Presented By: University of Michigan Law School
A Counter-Constitutional Revolution: Donald Trump and the Rule of Law
Annual Law & Ethics Lecture
Since Donald Trump returned to the presidency, his administration has operated with lightning speed to upend many certainties of law and politics. How can we understand these changes? In this lecture, Prof. Scheppele will argue that we need to deconstruct attacks on the rule of law into different streams, each run by different people with different legal logics. Some policies stretch preexisting law in unrecognizable ways, while other policies seek to destroy law without replacement. Some policies enforce the law selectively, putting the president and his inner circle above the law even as they subject others to harsh enforcement of that same law. In perhaps the most revolutionary aspect of the Trump presidency, some within his administration have launched a counter-constitutional revolution to remake the US Constitution as we knew it, replacing the prior system of checks and balances with a super-presidency, thus destroying democracy by law. By disentangling these different strands, we can see that Trump is not a “he” but a “they.” Given the multiplicity of attacks on the rule of law, we may need a multipronged effort to restore the rule of law when the Trump era is over.
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