In 2025, we increasingly see that the new U.S. administration is enamored of the idea of the boundless use of power. Donald Trump repeatedly asserts legally unfounded claims to unreviewable authority, to act against the freedom, dignity, and rights of the People.

The core practice through which he does this is the issuing of executive orders. In technical terms, an executive order is a policy declaration by the President of the United States, which explains to relevant federal agencies how he or she intends to manage the affairs of the administrative state.

Executive orders are bound, by the Constitution, to operate strictly inside the limits of existing laws consistent with the Constitution, and cannot make new law. The desire harbored by Donald Trump, and by others who support him, that he be able to invent and assume new powers, does not provide a lawful basis for using executive orders to do so.

At all times, the President of the United States is bound to “faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States” and all laws and provisions delimiting its authority, and to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States,” never to violate or override it.

Legitimacy comes not from the use of power but from faithfully honoring the Constitution, the spirit and text of the law, and transcendent rights which, under the Ninth Amendment, need not be enumerated in order to hold primacy over power. Legitimacy flows from faithful and dignified service.

Good faith is an inherently necessary part of republican democratic civics. Everyone must come to the table out of genuine commitment to the common good and to the protection of fundamental rights.

By ‘citizen’, we mean not only the person who is, in legal terms, a citizen, but also the person who—whatever their status—wishes to steer the Republic (the government which belongs to, is comprised of, and serves the People) toward the best possible future for all.

The faithful citizen is faithful not to any king or ruler, not to the idea of one faction ruling over others, but to the transcendent rights and freedom of all.

It is in this spirit that we offer the contents of this publication as ‘citizen orders’—notes on the sense of the governed regarding the unfaithful declarations of the 47th President, and reminding Americans and the wider world of the universal values enshrined in our founding documents.

These pages are intended to serve as a kind of amicus brief written from the perspective of the Faithful Citizen, open to the consideration of anyone committed to the rule of law, and to honoring the rights and liberties of all.