America, and the fear of what comes next

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 12/03/2025 (202 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The ides of March (March 15) have been ominous since 44 BCE when Julius Caesar was stabbed to death by Roman senators, including his friend, Brutus, who feared their emperor had both the means and intention to become a dictator.

When we consider the political implosion to the south, it is hard to write anything in advance about Trump’s America right now. The serial train wreck is unfolding in slow motion, so (literally) from day to day you are never sure which cars will leave the track, nor how much damage they will do and to whom.

The American experiment in democracy that began in 1776 came at a ferocious price for many people. My ancestors — United Empire Loyalists who had settled in New York after landing from the Mayflower and the next few ships — lost everything, fleeing as refugees to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick after seven generations of building new lives in North America.

As the family story goes, George Washington wanted to catch and hang one of them — Gabriel Purdy, who fortunately escaped — so Washington took his house in White Plains, instead.

Gabriel and my other UEL ancestors would turn in their graves, however, to hear me hope that the American constitution really is proof against the tyranny of kings, as the founding fathers — their persecutors — had claimed.

The country’s constitution was supposed to divide the power of government among three branches — legislative (Congress), executive (president) and judicial (the courts), any two of which could keep a rogue third branch under control.

It was a recipe for political impasse, which is why things done elsewhere (like in Canada) remain elusive or impossible in the United States.

But combine autocracy with oligarchy, set aside that constitution, and it is a short slide into authoritarian rule.

There is no longer an impasse in American political life. U.S. President Donald Trump intends to push the limits of executive authority, backed by billionaire buddies like Elon Musk, until he encounters an obstacle he can’t ignore or brush aside.

What that obstacle might be is not obvious at the moment, assuming it exists at all. Congress’s two houses have long been divided against each other, and Trump’s demonstrated ability to dodge legal judgments has been augmented by a Supreme Court whose autonomy and primary allegiance to the constitution is seriously in doubt.

Thousands of workers have been summarily dismissed, in ways that certainly violate the spirit of labour law, if not the legal definitions of contract work or the conditions of government employment. That avalanche is deliberate, of course, presuming that whatever lawsuits are filed will be in such great numbers that the judicial system will be overwhelmed.

By the time the first cases are even heard, the damage will be done — and that would be the point. The government will appeal even the most blatant losses, so lower court victories will be irrelevant. Eventually, the U.S. Supreme Court will have to support or to challenge the Oval Office, not simply to uphold the constitution and expect their decisions to be obeyed. (The first appeal, against immediate cuts to USAID, was a weak 5-4 victory for the constitution, for now.)

Outside the United States, Trump’s blitzkrieg tactics certainly will provoke international reaction. At a time when Russian aggression should solidify the NATO alliance, Trump has made the United States not only unpredictable, but unreliable as an ally — and especially against Russia.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is not stupid — agreeing to the American resource demands might give Ukraine half of something, rather than all of nothing. But the Oval Office ambush of Zelenskyy, live on Fox News, should worry even the most rabid GOP supporter. What was supposed to be a “celebration” of the deal turned into a very public bloodbath — either evidence of deliberate intention or total stupidity, because things were said in front of a MAGA crowd that can’t easily be walked back. American aid to Ukraine has been “paused,” as a result, to the Kremlin’s glee.

As I watched what I could of Donald Trump’s address to Congress last week, I was left with the disquieting thought that he is not behaving like someone who expects to be the president of the United States for very long. Moreover, the parallels to what happened in Germany in 1932-33 are chilling. As others have observed, Adolf Hitler (supported by German oligarchs) in a matter of weeks exploited the Weimar constitution to dismantle the German republic and become der Führer.

We could be witnessing the same thing unfolding in the United States, driven by edicts from the Oval Office. July 4, 2026, might mark the end of its 250-year experiment in democracy.

For all its flaws and problems (and despite my ancestors), however, I still prefer the American Constitution to the divine right of kings, of any shade.

Unfortunately, politics has changed less in the past 2,069 years than you might think. This year, we all need to beware the ides of March. Betrayal is in the air.

Peter Denton writes from his home in rural Manitoba.