This article was originally published by John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead at The Rutherford Institute.
“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”—James Madison
Power corrupts.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Unadulterated power in any branch of government is a menace to freedom, but concentrated power across all three branches is the very definition of tyranny: a dictatorship disguised as democracy.
When one party dominates all three branches of government—the executive, the legislative, and the judicial—there is even more reason to worry.
There’s no point debating which political party would be more dangerous with these powers.
This is true no matter which party is in power.
This is particularly true in the wake of the 2024 election.
Already, Donald Trump, who promised to be a dictator on “day one,” is advancing plans to further undermine the nation’s already vulnerable system of checks and balances.
To be fair, this is not a state of affairs that can be blamed exclusively on Trump.
America’s founders intended our system of checks and balances to serve as a bulwark against centralized power being abused.
As constitutional scholar Linda Monk explains, “Within the separation of powers, each of the three branches of government has ‘checks and balances’ over the other two. For instance, Congress makes the laws, but the President can veto them, and the Supreme Court can declare them unconstitutional. The President enforces the law, but Congress must approve executive appointments and the Supreme Court rules whether executive action is constitutional. The Supreme Court can strike down actions by both the legislative and executive branches, but the President nominates Supreme Court justices, and the Senate confirms or denies their nominations.”
Unfortunately, our system of checks and balances has
The remainder of this article is available in its entirety at SHTF Plan
