On Monday, Feb. 17, Swarthmore’s political science department hosted a panel to discuss the first month of President Donald Trump’s term and the characterization of the U.S. as in the midst of a constitutional crisis. The event, moderated by political science professor Jonny Thakkar, featured professors Sam Handlin, Susanne Schwarz, and Warren Snead as experts on the historical, contemporary, and comparative perspectives on the issue. Although the event was scheduled last minute in response to a flurry of controversial executive actions by Trump, a large group of students and faculty alike crowded into a Trotter Hall classroom to listen to the faculty’s insights and pose their pressing questions regarding the state of American democracy.
Snead began the conversation by briefly describing the role of a constitution in politics and his conception of a constitutional crisis. The latter he characterized in two main points: first, it emerges when political parties or institutions reject their constitution and its legal norms as an avenue to resolve salient political questions, and second, it should be viewed more as a spectrum rather than a binary of full crisis or full stability.
He added topical elements to his interpretation by referring to the current presidency, stating that, “I don’t believe that America’s constitutional dysfunction began this past month” but is instead a manifestation of an issue with deep historical roots. According to Snead, what differentiates Trump’s behavior from past presidents is “the wholesale rejection of any constraint on presidential power,” which extends beyond the traditional dynamic of an executive and judiciary in conflict; he finds this historical uniqueness as the “most troubling at this moment.”
Next to speak was Handlin, who specializes in the comparative politics of Latin America. When looking at democracies around the world, he sees the current political situation as “a five alarm fire,” but did qualify that “constitutional crisis does not necessarily mean the end of democracy.” He elaborated that in some case studies, including countries from Latin America, chief executives have exceeded “their formally constitutionally delegated powers” and put a strain on the democratic political system but did not fully dismantle it. He introduced the concept of delegative democracy, where a chief executive rules as they see fit by minimizing the role of checks and balances and usually exercises control through executive decrees with few constraints. From here, it is not guaranteed that the state will become authoritarian, and these regimes can end without the dissolution of democracy.
Handlin also presented a more dismal view on the potential direction of an empowered Executive Branch, namely by interfering in the electoral process. This includes persecution of opponents and censure of new outlets that are critical of the regime and a general overriding of the branches that could otherwise implement protections for free and fair elections. To Handlin, it seems that “there are folks in this government that are motivated to essentially sort of destroy the liberal state,” even if Trump himself does not envision such long-term goals for society. He reemphasized a skewed electoral process as a means for actors in the administration to extend their time in office and continue working on the entrenchment of a new political order.
Schwarz then branched her opening comments off of Handlin’s last point as well as one of Snead’s, agreeing that, “this is an exceptional moment in US history where we are drifting towards … a competitive authoritarian regime.” She, like the other faculty, did not believe that the Trump administration would necessarily become a “full-blown dictatorship,” but highlighted the many ways in which it could establish a system rigged in favor of the incumbent party. From her perspective, the bureaucracy could become a powerful tool to punish or reward political actors according to where their loyalties lie, not unlike a system of patronage.
The impact of the administration’s actions on the economy was also notable to Schwarz, who pointed out that contracts to the private sector are another way of acknowledging and rewarding loyalties. Those who show support for the administration, like the CEOs of large technology corporations who attended President Trump’s inauguration, may benefit from favorable regulations in addition to profitable government contracts.
She also brought up several things that concerned her about the powerlessness of the opposition. For example, fear of prosecution by the Department of Justice or Internal Revenue Service on falsified charges could dissuade individuals from creating or partaking in an opposition campaign. Schwarz also expressed a belief that the general public is less outraged about Trump’s second term and that “people were much more worried about American democracy back then than they seem to be right now,” describing it as a sort of complacency. Members of the opposition who took action back in 2016 might not feel the same urgency to do so now because they feel that they can simply survive as they did for four years, but Schwarz cautioned that the Republican Party is now “basically completely captured by Trump” and thus cannot create internal roadblocks. Additionally, the President has likely learned more effective tactics for pursuing his political goals from his first term. Overall, her assessment was not optimistic: “the political system will not come out of [the next four years] unscathed.”
