By Frank F Islam & Ed Crego, April 10th, 2022 (Image credits: Tom de Boor, JNCGPT40)

At the end of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, a woman asked Benjamin Franklin what type of government the U.S. constitution was bringing into existence. Franklin responded, “A republic — if you can keep it.”

For nearly 250 years, we have been able to keep it. The good news is that in 2025, the United States of America will stay a republic. The bad news is that, under the leadership of President Donald J. Trump, it may very well be converted from a democratic republic into a banana republic.

There are different definitions for banana republic. The definition that best describes the current situation in the U.S. is the one below, slightly modified from dictionary.com:

Any exploitative government that functions poorly for its citizenry while disproportionately benefiting an elite group or individuals

This definition is not perfect but it captures the current state of affairs and the possibility for the U.S. to evolve into an oligarchy, autocracy, or dictatorship.

These are dire times for our democratic republic. In this blog, we examine the potential for the U.S. becoming a banana republic during these times by examining: the presence and roles of billionaires; the president’s cabinet; the Department of Justice; big business; the media and law firms; and the status of citizens.

The Billionaire Bonanza

The Trump presidency is being run by and for billionaires.

Trump’s net worth was approximately $6 billion when he entered office in January. Due to his excellent management of the economy, in his early months as president, it had declined to approximately $4.5 billion by March.

Elon Musk, Trump’s chain-sawing wielding governmental exterminator is the richest man in the world worth hundreds of billions of dollars. On a Joe Rogan podcast, Musk, with no evidence, asserted Social Security — which provides benefits to approximately 69 million Americans over 65 years of age — is “the biggest Ponzi scheme ever.”

Trump’s cabinet and key appointees form a billionaires’ row. Those whose net worth is reported to be worth more than $1 billion include: Howard Lutnick, Commerce Secretary; Scott Bessent, Treasury Secretary; Linda McMahon, Education Secretary; Jared Isaacman, NASA Administrator, Stephen Feinberg, Deputy Secretary of Defense; Kelly Loeffler, Small Business Administrator; Charles Kushner, Ambassador to France; and Warren Stephens, Ambassador to the United Kingdom.

Those billionaires related to the Trump administration are just the tip of the iceberg of the Trump-benefitting billionaires. The extension of the 2017 tax cuts put forward by the House this year will definitely benefit the wealthy disproportionately.

There is disagreement on the actual extent of that benefit, depending on whether the analysis is done by Democratic or Republican politicians or left or right-leaning think tanks. Robert Farley, deputy director of FactCheck.org, a Project of the Annenberg Policy Center, finds:

In all, about two-thirds to three quarters of taxpayers would get a tax cut, according to independent analyses. Also, the cuts skew in favor of wealthy Americans, who would see more tax relief not only in the dollar amount but as a percentage of income, on average.

The DEI Cabinet

Trump’s DEI Cabinet represents the exploitative nature of the Trump administration.

The cabinet is the DEI cabinet, not because it is running roughshod over the federal government’s DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) initiatives, but because of who its members are. Many of the cabinet members could be labeled “Didn’t Earn It (DEI). They definitely do not deserve to be leading the agencies they are.

Stephen Smith, ESPN sports and cultural commentator, called out Peter Hegseth, Secretary of Defense, as a prime example of a DEI hire on Jake Tapper’s CNN show. Smith explained that although Hegseth had served honorably in the military, he completely lacks the necessary qualifications and experience to head the Defense Department.

Hegseth proved Smith’s point when, on March 24, he disclosed war plans for an attack on Yemen in an encrypted group chat on Signal, which, by mistake, included Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic. Kash Patel, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who also lacks the experiential background for his leadership position, was also part of the infamous Signal group chat.

Patel, who has been called a “Trump loyalist,” worked at various defense and security-related positions during Trump’s first term in office. After Trump lost the 2020 election, Patel continued his association with Trump in his business ventures. He also became a prominent conspiracy theorist, frequently appearing on right-wing talk shows, and wrote a book titled Government Gangsters, naming 60 “deep state enemies,” such as former FBI head James Comey and then-FBI head Chris Wray, in the book’s Appendix.

