Are there guard rails?
National Public Radio on Tuesday sued President Donald Trump over his executive order to cease all federal funding for the nonprofit broadcaster.
Trump’s May 1 order violates the First Amendment’s protections of speech and the press and steps on Congress’ authority, NPR and three other public radio stations wrote in the lawsuit filed in federal court in Washington, D.C.
The order “also threatens the existence of a public radio system that millions of Americans across the country rely on for vital news and information,” according to the legal complaint against Trump and a handful of top officials and federal agencies.
NPR and three of its member stations — Colorado Public Radio, Aspen Public Radio and KSUT Public Radio — want Trump’s order permanently blocked and declared unconstitutional.
It “expressly aims to punish and control Plaintiffs’ news coverage and other speech the Administration deems ‘biased,'” attorneys for the news outlets wrote. “It cannot stand.”
Unless the whole system is already so hamstrung by Trump that he can do whatever he wants no matter how unconstitutional it is.
Simple Answer. No.
A more complex answer: Guardrails are there as a last resort when calamity is about to strike. Guardrails are not needed when everyone agrees and plays by the rules. But as we have seen, neither SCOTUS nor the GOP had been following the established rules of law and good governance for 40 years. And now it is biting in the form of Trump, who has never felt constrained by laws or good governance; Trump’s only constraints are if something will hurt him.
The GOP have given up all pretence of being a political party, they are now a cult in fealty to “Dear Leader Donald” and fall over themselves to kiss his
feetass.They have waived through his “Big, Beautiful Bill” that buried deep inside it is a clause that makes Trump the Supreme Emperor for Life. Any Court that dares challenge Trump will have its funding removed, rendering it inoperable.
Russia has gone from the Great Satan of Reagan to a valued friend, nay, ally. Trump has admitted to aiding Putin’s war on Ukraine.
“What Vladimir Putin doesn’t realize is that if it weren’t for me, lots of really bad things would have already happened to Russia, and I mean REALLY BAD. He’s playing with fire!”
– Donald Trump, Truth Social, May 2025
The guard rails might still appear to be there, but they have been left to decay too long, so that now, when they are needed most, they are no longer able to do their job.