Comment: Trump's lasting damage will be steady erosion of norms [View all]

By Stephen L. Carter / Bloomberg Opinion

Although the first quarter of the new century has seen four presidents, it is doubtless Donald Trump who will most fascinate future historians. And with the first year of his second term nearly in the books, our stocktaking of the moment must begin with what has been most mashed and mangled since Jan. 20: the rule of law.

It’s true that Trump’s whirligig of executive orders has exposed the fragility of the concept. He has dragged us down one rarely trodden path after another. When a president so often seems to act out of impulse, it’s likely that government lawyers, far from paving the road, are in a constant struggle to catch up.

Which is relevant to the rule of law.

First, let me draw a distinction. Scholars use the phrase “rule of law” in a particular sense to refer to the structure of the laws themselves, asking, among other questions, whether they are clear and publicly understood, and whether the consequences of violating them are well defined and applied evenly. Thus, for many scholars, if the law becomes sufficiently oppressive that it can be enforced only by fear and force, the rule of law does not exist.

https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/comment-trumps-lasting-damage-will-be-steady-erosion-of-norms/