Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst   
Are full of passionate intensity.

— William Butler Yeats, 1919 from The Second Coming

Donald Trump slouches into Washington and things begin to fall apart. As the new regime dismantles both the American government and international relations, I am reminded of Yeats’ famous poem. The U.S. Constitution was supposed to protect America from the centre not holding but events are beginning to suggest it may fail.

The nation’s founding fathers wisely allowed for a system of checks and balances to maintain republican government. Three branches of government—administrative, legislative and judicial—would share power, each keeping the others in check. A sound idea. But it only works if the members of those branches want to exercise their constitutional powers to maintain a balance.

And never before has a president needed more to be curbed. According to Peter M. Shane, a legal scholar at New York University, the legal constraints Trump has violated amount to “programmatic sabotage and rampant lawlessness.”

He has nullified laws, for instance by blocking migrants from invoking a statute that allowed them to request asylum. He is trying to shut down entire agencies overnight including USAID, an agency created by Congress to provide foreign aid and which only Congress has the constitutional right to terminate. He has tried to freeze spending approved by Congress, even though the power of the purse is constitutionally reserved to Congress. He has fired prosecutors, inspectors general and board members of independent agencies in defiance of statutes Congress enacted to protect against the arbitrary removal of certain officials. The goes on and on.

But checking the president depends on Congress doing its job. And the current Congress, with both the House and the Senate controlled by Republicans, appears to have little such interest. Republicans have not only surrendered to the Don, many enthusiastically support his assault on government. In Yeats’ words they are “full of passionate intensity” but unfortunately only for MAGA.

The only brake on the lawlessness so far is the courts, the third branch. Dozens of lawsuits have been filed with a number of successes putting at least some of the mischief on hold. For example, two different federal judges have temporarily blocked the administration’s attempt to shutter USAID. Of course, the most important cases may wind up in the Supreme Court, a court largely appointed by and favourable to Trump.

Some civil servants are standing up to the onslaught as well. Recently a number of federal prosecutors resigned rather than drop charges against New York’s mayor as ordered by Trump’s Justice Department.

The courts and recalcitrant civil servants can mitigate much of the damage but eventually Congress must stand up for its rights and defend its constitutional powers. Currently the Democrats seem to “lack all conviction,” as per Yeats. But in two years there will be another election and if a rejuvenated Democratic Party can gain control of the House (and the Senate?) we might finally see some desperately needed checks on this delinquent administration.

If not, if it’s four years, and perhaps more, of a regime that believes and acts as if it is unconstrained by the rule of law, we may all be hailing a new Caesar.