The Trump administration’s strategic exploitation of legal and institutional frameworks to expand executive power provides a compelling case
study in the academic discourse on democratic backsliding-a process marked by the gradual erosion of checks on authority, the subversion of independent institutions, and the manipulation of legal
systems to consolidate control. This pattern aligns with scholarly models that identify democratic decline not through overt coups or authoritarian power grabs, but through the incremental
dismantling of guardrails designed to uphold accountability. Central to this analysis are mechanisms such as executive aggrandizement, institutional sabotage, and autocratic legalism, each
vividly illustrated by the administration’s policies.
A hallmark of democratic backsliding is the repurposing of existing laws to serve exclusionary or politically expedient agendas, a tactic scholars term autocratic legalism. The administration’s
invocation of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798-a relic from the quasi-war with France-to justify mass deportations of Venezuelan migrants without due process exemplifies this strategy. By framing
migration as a national security threat, the administration sought to bypass judicial oversight and normalize emergency powers, a move courts temporarily blocked but which nonetheless tested
constitutional limits. Similarly, the birthright citizenship executive order directly challenged the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of citizenship for children born on U.S. soil, attempting to
reinterpret constitutional text through executive fiat. Such efforts, though halted by injunctions, reveal a broader ambition to redefine legal norms unilaterally, eroding foundational principles
of equality and rule of law.
The militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border further illustrates the administration’s reliance on institutional sabotage to centralize authority. By redesignating federal land as military
installations-such as the 170-mile expansion of Fort Huachuca-the administration circumvented the Posse Comitatus Act, which bars military involvement in domestic policing. This legal sleight of
hand, justified under National Security Presidential Memorandum-4 (NSPM-4) and Executive Order 14167, allowed troops to detain migrants under trespassing statutes while sidestepping congressional
oversight. Environmental protections were waived to expedite border wall construction, demonstrating a willingness to dismantle regulatory frameworks in service of executive priorities. These
actions mirror tactics observed in backsliding regimes like Hungary and Turkey, where leaders exploit crises to justify militarized governance and weaken institutional checks.
Concurrent with these policies, the administration pursued executive aggrandizement through the aggressive application of unitary executive theory, which posits nearly unchecked presidential
authority over the bureaucracy. The purging of independent agencies-such as the ousting of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) leadership-and efforts to overturn precedents like
*Humphrey’s Executor* (1935) aimed to politicize civil service and eliminate bureaucratic independence. This consolidation of power extended to strategic litigation, where legally dubious
policies (e.g., withholding funds from sanctuary cities) were advanced to provoke court challenges, with the goal of reshaping jurisprudence through conservative judicial appointments. Scholars
describe this as constitutional hardball, a tactic that stretches legal boundaries without outright violating them, thereby normalizing executive overreach.
The administration’s rhetoric played a critical role in this process, reframing migration as an “invasion” and critics as “unpatriotic”-a form of paranoid politics that erodes public trust in
institutions. By portraying courts as obstacles to national security and agencies as part of a “deep state,” the administration weakened societal adherence to democratic norms, a key accelerant
of backsliding. This aligns with Levitsky and Ziblatt’s emphasis on norm erosion as a precursor to democratic breakdown, where unwritten rules of mutual tolerance and institutional forbearance
are discarded.
The long-term implications are profound. Policies like border militarization and the misuse of emergency powers create durable frameworks for future executives to bypass congressional or judicial
oversight. The normalization of military involvement in domestic affairs risks entrenching a security-state paradigm, where civil liberties are subordinate to executive-defined threats.
Internationally, such tactics risk inspiring copycat strategies among illiberal leaders, further destabilizing global democratic networks.
In conclusion, the Trump administration’s initiatives epitomize the stealthy erosion characteristic of democratic backsliding. By weaponizing legal ambiguity, co-opting independent institutions,
and exploiting crisis narratives, these actions demonstrate how democratic safeguards can be hollowed out from within. While courts have intermittently acted as a bulwark, the administration’s
success in shifting Overton windows-normalizing extreme policies and expanding executive authority-underscores the fragility of democratic systems. As comparative scholarship warns, the insidious
nature of autocratic legalism lies in its veneer of legitimacy: it is not the rejection of law, but its strategic manipulation, that poses the gravest threat to democratic resilience.
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