Add to the unqualified list Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS). Kennedy’s primary qualifications to head HHS are: his endorsement of Donald Trump to be President, after Kennedy’s own campaign to run for president failed completely; his anti-vaccine activism; and being named after his father Robert F. Kennedy. During his brief tenure at HHS, Kennedy has already demonstrated his subjectivity and bias against the medical establishment by naming another vaccine critic, David Geier, who was disciplined for practicing medicine without a license, to lead a study to determine whether there is a link between immunizations and autism.

The Department of Injustice

Unlike Hegseth, Kennedy and Patel, Pam Bondi brought a solid set of credentials and qualifications to her job as the United States Attorney General and head of the Department of Justice. What she did not bring is an exemplary set of professional values or the capacity to run the agency independently.

In her confirmation hearing, Bondi promised to depoliticize and not weaponize the agency, and only “follow the facts and the law.” During her short time in office, she has done the exact opposite, becoming Trump’s Attorney General of the Department of Injustice, dedicated to being a source of revenge and retribution for the President of the United States.

As the Washington Post reported on March 21:

In less than two months, Bondi and other top department officials have wielded the law to shield President Donald Trump’s allies and strike at his political foes. They have curtailed anti-corruption efforts that were sources of irritation for the president and ratcheted up immigration enforcement, while cutting national security expertise and refocusing the civil rights division on culture war fights that go beyond traditional conservative causes like religious freedom.

And they have pushed out prosecutors and FBI agents deemed insufficiently loyal, launching sweeping probes of past investigations and the veteran attorneys who led them.

Things could get more equitable at the Department of Justice, and the rule of law could prevail in the months and years ahead, but that is not probable.

It is important to remember, however, that during Trump’s first term he removed Jeff Sessions as Attorney General, after his refusal to do his bidding regarding the Robert Mueller inquiry into the involvement of the Trump campaign with Russian officials to influence the 2016 presidential election. He eventually replaced Sessions with William P. Barr, who regularly embraced and advocated Trump’s positions, until he resigned after a falling-out over his refusing to do things requested by Trump.

Big Business Acquiescence

Big business was not a major supporter of Donald Trump during his campaign to become president in 2016, nor was it reliably front and center for him during his first term as president.

That relationship changed considerably Trump’s second time round. As Trump himself observed in December after he was elected, “The first term, everybody was fighting me. In this term, everybody wants to be my friend.” Trump’s assessment was accurate.

As Public Citizen reported, “Corporate giants, tech CEOs, and crypto companies” provided millions of dollars to his inauguration committee. And tech CEOs Jeff Bezos, Amazon; Mark Zuckerberg, Meta; and Sundar Pichai, Google; were front and center in some of the most exclusive seats at Trump’s inauguration. Apple CEO Tim Cook and TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew were at the Capitol on that day as well.

The tariff proposals Trump put forward, shortly after assuming office, made the markets and business leaders skittish and concerned about the economic impact, domestically and internationally. Nonetheless, when he spoke promoting tariffs at the Business Roundtable, an association comprised of CEOs from more than 200 leading companies, including every sector of the U.S. economy, there was virtually no push back.

The reasons for this lack of resistance no doubt vary, but certainly among them is the fact there is little to be gained from fighting with Trump, and pushback against him results in payback from him.

Kowtowing Media and Law Firms

Some of the primary recipients who have received payback for their pushback against Trump have been the media and law firms. This payback has come in the form of lawsuits, threats of suits, executive orders, and an endless barrage of Trump’s insulting name-calling on TV and posts on the Internet.

This Trump onslaught has silenced some critics and led to settlements from other.

Probably the most notable media settlement was made by ABC News in December 2024, when it agreed to settle a defamation lawsuit brought by Trump because George Stephanopoulos had stated on his This Morning show on March 10 that Trump had been “found liable for rape.” ABC agreed to contribute $15 million to President-elect Donald Trump’s presidential foundation, and to pay Trump’s lawyers’ legal fees for the case of approximately $1 million.

