When will the nuclear games begin and who will make the preemptive strike?
Look no further than the GOP and MAGA celebrities and their adoration of Victor Orban’s Hungary for a view of what they want America to be.
Nice hit on Johnson and the Congressional Republicans. These creatures of the money sewer have NO intention of governing for the people. Clearly. So what do we the people do about it?
The Democrats remain flat on their asses with no leadership taking charge of the message and the brand. Pathetic. Well, that’s what corporate/banking America has wanted since Lincoln was shot.
Today’s media is also complicit in the destruction of democracy as they continue to fear MAGA reprisals and reductions in their bottom lines. I don’t often agree with Todd, but on this topic it’s clear: Corporate-owned media are terrified of losing right-wing extremist audiences for fear of losing money. My take? It’s a pathetic, immoral and idiotic crock of shit.
The irony is that the media will end up writing the epitaph of what was once a working democracy. Nicely played, fascists. You’re going to find yourselves strung up from a light pole like Mussolini in the not too distant future.
The transition from aristocratic rule to the rule of law is a journey that humans have been on since our transition from bonobos. Aristocratic rule is also referred to as the “rule of the jungle,” in which only the strongest survive.
We think, communicate, dream, and imagine by creating and using symbols that represent what our senses inform us about. After a while, the symbols take on more meaning for us than what is happening around us, because most of what we remember never really occurred to us, but was reported to us by others who witnessed it, and that reporting may or may not be accurate.
The Rule of Trump is based on his storytelling. He uses words to spin tales that create the illusion of his ability to create laws that serve his supporters, but his motivation for making such rules is to serve himself, so he spins compelling myths.
He is the direct opposite of Artificial Intelligence (only the “intelligence” symbol); the “artificial” symbol still applies (what remains real is the transfer of power from the people ruled to himself as ruler).
Some people become convinced that he only takes power from “others” and gives it to his supporters, a dream come true for them. He takes power from everyone and applies it solely to self-serving purposes.
Frightening, but clear and helpful to get the big picture. America, pay attention and stand up to this sick leader and his minions, please!
Capitalism, religion, and politics have conglomerated to form an immense evil. One that has morphed into something that is completely unfeeling, uncaring, and self-serving…
A conglomerate with an insatiable appetite, and one with enough power to take what it needs, and needs what it wants.
A conglomerate that brings together the unfettered greed of criminality, the unfettered deceit of apostasy, and the unfettered power lust of politics.
It makes its own reality, because there is no opposition. And it sucks the life out of the political, religious, business, and social structure that helped spawn it! Like a body snatcher, it replaces good with bad, righteousness with evil, and compassion with disdain!
Welcome to the end of what men built. Men built it, and men destroyed it!
Hey Vern,
What do you really think? 🤣
Isn’t the truth that the laws that protect “we the people” of the United States of America are the laws that provided the power to ignore them.
dump ordered the unprovoked bombing of a country. How is this different from Pearl Harbor?
Military personnel obeyed that order. How is that different from Hitler’s invasion of Poland?
ICE are rounding up anyone who “looks” like they are an immigrant (black and brown mostly) and sending them to camps.. How is that any different that the SS rounding up Jews, the disabled, dissenters, Romani and anyone else they deemed not Aryan enough? How is that different from the U.S. rounding up American-Japanese and German citizens and putting them in camps after confiscating their property and assets?
Fellow citizens are lining up to get the jobs those roundups create. Judges obviously have no power to enforce stop orders. Now a corrupt SCOTUS has given carte blanc to dump’s fascist regime to continue renditions.
Why would any thinking individual have any confidence in the rule of law when it is being flagrantly violated and/or ignored?
I hate what we have become, ashamed to my core, angry and disheartened by the actions or inactions of so many I thought were decent and kind people who cheer on cruelty and viciousness, joyfully declaring themselves Christian at the same time. It is sickening.
I do not know what it will take for the people to rise up but I am sure at some time it will happen. Elections, if they are held at all, are controlled by the states. Will they stand against the orders of dump’s regime?
