What if President Donald Trump chooses to ignore the federal district court’s order blocking the use of national guard troops in Portland? It is not hyperbole to say that such presidential defiance of a court order would be the end of our constitutional democracy as we have known it.

If court orders can be defied, then the president can violate the Constitution and any law with impunity knowing that there are unlikely to be any meaningful consequences. That means the president could then do anything — including locking up critics — knowing that the courts are powerless to stop it.

No longer would we be a country under the rule of law. We would be a nation under the rule of Donald Trump, who could do anything and defy any court that tried to stop him.

The immediate context for this possi

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