Writing in the May 25, 2026, edition of The New York Times - which was published on our Memorial Day Holiday - Adam Liptak thanked our current president for helping to make visible (and thus potentially susceptible of a cure) a "blind spot" in the United States Constitution. Actually, Liptak's article did not directly speak out any "thanks" to our current president, but a full reading of what Liptak wrote allows me thus to characterize Liptak's excellent column.
In the hardcopy version, which I encourage you to read in full, Liptak's analysis was titled, "Founders Had A Blind Spot, And Trump Is Exposing It." Online, which is where you will go if you click the next link, the title is slightly different: "Were The Constitution’s Authors A Little Too Optimistic?"
I believe that no paywall will prevent you from reading what Liptak is telling us. In short, what Liptak is telling us is that our Constitutional system basically assumed that only persons of good character would be chosen to lead the nation (with our first president, George Washington, providing the model). You will remember, I am sure, that Washington is associated with a boyhood promise that "I cannot tell a lie." Even if that story isn't truly accurate, as it probably isn't, the fact that the story is still told, and celebrated, demonstrates what we would like to think would be the character of anyone who is chosen to serve the nation as its president. With respect to the current incumbent, of course, the opposite is what is most likely to be the case, when we consider our current president's reputation for honesty. It is not too far from the mark to say that our current president "cannot tell the truth."
Here is an abbreviated presentation of Liptak's analysis (emphasis added):
In a parliamentary system, the executive and the legislature are in dialogue rather than structural opposition. Prime ministers generally do not serve fixed terms and may be removed by a vote of no confidence.
The framers rejected that model for something new. They were looking for a sweet spot. They wanted a president less powerful than the king they had rebelled against but more effective than the state governors of the time, who were all but powerless, or prime ministers, who were creatures of the legislature.
Defining the scope of the new office had an improvised quality. James Madison, writing to Washington just before he left for the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in April 1787, said he had not given the matter much thought. In those same papers, Madison acknowledged that “the accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive and judiciary, in the same hands” may “justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”
The framers believed that the threat of impeachment and removal would be a decisive check on the president. They envisioned a Congress that would be jealous of its institutional power and would muster, when appropriate, not only a simple majority vote in the House of Representatives to accuse presidents of misconduct but also a two-thirds vote in the Senate to convict and remove them.
To the extent that they [were] worried about a demagogue, they ... expected that impeachment would deal with scoundrels.
[However], they failed to anticipate a development that would make impeachment improbable: the rise of political parties.
To this day, the idea of self-sustaining political competition built into the structure of government is frequently portrayed as the unique genius of the U.S. Constitution, the very basis for the success of American democracy ... yet the truth is closer to the opposite. As competition between the legislative and executive branches was displaced by competition between two major parties ... the machine that was supposed to go of itself stopped running.
The rise of political parties, to say nothing of the current extreme polarization between them, has made other forms of congressional supervision of the president vanishingly rare. There have been four presidential impeachments in the history of the United States, of Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton and, twice, Donald J. Trump. In none of the four cases did the Senate muster the required two-thirds vote to convict.
These days, those circuit breakers are gone: Voters elect senators, and the Electoral College is a formality. A structure designed by elites wary of direct democracy has moved toward one far more responsive to the popular will.
That has made the government more vulnerable to the sort of populism that the framers feared. But it may also — whether expressed in public opinion, on the streets and at the ballot box — supply a counterweight to the executive overreach that some of the men who drafted and ratified the Constitution feared.
To repeat myself, Liptak is not really "thanking" our current president for putting our Constitution to a "stress" test, but the fact that our system of democratic self-government is being "stressed," and "tested," is quite clear - and has some real benefits, in instructing us on how things have to change. In the end, Liptak is telling each one of us, as citizens, that it is up to us to prevent "executive overreach."
Liptak, in other words, hasn't given up. Neither have I.
You shouldn't, either!
EXTRA READING:
Ben Rhodes' opinion piece, also in the May 25, 2026, edition of The Times: "Whatever Happened To America's Great Orators" [Hardcopy Title]; "This is How A Party Ends Up Looking Like A Clown Car" [Online Title].
Jon Meacham, The Soul Of America: The Battle For Our Better Angels.
Image Credit:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/25/us/constitution-framers-president-executive-monarch.html?unlocked_article_code=1.lFA.RtIy.x8yz4lJrowgM&smid=url-share
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