I recently wrote that our form of government, established by the U.S. Constitution, has collapsed. The shredding of that centuries-old document, and its substitution with an imperial presidency, has serious implications both at home and overseas.
While much attention has been paid to President Trump’s usurpation of powers granted to Congress and his challenges to the courts, his remaking of the presidency into an American-style kingship has serious foreign policy ramifications.
In an interview, Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, listed for me the damage done during the early days of the Trump presidency:
- The weakening of NATO, which provided stability to the post-World War Two world.
- A pervasive doubt among our allies that “if America does something, we would stick with it.”
- The dismantling of the FBI section charged with enforcing sanctions on Russia.
- Trump’s refusal to enforce the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which Reed says, “is an invitation to establish a quid pro quo for the Russians.”
- The dismantling of USAID, which provided support for maternity, tuberculosis, and AIDS cases in Africa and allowing Russia and China to fill the void.
- The “silly dialogue” about Canada becoming the 51st state that, according to Reed, “has no coherence strategically and is just delusional.”
The damage, Reed concludes, is a foreign policy “in total disarray.”
The view from abroad is just as bleak. Former Lithuanian ambassador to NATO Ginte Damusis wrote to me via email: “The bromance between Presidents Trump and Putin makes many of us writhe in agonizing discomfort.”
The result, says Damusis, is a “tectonic shift in America’s relationship with Europe that is not for the better. It seems as if President Trump’s goal is to strike fear into the heart not of America’s enemies but rather its friends.”
The foreign policy disarray is compounded by the disclosures made by The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, who was inadvertently included in secret discussions about the U.S. plans to attack the Houthis in Yemen. The use of Signal, an app available for public consumption, to discuss America’s military secrets, along with the disparaging comments made by Vice President JD Vance about Europe, sends a strong signal that the U.S. can no longer be trusted.
During the Cold War, Republicans ran on the mantra of “peace through strength” and accused the Democratic Party of being “soft on communism.” Long after the Cold War ended, the Republican position remained unchanged.
In 2002, George W. Bush addressed the Baltic states with these words: “No more Munichs. No more Yaltas. The long night of fear, uncertainty and loneliness is over.”
In 1972, Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern pleaded with voters to “Come Home, America.” Today, it’s Donald Trump who wants America to come home.
As Ronald Reagan stared down from his Oval Office portrait during Trump’s phone call with Vladimir Putin to discuss a ceasefire in Ukraine, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev gloated that the conversation proved “there is only Russia and America in the dining room.” The main course, said the figuratively hungry Medvedev, “is a Kiev-style cutlet.”
One can only imagine what Reagan, who famously repudiated the “evil empire” that Putin is trying to recreate, would have thought.
This complete reversal of the Republican hardline stance toward Russian expansionism symbolizes the completion of a hostile party takeover executed by Donald Trump.
It is Trump, Damusis wrote, who “should be advised against a policy of appeasement which would enable Russia’s failing economy and give Putin more time to restore military power.” So much for no more Yaltas.
Such a remaking of Reagan’s beloved Republican party leaves many uneasy. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), for one, says she will not “compromise my own integrity by hiding from my words when I feel they need to be spoken.”
But Murkowski is a rare exception.
What mutes even the mildest Republican criticism of Trump is the power wielded by Elon Musk. Musk, the wealthiest person in the world, invested $288 million in Trump’s 2024 campaign and is pledging another $100 million to groups allied with Trump.
What gives Musk’s dollars an amplified voice is a Supreme Court that has equated money with speech.
In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, Chief Justice John Roberts argued that the First Amendment protects more than “the individual on a soapbox and the lonely pamphleteer.” According to Roberts, the First Amendment gives Musk the right to spend unlimited sums on any Republican of his choosing.
That threat allows Trump to put a chokehold on most Republican officeholders. Murkowski concedes that Trump and Musk have most Republicans “zip-lipped, not saying a word because they’re afraid they’re going to be primaried.”
A primary challenge fueled by millions of unregulated dollars is not an idle threat. However, thanks to the Supreme Court’s unleashing of millions of unregulated dollars into electoral politics, the political calculus once used by most Republican officeholders has changed.
As Reed explained: “It used to be that if you were a senator, and you were physically in your state, and you were working hard and they liked you, you could tell the president, ‘No, I can’t do that.’” That maxim, says Reed, no longer holds.
Together, Trump and Musk have remade the Republican Party into an organization that resembles the political machines of yesteryear. Armed with unlimited dollars and using social media to transform every federal contest into a national one, they are operating like the old-time corrupt party bosses, where loyalty is rewarded, and dissent is squelched.
And as they transform the Republican Party into a Trump Party, their reordering of U.S. priorities means that Ukraine is slowly being nailed to a cross with hammers wielded by Trump, Putin, and, yes, Roberts.
Standing by are too many quiescent Republicans who know better.
John Kenneth White is a professor emeritus at The Catholic University of America. His latest book is titled “Grand Old Unraveling: The Republican Party, Donald Trump, and the Rise of Authoritarianism.”
