Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
Editorials & Other Articles
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Vermont Conversation: Journalist Garrett Graff on the rise of authoritarianism and how Covid changed Vermont
https://vtdigger.org/2025/04/09/vermont-conversation-journalist-garrett-graff-on-the-rise-of-authoritarianism-and-how-covid-changed-vermont/“Checks and balances only work if Congress actually cares,” Graff continued. “And what we’re seeing right now is Congress just not caring what the President does.”
Garrett Graff, a journalist based in Burlington, wrote a biography of Robert Mueller in 2011. Courtesy photo
Journalist Garrett Graff is sounding increasingly urgent alarms about America’s slide into authoritarianism.
He said that what is happening under the Trump administration is not a constitutional crisis, which “normally means that there’s some sort of tension in the system, disagreements between the two branches.” Instead, he insisted that the tension is absent because “what we are seeing is a Congress that is willingly abdicating many of its constitutional and statutory authorities to the President.”
What is happening now is “a constitutional crash. And I mean that in the medical sense, where we are seeing the unwinding of our constitutional system writ large, and sort of a collective failure of checks and balances across the board.”
“Checks and balances only work if Congress actually cares,” Graff continued. “And what we’re seeing right now is Congress just not caring what the President does… They seem unwilling to stand up for both their traditional role and also their own personal power in Washington, lest it basically anger Donald Trump’s hoards of supporters and turns MAGA against them.”
Garrett Graff, a former editor of Politico and Washingtonian magazines, is a frequent guest on television news shows and a regular contributor to the op-ed pages of the New York Times and Washington Post. His oral history of the 2008 financial crisis, “The Weekend That Shook The World,” was published this week in the Washington Post op-ed section.
. . .
He said that what is happening under the Trump administration is not a constitutional crisis, which “normally means that there’s some sort of tension in the system, disagreements between the two branches.” Instead, he insisted that the tension is absent because “what we are seeing is a Congress that is willingly abdicating many of its constitutional and statutory authorities to the President.”
What is happening now is “a constitutional crash. And I mean that in the medical sense, where we are seeing the unwinding of our constitutional system writ large, and sort of a collective failure of checks and balances across the board.”
“Checks and balances only work if Congress actually cares,” Graff continued. “And what we’re seeing right now is Congress just not caring what the President does… They seem unwilling to stand up for both their traditional role and also their own personal power in Washington, lest it basically anger Donald Trump’s hoards of supporters and turns MAGA against them.”
Garrett Graff, a former editor of Politico and Washingtonian magazines, is a frequent guest on television news shows and a regular contributor to the op-ed pages of the New York Times and Washington Post. His oral history of the 2008 financial crisis, “The Weekend That Shook The World,” was published this week in the Washington Post op-ed section.
. . .