Absolute power consolidated in one person: a slippery slope to the end of checks and balances [Video]

President Donald Trump’s ongoing conflict with New York is the latest chapter in his broader assault on the system of checks and balances, this time targeting federalism, getting closer to “absolute power consolidated in one person,” warns Kermit Roosevelt, constitutional law professor at Penn. While Congress appears to have consented to this takeover and judges work to hold the line, the American people, like generations before them, have stepped up, building a growing resistance movement. America’s story is fundamentally a fight of the underdog against Goliath. Throughout our history, it has been “the people” who redeemed America’s soul—whether through suffrage, the Stonewall Riots, the Civil Rights Movement, Black Lives Matter, or the Underground Railroad.Feb. 22, 2025