First Cracks Appear: Some Conservatives Admit We’re In A Constitutional Crisis

Policy

from the wake-up dept

When even the Wall Street Journal’s reliably pro-Trump opinion page starts sounding alarm bells about the administration’s policies, something significant has shifted. When even the “thinkers” at the most MAGA of think tanks are calling what Elon is doing in the government a true “constitutional crisis,” we’re beginning to see cracks in the snow globe of propaganda MAGA has encased themselves within.

It’s not that these institutions have suddenly discovered their conscience. Rather, they’re realizing that the destruction-for-destruction’s-sake approach they helped normalize is now threatening the very systems they assumed they could control. The mask of “policy differences” has slipped, revealing the bare face of institutional vandalism.

The responses I’ve received to recent articles about the Musk/Trump administration’s actions reveal a stark truth: for many supporters, the goal isn’t better policy or stronger institutions — it’s the satisfaction of watching their perceived opponents suffer. “Elections have consequences,” they say, wielding the phrase not as a statement about governance but as a celebration of retribution.

But it doesn’t change reality.

The MAGA response playbook has become pathetically predictable: celebrate policies not for their outcomes, but for how many (and which) people they hurt. It’s governance by spite, where “owning the libs” has replaced any pretense of actual policymaking.

The depth of this depravity became starkly visible right after the inauguration. When Episcopal Bishop Mariann Budde made what should have been an unremarkable request — asking the new administration to show mercy toward the marginalized — the response revealed exactly how far things have strayed from traditional conservative values of compassion and measured governance.

Trump labeled her “nasty,” his supporters raged at the mere suggestion of kindness, and a Republican Congressman called for her deportation (despite her being an American citizen), transforming a moment of fairly standard religious pleas for compassion into yet another opportunity for political revenge.

Budde now faces a barrage of violent threats. The irony of threatening violence in response to a plea for mercy perfectly encapsulates the nature of this ongoing coup: it’s not about conservative governance or even maintaining power — it’s about systematic destruction of democratic norms and institutions, laced with gleeful spite and hatred.

Timothy Snyder, whose “On Tyranny” has become an essential guidebook for understanding this moment, explains this destructive logic with devastating clarity:

Theirs is a logic of destruction. It is very hard to create a large, legitimate, functioning government. The oligarchs have no plan to govern. They will take what they can, and disable the rest. The destruction is the point. They don’t want to control the existing order. They want disorder in which their relative power will grow.

Think of the federal government as a car. You might have thought that the election was like getting the car serviced. Instead, when you come into the shop, the mechanics, who somehow don’t look like mechanics, tell you that they have taken the parts of your car that work and sold them and kept the money. And that this was the most efficient thing to do. And that you should thank them.

The gap between the oligarchs’ wealth and everyone else’s will grow. Knowing what they themselves will do and when, they will have bet against the stock market in advance of Trump’s deliberately destructive tariffs, and will be ready to tell everyone to buy the crypto they already own. But that is just tomorrow and the day after.

In general, the economic collapse they plan is more like a reverse flood from the Book of Genesis, in which the righteous will all be submerged while the very worst ride Satan’s ark. The self-chosen few will ride out the forty days and forty night. When the waters subside, they will be alone to dominate.

Snyder’s analysis helps explain the transformation we’ve witnessed over the past decade, as traditional conservative principles of limited government gave way to what can only be described as performative destruction. The goal has devolved from governance to grievance, from policy to punishment.

Yet cracks are appearing in this façade of unified destruction. Traditional conservatives, particularly those with actual policy expertise, are beginning to realize that their movement has been hijacked by forces that threaten the very institutions they once sought to reform. The evidence of this awakening is limited, but is appearing in unexpected places.

Consider the Wall Street Journal’s opinion page, traditionally a bastion of pro-Trump sentiment, which recently published a scathing critique of the administration’s self-defeating tariff strategy. And then, when Trump tried to spin his own backing down in return for basically nothing as a Trump win, even the WSJ called out (correctly) that it was Canada and Mexico who stood strong, while it was Trump who blinked.

The details of this diplomatic theater are revealing. Mexico’s commitment to maintain 10,000 National Guard troops at the border isn’t new — it’s the exact same arrangement they made with the Biden administration in 2021. Similarly, Canada’s pledge of $1.3 billion for border security was already announced months ago in coordination with Biden’s team.

This episode perfectly illustrates the hollowness of the administration’s approach to governance: announce dramatic action, back down when faced with actual resistance, then claim victory for maintaining exactly what was already in place. It’s governance as performance art, where the goal isn’t policy success but the spectacle of conflict itself.

The fact that the WSJ wouldn’t play along is at least a surprising crack in the MAGA propaganda machine.

The administration’s attempt to spin maintaining the status quo as a victory would be merely amusing if it weren’t symptomatic of a deeper crisis. And this brings us to perhaps the most striking evidence of actual conservatives potentially awakening from a MAGA-drenched stupor.

When senior fellows at the Manhattan Institute — yes, the same think tank that gave us Chris Rufo and perfected the art of manufacturing absolutely ridiculous culture war outrage — start warning about an ongoing constitutional crisis, it’s worth paying attention. This is the organization that wrote the MAGA playbook, now apparently worried their creation has escaped the lab.

Brian Riedl, a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, with a career spanning service to multiple Republican leaders, is now warning about the constitutional crisis triggered by Trump and Musk’s actions. And yes, he’s making it clear he means a “constitutional crisis.” When he and Alan Cole of the Tax Foundation — another conservative stronghold — both characterize the situation as a “constitutional crisis,” it represents more than just policy disagreement. It’s alarm bells coming from inside the house.

Riedl’s critique becomes even more pointed when addressing those within his own ideological camp who appear willing to sacrifice democratic principles in favor of dictatorial chaos:

I see a lot of people want to throw out 230 years of constitutional government and replace it with an authoritarian dictator because they have big feelings about the budget and can’t be bothered to work through Congress. That will surely work out well.

If this ongoing coup is to be stopped, it needs to be because there still remain some Republicans with actual conservative, Constitutionally-based principles, who realize that “destruction” alone can’t be the goal. What good is owning the libs if there’s no country left at all?

In Snyder’s piece about destruction, he notes that to some extent, it’s those people who are going to have to wake up and speak out, noting that this is not what they asked for:

If you voted Republican, and you care about your country, please act rather than rationalize. Unless you cast your ballot so that South African oligarchs could steal your data, your money, your country, and your future, make it known to your elected officials that you wanted something else. And get ready to protest with people with whom you otherwise disagree.

Almost everything that has happened during this attempted takeover is illegal. Lawsuits can be filed and courts can order that executive orders be halted. This is crucial work.

As he notes:

What is a country? The way its people govern themselves. Sometimes self-government just means elections. And sometimes it means recognizing the deeper dignity and meaning of what it means to be a people. That means speaking up, standing out, and protesting. We can only be free together.

This isn’t about policy disagreements or partisan disputes. It’s about recognizing that the politics of destruction, even when wrapped in the flag of “winning,” leads inevitably to collective loss. The response to Bishop Budde’s plea for mercy stands as a stark reminder: when basic human dignity becomes a partisan issue, we’ve already begun to lose what makes America worth preserving.

The path forward, if our democracy is to survive, almost certainly requires an unlikely coalition of those who still believe in constitutional democracy, regardless of their policy preferences. The question isn’t whether we can agree on policies — it’s whether we can agree that having a functional constitutional system matters more than scoring political points or eagerly looking to see who will be most upset.

Filed Under: constitutional crisis, donald trump, elon musk, tariffs, wsj
Companies: manhattan institute