Treason™: Now Available as a Executive Order, Courtesy of Donald Trump
One of the Founders’ quietest flexes was how paranoid they were about the word treason. Not paranoid like “red-strings on a corkboard,” but paranoid like “we just fought a king who used this word to kill his critics.” So when they wrote the Constitution, they slapped a massive warning label on treason and locked it behind legal glass. And that warning label is precisely what modern Republican rhetoric—especially from Donald Trump—keeps trying to peel off.
Article III defines treason as only levying war against the United States or aiding its enemies. Not protesting. Not criticizing. Not refusing to clap enthusiastically enough at a State of the Union. The Founders even added extra hurdles—two witnesses to the same overt act—because they explicitly feared treason becoming a political insult instead of a legal standard. James Madison worried about abuse. George Mason warned about tyranny. Translation: “People like this will exist. Build guardrails.”
Fast-forward a couple centuries, and Trump has treated “treason” like a Mad Libs slot you can fill with “Democrats,” “journalists,” “whistleblowers,” or “anyone who looked at him funny on cable news.” Democrats investigating him? Treason. Civil servants testifying under oath? Treason. Political opposition existing at all? Somewhere between treason and vibes-based execution fantasy. [AP][FactCheck]
Here’s the similarity that should make your eyebrows do a synchronized swim: the Founders weren’t worried about foreign enemies abusing treason law—they were worried about American leaders doing it. Kings used treason to crush dissent. Authoritarians blur disagreement into betrayal. The Constitution responds by saying, “No. This word is radioactive. Handle with gloves.”
Trump’s rhetoric doesn’t meet the constitutional definition of treason. But it perfectly matches the abuse case the Founders designed the Constitution to stop: weaponizing patriotism to delegitimize opposition, turning politics into loyalty tests, and flirting with punishment-first language that treats dissent as a crime instead of democracy’s fuel.
The Founders left us a note in the margins: If someone starts calling their opponents traitors en masse, don’t trust them with the word—or the power.
—References
- [AP] Associated Press, coverage of Trump rhetoric on “treason” and political opponents
- [FactCheck] FactCheck.org, “What the Constitution Actually Says About Treason”
- [Reuters] Reuters reporting on Trump statements framing dissent as treasonous
- [PolitiFact] PolitiFact analysis of misuse of “treason” in U.S. political speech
