Chad Taylor’s commentary attempts to sell a familiar sleight of hand: that questioning Donald Trump’s authority to order the removal of a foreign head of state somehow amounts to sympathy for Nicolás Maduro. That argument is both incorrect and intellectually dishonest.
“It wasn’t overnight that a reputation like Maduro’s was established” Taylor writes, cataloging allegations of authoritarianism, corruption, repression, economic collapse and even drug trafficking. All true. None of this is new or unknown. And none of it grants the U.S. president unilateral authority to conduct a military operation without Congress.
Maduro can be a dictator, and the U.S. president can still be bound by the Constitution. Those facts are not in conflict.
The Constitution vests war-making authority in Congress. That safeguard does not evaporate because the target is unpopular, indicted or morally repugnant. Procedure is not a loophole. It is the law. If process only matters when we like the president, or when we like the outcome, then it ceases to have meaning at all.
Taylor frames Democratic objections as a sudden case of selective outrage, but that’s a false construction. No one “forgot” who Maduro is. The objection was to how Trump acted, not who Maduro is. Collapsing those two ideas is rhetorical cognitive dissonance, not serious analysis.
And here’s where Taylor’s hypocrisy becomes unavoidable.
Donald Trump himself has spent years attacking judges, prosecutors, juries, elections, inspectors general and constitutional limits whenever they constrained him. He has repeatedly argued that indictments and convictions (especially his) are illegitimate, investigations are political, and accountability is optional for citizens and leaders he favors, himself included. Taylor now asks readers to accept that long-standing allegations and indictments justify executive action abroad, while Trump, and Taylor by extension, dismiss the legitimacy of those same mechanisms at home.
Jan. 6 (today) is a stark reminder of the depth of Trump’s hypocrisy on constitutional authority and accountability.
Taylor’s comments don’t offer moral clarity. They instead underscore the selective constitutionalism that has come to define his party, particularly under President Trump.
You don’t strengthen democracy by ignoring its guardrails. You don’t defend the rule of law by suspending it for convenience. And you don’t preserve U.S. credibility by normalizing unchecked executive power.
If constitutional limits only apply when politically convenient, then they are nothing more than props. Dictators love props, and propaganda, which is exactly what Taylor’s commentary amounts to: an attempt to launder executive overreach through partisan loyalty.
That may serve MAGA politics. It does not serve the rule of law, and it certainly does not serve the Constitution.
Matt Evans
Centralia