The most notable settlement by a law firm was made by Paul Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison (Paul Weiss), a firm with strong Democratic connections, after Trump issued an executive order, Addressing Risks from Paul Weiss. Those risks included: being connected to the Robert Mueller investigation of Trump, bringing suits against participants in the January 6 insurrection, and an ex-partner being involved in trying to put forward a fraud suit against Trump for activities in New York state.

According to the New York Times, Brad Karp, chairman of Paul Weiss, “began discussions with another big firm about presenting a unified and bipartisan front and challenging the order in court.” But he visited the Oval Office and “a day later, Mr. Trump announced that Mr. Karp had agreed to pledge $40 million in pro bono legal services to issues the president has championed…”

A few media organizations are fighting back against Trump. CBS owner Paramount Global is contesting his $20 billion lawsuit for a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris, which Trump alleges was unfairly edited. The law firm Perkins Coie, which was cited for alleged “illegal and dangerous activity,” in an Executive Order signed by Trump, has sued the Trump administration.

In the main, however, Trump’s intimidation has led to retreats from the battlefield. Michael Birnbaum of the Washington Post reports, “President Donald Trump’s crackdown on lawyers is having a chilling effect on his opponents’ ability to defend themselves or challenge his actions in court, according to people who say they are struggling to find legal representation as a result of his challenges.”

Citizens Abandoned

When running for office, Trump focused on the working class, and promised to create an America that was better for them by reducing the rising cost of living and improving their economic conditions. He went so far as declaring, “When I win, I will immediately bring prices down, starting on Day One.”

Day one has come and gone, but prices have not gone down. What has gone down is the unrealistic promise of lowering prices quickly.

After he was elected in November 2024, Trump backed off from that promise a bit in December, stating that reducing grocery prices would be “very hard.” After he took office in January 2025, Trump and his representatives walked the promise back even further.

As the New York Times reported in January, Vice President J.D. Vance, in a CBS News interview, advised, “Rome wasn’t built in a day,” and “It’s going to take a little bit of time” for grocery prices to decline. In February 2025, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, when asked when consumer prices would go down, responded “I don’t have a timeline.” And Trump himself, in an interview, when asked a similar question, evaded a specific answer by saying that his leadership and policies would make America a rich country.

Now in April, with Trump’s ignorant and ignominious tariffs announced on “Liberation Day,” and most economists predicting the chances for a recession or stagflation escalating, the needs of citizens and the working class are definitely at the bottom of the Trump to-do list. The top of that list continues to be the decimation of the federal government, and revenge and retribution against anyone or any organization who he believes has wronged him.

As we noted in a blog posted in March, the citizens of this nation deserve better than that. They deserve to have their needs recognized and addressed. The probability of that seems more and more unlikely, as Trump’s priorities move us further away from being a democratic republic and closer to becoming a banana republic.

How will the citizens fare in that banana republic, if they are abandoned, their needs are not met, and their conditions are not improved, or a recession occurs because of Trump’s tariffs? In Marie Antoinette fashion, President Trump might say “Let them eat bananas.”

Preventing the U.S. From Becoming A Banana Republic

That ends our examination of the potential for the United States of America becoming a banana republic while Trump is president. As noted at the outset of this piece, a banana republic is:

Any exploitative government that functions poorly for its citizenry while disproportionately benefiting an elite group or individuals

Sadly, this analysis shows that the current Trump administration meets each and all of the criteria in the definition, and that the U.S. is on the verge of becoming a banana republic.

What can be done to prevent this from happening? In our opinion, there are two primary forces that can reverse this downward trajectory: 21st century citizenship and a responsible judicial system.

