Patrick Eddington: Power, Precedent, and the Erosion of Constitutional Restraint

In part two of Bill Bernardoni’s conversation with Patrick Eddington — senior fellow at the Cato Institute, former CIA analyst, and author of The Triumph of Fear — the two trace the dangerous evolution of presidential overreach. From Eisenhower’s civil rights interventions to Nixon’s Watergate abuses, Obama’s drone strikes, and now Trump’s troop deployments in Illinois and Oregon, Eddington warns that both parties have chipped away at constitutional limits for decades. What began as isolated exceptions has become the norm — and Americans, he says, are being conditioned to accept it.Have decades of bipartisan power grabs made it impossible to restore true constitutional limits — or is there still time to pull back? Let us know what you think.Follow Bill on X at @BillBernardoni, explore his work at Bernardoni.media, and read his latest writings at Bernardoni.blog. You can learn more about Daniel and his work at Cato.org. You can purchase his book here.