Welcome to the Empire of Exceptions

How “emergency powers” became permanent policy in American governance

When the exception becomes the rule, law becomes performance. America, it seems, has perfected the act. Once a republic that boasted legal restraint and democratic deliberation, the United States now operates on an ever-expanding repertoire of executive shortcuts dressed up as emergencies.

The post-9/11 war powers handed to George W. Bush were never returned. Instead, they were polished, streamlined, and handed down like a sacred heirloom. Barack Obama brought etiquette to the drone program. Donald Trump skipped the decorum and live-streamed the chaos. And Joe Biden? He brought back brunch with a side of bunker busters.

This post is a tour of that slow erosion: from Bush’s legal pyrotechnics to Obama’s bloodless technocracy, Trump’s carnival of lawfare, and Biden’s softly-spoken permanence. Along the way: Iranian bombings, Los Angeles lockdowns, and a bipartisan consensus that real power should be exercised in secret and explained, if at all, with a shrug.

Bush: Legalizing the Crisis

In September 2001, Congress passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) with such speed it might as well have been printed on pre-signed stationery. It gave President Bush the power to wage war against... well, whoever he decided was worth it. No borders, no deadlines, and no real debate. A blank check wrapped in a flag.

The Patriot Act followed swiftly, like a privacy demolition team in legal garb. Roving wiretaps, secret courts, mass surveillance—suddenly, the Fourth Amendment looked quaint, like a horse-drawn carriage parked outside a drone hangar.

Then came the black sites, the torture memos, and Guantanamo—a beachfront symbol of moral collapse. We called waterboarding “enhanced interrogation,” proving that when law fails, euphemism thrives.

Bush’s legacy wasn’t a rogue presidency. It was architecture. Every president since has lived in the emergency mansion he built.

Obama: Continuity Behind Civility

Hope. Change. And weekly kill list meetings. Barack Obama, Nobel Peace Prize in hand, expanded the drone program so efficiently it felt like the Pentagon had merged with Silicon Valley.

Civilian deaths? Collateral. Transparency? Classified. American citizens abroad? Targeted and eliminated without trial. Somehow, this became "leadership."

Guantanamo? Still open. Surveillance? Widened. Whistleblowers? Prosecuted. The president who campaigned on daylight governed in shadows: just more politely.

Liberal America exhaled under Obama not because tyranny ended, but because it started speaking in complete sentences again. The machinery didn’t stop. It just got a software update.

Trump: The Exception as Spectacle

Donald Trump didn’t invent authoritarian drift; he just said the quiet parts through a bullhorn. His presidency declared a border emergency to fund a wall Congress refused to pay for. The crisis? Immigration. The solution? Divert military funds like a kid rerouting Monopoly money.

ICE raids became militarized theatre. Title 42 became a magic spell: say "public health" and all asylum rights disappear.

And when the George Floyd protests erupted, Trump considered invoking the Insurrection Act to deploy troops against Americans. We were one bad press cycle away from tanks on city streets.

He governed by exception, but made it look like a reality show.

Biden: Quiet, Legal, Permanent

Then came Biden: the return to normalcy that felt more like returning to the scene of the crime.

In 2021 and again in 2023, Biden bombed Syria using the same AUMF from 2001. Congress was informed—after the fact. The Constitution? Consulted, but not obeyed.

Then, in June 2025, came Operation Midnight Hammer. Without warning, B-2 bombers dropped bunker busters on Iranian nuclear sites. No vote. No debate. Just shock, awe, and a short press release about "strategic deterrence."

Meanwhile, ICE resumed large-scale raids in Los Angeles, detaining hundreds. When protests broke out, Biden deployed Title 10 troops, federally controlled military, into the city. Legal scholars gasped. Liberals sipped their lattes.

The same legal gymnastics once called fascist under Trump were now rebranded as “responsible governance.”

Philosophical Frame: Perpetual Exception

Giorgio Agamben called it a "state of exception," where law is suspended to preserve power. Carl Schmitt argued the sovereign isn’t the one who follows the law, but the one who decides when it no longer applies.

In modern America, the president is the sovereign. And the exception isn’t the edge of power—it’s the center.

From a moral anti-realist lens, this makes terrifying sense. If values are constructed and power is pragmatic, then every exception is justified retroactively by narrative. Emergency isn’t a deviation; it’s the design.

Consequences: Governing by Crisis

Congress no longer authorizes war. Instead, it receives updates like a disinterested shareholder.

The courts defer. Civil liberties shrink. Surveillance expands. Dissent is algorithmically flagged.

Activism dies of exhaustion when every president, red or blue, uses the same powers and just changes the font.

Abroad, countries like China and Russia point to the U.S. playbook. "We too are just fighting emergencies," they say… and they’re not wrong.

Historical Echoes

• Lincoln suspended habeas corpus.

• FDR interned Japanese Americans.

• Bush shredded privacy.

We’ve always flirted with emergency governance. But now, we’ve put a ring on it.

Conclusion

The Empire of Exceptions isn’t looming. It’s here. We don’t govern by law anymore. We govern by workaround.

Each crisis builds the scaffolding for the next. Each administration inherits the crown and the guillotine.

We didn’t restore democracy. We professionalized the apocalypse.

Welcome to the Empire of Exceptions. You voted out fascism—now watch it fly coach, drop bombs, and call it diplomacy.