Quote:
Originally Posted by Pete F.
Trump’s impeachment foreshadowed the damage he has wreaked in the six weeks since Biden beat him in the election and demonstrated his elevation of self over country, his willingness to subvert democracy, and the GOP’s refusal to constrain his behavior . . .
The Court’s decision in Trump v. Vance, which tells us that no president is above the law, shows us where to begin.
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This is a long conjectural, speculative, exposition of possibilities and interpretations with the chance that it may all come to fruition being, as mentioned in the second paragraph, "extremely low." It is all based on the notion that there is an attempt to subvert the Constitution rather than an attempt to preserve it.
This paragraph from your post is interesting:
Still, an expansive vision of presidential powers under Article II has made dangerous inroads on our constitutional democracy, fueled by a legal fiction known as the theory of the “unitary executive.” This theory was originally a thesis about the president’s power to remove upper level executive branch officials, but it has broadened over the years to justify virtually limitless use of presidential power. As President Trump once put it, “I have an Article II, where I have to the right to do whatever I want as president.”
I don't know why the author considers the "unitary executive" to be a fiction. It was debated in the Constitutional Convention and decided that rather than having more than one executive it would be better to have only one. From Wiki:
In 1788, the letters of the Federal Farmer were published, generally considered among the most astute of Anti-Federalist writings. The pseudonymous Federal Farmer defended the proposed unitary executive, arguing that "a single man seems to be peculiarly well circumstanced to superintend the execution of laws with discernment and decision, with promptitude and uniformity."
Meanwhile, Federalists such as James Madison were emphasizing an additional advantage of a unitary executive. In Federalist No. 51, he wrote that an undivided executive would strengthen the ability of the executive to resist encroachments by the legislature: "As the weight of the legislative authority requires that it should be thus divided [into branches], the weakness of the executive may require, on the other hand, that it should be fortified." Alexander Hamilton later pointed out that the Constitution grants executive power and legislative power in different ways, with
the legislative powers of Congress being expressly limited to what is "herein granted," unlike executive powers which are not expressly limited by an enumeration. Hamilton wrote: In the article which gives the legislative powers of the government, the expressions are "All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a congress of the United States." In that which grants the executive power, the expressions are "The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States." The enumeration ought therefore to be considered, as intended merely to specify the principal articles implied in the definition of executive power. ...
So, Trump's simplistically artless "I have the right to do whatever I want as president” is a crude iteration of a President having the power to do whatever Article II says he can do as President.
And, so far, he has not abandoned the Constitution--except in your obsessive nightmare. But the growth of Presidential power, along with the expanded power of the whole central government, has long preceded Trump. And it has been a deliberate expansion toward the Progressive administrative state. Which is not constitutional.