The panel then pivoted to fielding questions and comments from the audience. A student addressed the first question to Snead, asking about the significance of relevant pending court cases and what the potential outcomes could be given the current makeup of the Supreme Court. Snead responded by saying that “it seems like federal courts have largely disapproved of most of the issues they’ve heard that Trump has taken,” including the highly contested birthright citizenship executive order. He then broadened the scope of the question, reframing it as “what role do courts have in this process [of democratic preservation], and what effect will court decisions have?” Snead referenced court scholarship in his answer, stating that “throughout American history, courts by themselves could not overcome energetic exercises of power from the other branches without some political support.” The impact of a position taken by the Roberts Court will therefore depend on whether other institutions reinforce its decision, which is likely to be in favor of Trump anyway given that it ruled in favor of the President in Trump v. U.S. (2024).
Another student shifted the attention to the opposition party once more, inquiring about the “current relative inaction by the Democratic Party.” Schwarz commented first, highlighting the inherently weak nature of a party with no political majorities in addition to the fact that any news about Democratic retaliation would likely be overshadowed by headlines on Trump.
Thakkar raised the related issue of the complex structure of leadership among political parties in the US, especially when they are the minority party in government: “there’s no exact clarity as to who is helming this ship.” Handlin supported his remark by explaining the role of shadow cabinets in other countries, which are unofficial ministers from the opposition party who offer alternative policies to the government’s position, creating a “clear juxtaposition and counterpoint” for voters. Furthermore, Handlin proposed that the Democrats were “very invested” in the status quo and assumed that the traditional checks would curtail Trump’s overreach, resulting in a lack of strategy in reaction to “the level of aggression that the Trump administration has moved with” in the past few weeks.
A faculty member from the Dornsife School of Public Health at Drexel University was also present in the audience and spoke up to describe the specific impact of bureaucratic agencies, such as the National Institute of Health (NIH) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), on academic research. Because his institution runs largely on grants from the NIH, the administration’s cost-cutting efforts could severely impair its ability to function. Additionally, he noted that the general public, including those who voted for Trump, will begin to question the extent to which agencies are being reduced in size and budget as they feel the consequences of a weak bureaucratic state.
Handlin responded to the audience member’s point, saying that “in general, it’s pretty unpopular to slash the government to the degree” that the administration has advocated for. However, he warned that, despite the evident unpopularity of the policies, “there might not be that much that can stop them from doing at least a tremendous amount of change and damage.”
Thakkar then directed his own question to Handlin, asking, “What is it that you can see being a sort of next step towards elections being free but not fair?” Handlin’s answer focused on tactics such as the ownership of large media corporations by regime loyalists who can then disseminate propaganda for the incumbent or the government wielding the court system to harm a challenger in elections. In these scenarios, voters maintain the ability to participate in the electoral process, “but because all these different thumbs have been put on the scale … the incumbent has a big advantage.”
Handlin’s comment reintroduced Snead’s idea of a constitutional crisis as on a spectrum, which Thakkar took up by observing that the example of biased elections seemed “suspiciously like the status quo anyway.” In comparison to other countries, the limited exposure of left-wing points of view in the media reads as a continuation of oligarchy to Thakkar, and that changes implemented by Trump will only produce “a slightly different type of oligarchy.”
Other topics of interest for the audience included potential strategies for the Democratic Party to block the administration’s actions, the recent influx of lawsuits filed against media corporations, and the legitimacy of democracy in the eyes of voters.
A question of particular relevance to the college community was about the measures that an academic institution can take in response to threats to democracy. Handlin, as the only tenured professor among the three panel members, decided to answer the question. He acknowledged the limits of an institution in effectively challenging government policy, but also criticized administrative leaders for their silence, saying “I think it’s actually been pretty shameful that there haven’t been more public statements” given that the institutions themselves have been on the receiving end of many of the Trump administration’s attacks.
During a time of rapid political change, including the introduction of drastic actions and policies with little historical precedent, hearing from experts provided a framework to parse through thoughts and questions. In a later conversation with The Phoenix, Snead explained why he joined the panel, which also seemed to be a reason that many people attended: “I think we’re at a really important historical moment and I thought that it would be great to participate in a space where students and faculty could talk a bit about what’s going on and how to make sense of it.”