As we have written before, the 21st century citizen is:

• Interested: concerned about the common good and the American community as opposed to purely pecuniary or personal concerns
• Issues-oriented: focused on areas of civic and social concern as opposed to rigid ideologies
• Informed: dedicated to gathering and analyzing objective data as the basis for civic and social engagement
• Independent: committed to exercising personal judgment as opposed to taking totally partisan positions
• Involved: engaged actively in addressing those issues that are of paramount concern to our citizens, communities and the nation

Given the dire condition of our democratic republic today, the 21st century citizen can’t sit on the sidelines, or wait until the midterm elections of 2026 or the presidential election 2028 to get involved.

She or he must do their homework and then decide where, when and how to get involved in the near-term. The nature of that involvement will vary from individual activity and initiatives to group activities and collective initiatives.

A general list for potential involvement follows:

• Use personal competencies (e.g., analytical skills, artistic talent, writing/speaking capabilities, organizational skills) to provide assistance on an issue or to a campaign
• Use personal contacts and network to reach out to get others involved
• Draw upon personal demographic characteristics (e.g., race, religion, sex, age, education, income) to contact those with similar characteristics
• Use understanding of psychographic, geographic, and behavioral factors to help develop and deliver messages to targeted audiences
• Lead or participate in general rallies or in protests on specific issues

As the foregoing list suggests, there are numerous ways and things that a citizen can do to make a positive difference for the future of our democracy. The decision on how to make that difference should be made by the citizen, and not dictated by others.

Concerned citizens are already making those decisions and starting to fight back. On April 1, the Democratic candidate won the bellwether Supreme Court contest in Wisconsin. And on April 5, Hands Off protests to keep the Trump administration’s hands off social security, Medicare, the federal government and other areas important to citizens’ well-being were held in more than 1,000 cities and towns across the country, with millions reported to have participated.

One thing that all concerned and responsible citizens will hold in common is a commitment to the U.S. constitution and the rule of law. They will understand the following principle, advanced by Aristotle in Politics: “The conclusion to which we are thus led is that excellence of the citizen must be excellence relative to the constitution.”

Our U.S. Constitution was constructed to bind us together as citizens of this country with both rights and responsibilities. It also established a federal government with three equal branches (Legislative, Executive, and Judicial) as a system of checks and balances to ensure that this country would never be run by a monarch or dictator.

In 2025, the Executive Branch of the federal government, in its post-truth and autocratic manner, is ignoring the Constitution and continuously attempting to circumvent the rule of law. The Legislative Branch, under the control of MAGA Republicans, is effectively neutered, and the only checks it provides are those it writes to Donald Trump in order to increase the balance in his personal account. This means that the judiciary must step forward to help prevent the U.S. from becoming a banana republic.

To date, in many instances, the federal judiciary at the district and appeals court levels has done exactly that. This adherence to the Constitution and the rule of law has outraged President Trump and his closest colleagues.

As David French explained in his excellent March 27 New York Times article, titled “Trump is Taking the Law Into His Own Hands, the Trump team has spoken out against the judiciary, claimed they are acting irresponsibly and extra-legally, threatened to eliminate judicial districts, and even proposed impeachment of judges.

When Trump loses on the cases that matter in his attempt to create a unitary and superordinate executive in the lower courts, he will take them to the Supreme Court. Will the Supreme Court stand and deliver for the people and save our democracy?

French shares his expert opinion on this near the end of his article stating,

I do not have confidence that the courts will make all the right calls (I’m still angry at the Supreme Court’s ruling last year on presidential immunity), but I am confident that neither the Supreme Court not the lower courts will yield to presidential threats.

And he closes his piece observing:

No one can guarantee that Trump won’t defy the courts, but so far he hasn’t intimidated the courts, and so long as they stand firm, and so long as the courts remained unbowed, the Constitution has a chance to survive.

We agree with French that the “the Constitution has a chance to survive” if the courts do their job. And, we’d add, the Constitution has a chance to survive if we as concerned citizens do our job.

We would also add that it will not only be the Constitution that survives. It will also be our democratic republic. That survival will allow us to say as we did at the outset of this blog, “We have been able to keep it.” More importantly, it will also give us the opportunity to continue to make progress on creating “the more perfect union” envisioned by our nation’s founders, and this country a better and fairer place for all of its citizens.