In the Press

“We absolutely are in a constitutional crisis, there is no other way to describe an executive branch acting as if the legislative branch was consultative,” said Ben Raderstorf, with the anti-authoritarian group Protect Democracy and author of the newsletter If You Can Keep It.

“What we are at the precipice here is the rejection of that premise of rule of law,” said Raderstorf, “and that’s where things get really scary.”

“Anyone who says that obviously the 22nd Amendment will deter Trump from trying for a third term has been living on a different planet than the one I’ve been living on,” says Ian Bassin, who was an associate White House counsel for President Barack Obama and is now the executive director of the nonprofit advocacy group Protect Democracy.

Amanda Carpenter, an editor at the nonpartisan Protect Democracy, said there is an overarching agenda in both Project 2025 and Trump’s executive orders that seeks to expand executive power, and the first order of business is to purge the government of career civil service workers.

“The system of checks and balances the Founders designed does not give the president unchecked power to execute only the laws passed by Congress that he agrees with,” write Cerin Lindgrensavage and William Ford of Protect Democracy. Most of Vought and Paoletta’s historical examples of presidents spending less than what was authorized neglect to mention that Congress gave them the flexibility to spend less, or that the courts revoked several impoundments as unconstitutional.

“What makes Patel dangerous is his willingness to harness and deploy government resources,” said Amanda Carpenter, a former Republican Senate aide and now a researcher with the Protect Democracy nonprofit. “When the government gets power like this, it rarely is only used for its publicly intended purpose.”

But these groups didn’t stop their activities. Instead, their members and affiliated groups shifted toward building local influence by running for local offices or launching campaigns to pressure local governments on culture war issues like school book bans, according to Grant Tudor, policy advocate at the anti-authoritarian group Protect Democracy, founded in 2016 by former lawyers in President Barack Obama’s administration.

“ These are not individuals who happened to commit acts of violence that day. They’re individuals who have been trained in violence,” Tudor said. “These are individuals who have ties to militant groups like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers and Three Percenters.”

Amanda Carpenter, a former Republican aide in the Senate who is now with the Protect Democracy nonprofit, said that his release of those willing to attack police officers and commit other violence on his behalf should not have been surprising, given that Trump repeatedly honored them at his rallies.

“He’s been signaling he’s going to do this since he started his 2024 campaign,” she said.

Grant Tudor, a policy advocate at the advocacy group Protect Democracy, said the pardons sent the message that “if you engage in violence on behalf of the cause, Trump will protect you. These pardons will license future lawbreaking, including violence,” Tudor said.