Conservative warns Trump replacing Constitution with 'law of the jungle'

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks with members of the media aboard Air Force One en route from Florida to Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, U.S., January 11, 2026. REUTERS/Nathan Howard

President Donald Trump and senior members of his administration are now openly communicating that the only law they respect is that "might is right." One conservative is warning that Americans should take their words very seriously.

In a Monday article for anti-Trump conservative website The Bulwark, editor Jonathan V. Last pointed to a recent post by far-right social media influencer Matt Walsh justifying the recent capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Walsh referred to Maduro as a "s——little tinpot third world dictator" whose ouster was necessary because he was "harming our country" and "interfering with our national interests."

"'International law' is fake and gay. The only international law is that big and powerful countries get to do what they want," Walsh wrote on X. "It has been that way since the dawn of civilization. It will always be that way. And we are the most powerful country on the planet. It's about time that we start acting like it."

Last also observed that White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller made a similar argument in an interview with CNN host Jake Tapper. When Tapper asked him about Trump not ruling out using the U.S. military to seize Greenland from Denmark, Miller defended the president by arguing that powerful countries should be able to assert their authority by force if necessary.

"We live in a world, in the real world ... that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power," Miller said. "These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time."

The Bulwark editor doubted if this worldview stopped at international law, and posited that the Trump administration likely viewed domestic laws as able to bent and broken to accommodate the wishes of the powerful. He opined that Trump is "seeking a return to an old international order which antedates the modern, rules-based era" in which global hegemons carve up the world into "spheres of influence where the strong do what they can while the weak suffer what they must."

"Tell me: Do you think it is impossible that Trump and his revanchists also seek to return America to an old order in which control of the military is control of the government?" He wrote. "He wants Russia and China’s foreign policy. Why would he not also want their domestic policies?"

"[T]he law says that federal agents cannot brutalize the citizenry. But the practical reality is that the federal agents outnumber and outgun local law enforcement. So they cannot be arrested for brutalizing the citizenry," he added. "The law of the jungle is already here."

Click here to read Last's full article for The Bulwark.

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