And a few other things, that's just a prominent example.
Congress is pretty much ignoring this. Both parties.
I'm afraid everyone has lost the plot at this point though.
Alcoholic (speaking of Russian stereotypes!) wife-abuser as defense minister? Rubber-stamped! RFK as health minister? Rubber-stamped! Glory to the union!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Soviet_of_the_Soviet_U...
If you read the source: https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/
On the "legislative" side:
> All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.
> Congress shall have Power To ... declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
Meanwhile on the "executive" side:
> He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur;
To me, this is pretty clear, at least about things like war and treaties and land acquisition. But it's easy to come up with a ton of examples from all parties that seem to violate these very basic rules.
What I would read as very fundamental "violations" of the document are often upheld by courts as being in agreement with it.
So, to answer your question, yes, they just sit back and chill with a 76% disapproval rating, but it took 119 congresses to get there. https://news.gallup.com/poll/1600/congress-public.aspx
Judges are acting to stay executive orders, but judicial processes are deliberately slow and the current administration seated several current Supreme Court judges.
Civil disobedience and mass unrest seems inevitable when the rule of law and balance of powers is systemically undermined.
Yet initially the two current leaders of the Democratic Party seemed determined to broadcast their own weakness. Minority leader Hakeem Jeffries spent last week at a donor retreat with billionaire tech leaders, only to emerge whining, ‘What leverage do we have? They control the House, the Senate, and the presidency.’… Jeffries’s conflation of “leverage” with “holding a majority in a chamber” is jaw-dropping. Power—the ability to change the behavior of another—comes from information, charisma, law, attention, procedure, expertise, and the ability to convene and organize. … What could they have done? Here are four suggestions: First, vigorous procedural delay….. Second, convene and spotlight. They should not see their power just through the lens of how it has traditionally been used. Congressional Democratic leadership should also make full use of their own convening power, holding hearings taking testimony from fired and pressured employees…. Congressional Democrats can also do more on basic legal protection of the institution. The people’s house is under attack, and they should be wielding law like swords to defend it. While Democratic state attorneys general have been filing lawsuit after lawsuit, congressional leadership—whose own power as the lawmaking arm of the American public is being decimated—should understand they also need to play a key role in making sure lawsuits are brought to block the destruction. Whatever their legal abilities, they are all astute fundraisers, and can play matchmaker between constituents, possible plaintiffs, lawyers, and donors to make sure that effective and well-resourced lawsuits are brought to stop the illegal power plays….. Finally, they can go on offense, forcing Trump and Republicans to either help Americans, or clearly demonstrate that they don’t want to. That means being willing to work with Republicans—if they can get laws passed that make people’s lives better, and not focus on Democratic Party branding.”
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/trump-musk-democr...
Okay, so Congress could pass a resolution saying they consider the dissolution of USAID a violation of the law… but the silence speaks for itself. The law is not what is written, the law is what we do and what we tolerate.
Really just the wild stuff that Elon and Trump post to their social media is terrifyingly unhinged. I feel most people get the sane-washed version via the media but it's genuinely mind boggling to read their directly published public comments about stuff.
Direct quote for the record:
> USAID was a viper’s nest of radical-left marxists who hate America
this is not a debate about just what the intelligence community can and cannot do, or what level of enforcement and in what communities is appropriate for a given law. it is a point blank statement "i am the president, and you (tiktok) and you (google, apple) can ignore the law", made in public, without any possible national security justification (whatever level of BS that might normally come with).
Edit: you all are out here downvoting provable facts.
I'm noting that there is a qualititive difference in Trump's behavior with respect to this law compared with ... well, anything anyone has been comparing it to.
A lot of people don't get fined for jaywalking and it's not a big deal because it's understood that it's a lot of work to actually cite all of them everywhere, so the difference between the normal level of not enforcing everything and intentionally not enforcing isn't 0 vs 100.
This is passing a law that John Smith should go to jail and then deciding you don't actually want to send him to jail. Why did you bother passing the law if you didn't care. Trump literally started all this TikTok banning stuff and now is against it, but isn't actually repealing the law. Congress seems to have just given up too. It's fully lawless.
Maybe something good will come out of this like Europe finally waking up, even now in 2025 here on HN I got attacked for warmongering if I dare say that we should increase defense (literally in our case) budgets.
Elephant in the porcelaine shop will make a room for new products for sure but thats not the most important thing that happens.
Along that axis, you are certainly right that it is basically the same as the president unilaterally choosing to exempt a specific multibillion dollar company controlled by a powerful foreign adversary from laws passed by congress with the intent of shoring up national security.
This insight is well received by me and I'm sure others.
The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty.
Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind, (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight,) the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.
It serves always to distract the Public Councils, and enfeeble the Public Administration. It agitates the Community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.
[0] https://www.mountvernon.org/education/primary-source-collect...
It's like watching one of those hydraulic press videos - the slow build up of the squeeze has been happening for awhile, we've finally arrived at the point where the pressure is really deforming stuff. But it was predictable for a long time.
This is a slow-motion disaster but too many people are complacent because they think it's not going to affect them. No matter your political leanings we cannot allow a constitutional crisis to go unchecked. Things that we take for granted dissolve rapidly if institutions start grabbing power without consequences.
It's insane that Congress isn't stepping-up here.