Until recently, it was considered a “flip” remark to suggest that President Trump’s reign is taking on characteristics of a banana republic. But with Trump’s reaction to his impeachment acquittal, his declaration to take revenge on his enemies, and his capture of the Department of Justice, critics in the congress, the media, and others are seriously warning of this trend toward autocracy.

The need for checks and balances designed to prevent excessive accumulation of power cannot be over emphasized. The three branches of federal government, the executive, legislative, and judicial, each have mechanisms with which to check the power of the other branches. But these are only words on paper unless personnel who have the power and responsibility actually exercise these mechanisms.

Throughout our history, power has gravitated from the legislative to the executive branch. With permission, even encouragement, of the Republican-controlled Senate, this trend is accelerating under the Trump Administration to an alarming degree.

Congress has the power to declare war. In his book, “Presidents of War,” historian Michael Beschloss, thoroughly documents this trend. With recent events, especially the attacks of 9/11, congress has awarded ever increasing latitude for use of presidential use military force. It’s not too cynical to suggest that congressional willingness to cede this power serves to absolve them from responsibility of decisions for which much can go wrong, and indeed, has.

Congress is entrusted with making laws, creating policies and programs, and appropriating and allocating money. Within these responsibilities, executive departments necessarily have some latitude in administering programs and spending the money. But the Budget Impoundment Act clearly declares that appropriated funds be spent as directed. Withholding congressionally appropriated funds from a foreign ally, especially in return for foreign cooperation to smear a political opponent, is clearly abuse of power. For this, Trump was impeached, and then acquitted by the Republican Senate.

The prize for naiveté — or disingenuousness or ignorance, take your pick — clearly goes to Maine’s Senator Susan Collins. She justified her vote for acquittal on the grounds that while his action was clearly wrong, Trump has “learned his lesson,” and will never do it again.

Actually, Trump had already learned his lesson when he escaped consequences of the Mueller Report — he learned that he could get away with asking for, and accepting, Russian assistance for his election. So why not up the ante? Trump immediately sought help from Ukraine — holding up congressionally appropriated funds to show that he meant business — to smear Joe Biden, the act that brought on the impeachment exercise.

His acquittal simply reinforced that earlier lesson. The congress — that is, the Republican-controlled Senate — approves of, and awards him additional powers to do whatever he wants to do. This includes use of the Department of Justice (DOJ) to protect his friends and take revenge on his enemies.

Upon acquittal, Trump promptly removed Lt. Col. Vindman from his position in the National Security Agency. OK, he is legally allowed to remove and have him reassigned. But to then ask the Pentagon to punish him further, and to reassign his brother who had nothing to do with the impeachment testimony, is the stuff of a tin-pot dictator. This was serious enough to prompt Trump’s former Chief of Staff, General John Kelly, to object, as would any worthy general backing an officer following lawful orders. 

This brings us to the current DOJ scandal.

Since the Watergate Scandal, reforms of the DOJ were made to ensure that the Attorney General would act as the nation’s top justice official, not the President’s personal attorney. Those reforms have been adhered to by Republican and Democratic presidents, and generally served the objectives of keeping some distance between the president and DOJ criminal prosecutions — until now.

Attorney General Barr was confirmed by the Senate, as he declared his philosophy favoring increased presidential power. But his actions have increasingly shown him to be mainly protecting President Trump, enabling him to use the DOJ as his personal political weapon.

It began with Barr’s spinning the Mueller Report, withholding it from public scrutiny until he had set the narrative that was less than the full picture. It continued with casting doubt on justification of the Mueller investigation. He requested a new attorney to review the case for Trump ally, Michael Flynn, who earlier had pleaded guilty to lying about his foreign ties. 

Trump’s friend and political trickster, Roger Stone, was recommended for a seven- to nine-year sentence by career DOJ prosecutors. When a political appointee recommended a reduced sentence, four career attorneys who prosecuted Stone withdrew from the case with one of them resigning from the DOJ.

With that, Trump congratulated Barr for “taking charge of the case.” Barr responded, tweeting that the President never told him what to do, that he would not be bullied by anybody, and that Trump’s tweets made it impossible for him to do his job.

The irony is that Trump didn’t have to tell Barr what to do. Anyone paying attention knew what Trump wanted Barr to do. He didn’t need to be “bullied.”

The obvious unstated reason for Barr’s response is that Trump’s continued tweeting called public attention to the degree to which Barr was doing the Trump’s bidding.

The unprecedented response to this was over 2,000 former prosecutors and DOJ officials publicly urging Barr to resign. It’s reassuring that responsible citizens are calling out this dangerous behavior. But Barr is not likely to resign or be sacked.

Regarding checks and balances, the congress, the judiciary, and the free press, where are we?

The Senate has surrendered power to Trump.

Senator McConnell sees successful stacking of the judiciary with Trump-friendly appointees as his major accomplishment.

And the free press? Trump encourages and celebrates physical violence against inquisitive journalists, declaring them “enemy of the people.”

A banana republic — are we there yet? Historians remind us that when autocracy arises, it’s often with public approval. 

The 2020 election is the most crucial since those of mid-19th century America.

— John Waelti of Monroe, a retired professor of economics, can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net. His column appears Saturdays in the Monroe Times.