Trump teeters on the constitutional cliff

The president has brought America to the brink of a terrifying political crisis. And he's masterfully manipulated millions of people into believing he's right.

President Trump.
(Image credit: Illustrated | Olivier Douliery-Pool/Getty Images, Wikimedia Commons)

America is drawing closer to its most dangerous crisis since the Civil War.

The president, through his lawyers and his emotionally unmoored Twitter account, is laying the groundwork for an inevitable challenge to Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation by claiming the broadest possible interpretation of executive power and privilege ever asserted by a sitting president. The Trump team's determination to place not just President Trump, but the very office of the president, above the laws of the United States threatens not just the Mueller investigation but the very idea of democracy itself. It will confirm and legitimize this country's long drift into electoral authoritarianism.

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David Faris

David Faris is an associate professor of political science at Roosevelt University and the author of It's Time to Fight Dirty: How Democrats Can Build a Lasting Majority in American Politics. He is a frequent contributor to Informed Comment, and his work has appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times, The Christian Science Monitor, and Indy Week.