I will continue to resist in the few ways available to me. I hope that my children and theirs are able to live in a country where the rule of law doesn’t mean being ruled by forced compliance to a white christian nationalist Taliban.
Why are we surprised when people elect and applaud the “power” that ignores the “rule of law”? We live in a culture where more and more people run stop lights, drive at excessive speeds, possess and use guns and deride the “others” with few complaining about it and no guardrails erected/used.
And, should one agree with SCOTUS, that corporations are people….look at how they use their money, ignore/evade regulations, etc.
Why are we surprised?
Everyone is waiting for a Democrat to step up and be our hero. If we truly want a democracy, we need to understand that together, we can all be the hero we’re waiting for. You can’t impeach anyone in Congress, but you can do recall petitions.
Talk to people at rallies. Recruit them to help. Find out who they admire among the current crop of political leaders. Double down if you find yourself in sync with others. Taking the House away isn’t that hard. Get it back then begin oversight.of the current Administration. If we wait until 2026, it might be too late.
Everyone is waiting for a Democrat to step up and be our hero. If we truly want a democracy, we need to understand that together, we can all be the hero we’re waiting for. You can’t impeach anyone in Congress, but you can do recall petitions.
Talk to people at rallies. Recruit them to help. Find out who they admire among the current crop of political leaders. Double down if you find yourself in sync with others. Taking the House away isn’t that hard. Get it back then begin oversight.of the current Administration. If we wait until 2026, it might be too late.
Be the hero we need!
Sorry for the double post!
Well stated JD!
John Sorg, your brief and to the point comment nails it. Capitalism, Religion And Politics…CRAP!
“Trump uses words,” to do the one thing he is good at…manipulating. And there are far too many people eager to buy his crap.
The reason the U.S. has degenerated to the current state and Trump has been able to elevate the Executive Branch to autocratic status is because Congress (the House & the Senate) is unable to deal effectively with the most basic problems, let alone the many highly complex ones that confront the country. It is not the fault of Republicans or Democrats; both are responsible for the rules under which they operate, which is major mistake number 1.
The Rules of the Game. . .
The “Rules” are the rules of the House and Senate. The “Game” is the future of the United States of America. For all their greatness, the Founders made a huge mistake when they gave Congress the ability to make and change their own rules. Until this problem is corrected, the madness will continue.
https://angrybearblog.com/2025/06/rules-of-the-game#more-177548
MAGA: Maniacs Are Gutting America
Mitch,
Absolutely they’re standing in line, their mouths wide open, waiting for the manure spreader to slap the crap right in there. Then they swallow that crap sandwich without even chewing.
They buy the replacement theory, they buy the evil of affirmative action, They have disdain for equal access, or any sort of equality. Because the dumber a person is, the more entitled they believe they are. They perceive their stupidity is caused by equality! And when they find someone who they think has really made it, and can preen his feathers in front of them, and because he says he’s one of them, they become hypnotized. The person they are enamored with can do no wrong, and must be divinely sent! This process is older than dirt, but when this planet only had a population in the millions instead of billions, things could be recovered from. But now, we’ve got billions, and we are probably past the point of no return. You can survive ignorance, especially when it’s sparsely spread, but when you have ignorance that’s packed in like an overstuffed suitcase, well, now the only way reverse course, would be a mass extinction! Start all over if the planet is still here.
JoAnn,
Yep! Absolutely right on.
Your view of “the rule of law” is extremely idealistic–truly something to aim for. Our actual “rule of law” is ALWAYS tilted towards the protection of property, power, and wealth. Justice is often not present.
Brenda,
Thanks for the truth telling. Even when “the law” is not ignored…compare the treatment for a kid in poverty stealing a loaf of bread and a corporation poisoning the air..
– Whether they get caught….
– How they are treated when they get caught….
– How long it takes them to be tried…
– The punishment v/s the crime….
– Etc.