In his defense of the proposed Constitution, James Madison warned in Federalist No. 47 that the accumulation of all powers—legislative, executive, and judicial—in the same hands may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny. Elsewhere, he observed that of the three branches, the executive was the one most to be feared, as it concentrated power in a single individual. And in Federalist No. 8, he presciently noted that war “is the true nurse of executive aggrandizement.”

With the United States functionally at war for more than two decades—against terrorism, against drugs, against invisible viruses, and against geopolitical rivals—the presidency has accrued a staggering array of emergency powers. These powers, initially intended for rare and exceptional circumstances, have become permanent features of executive governance. As recent presidents—Bill Clinton, W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, and now Trump again—have each pushed the boundaries of executive authority, a troubling pattern has emerged. What one party celebrates as strong leadership under “their guy” becomes an established and dangerous precedent when the other side takes the reins….

To cheer for unchecked executive power is to forget the basic design of the Constitution: to separate and limit authority precisely to avoid tyranny. Madison’s fear was not misplaced. In times of war, the executive grows fat on necessity and fear. And America, for all practical purposes, has been at war for a generation.

The imperial presidency is not a Trumpian innovation. It is the logical consequence of decades of congressional surrender, judicial ambiguity, and public acquiescence. But as the cycle continues, the stakes only grow.