Our Imperial Presidency

I woke up this morning with the realization that one man ruling largely by fiat is causing global chaos. 

All everyone seems to talk about these days is Donald Trump and what he’s done or will do. And for good reason. It’s making us nervous. And it’s not just us: the whole world is talking about him. We all know why we are talking about him. But why should he be the dominant topic of conversation?

The point I am getting at is why should one man have that much power? 

When Trump took office he claimed that America was in bad shape, that the economy was bad, that our society was in decay, that government was corrupt, that foreign countries were “ripping us off,” that immigrants were ruining America, that we were despondent and pessimistic, that inflation was rampant, etc., etc. He said he was going to fix everything because God saved his life for this purpose.

And he is doing what he said he was going to do. The result has been chaos. The financial markets have been wildly up but mostly down. Tariffs were imposed worldwide which has led to uncertainty, confusion, disruption, and retaliation. Immigrants, legal and illegal, have been threatened and terrorized. The Federal bureaucracy has been randomly dismantled. Federal employees he deems as his political enemies have been fired. Our support of Ukraine and our NATO treaties and allies are questioned. 

Contrary to Trump’s doomsday scenario, things have more or less been working pretty well. International trade has been an economic boon to every country that has participated in it. NATO and the U.S. nuclear umbrella have more or less brought peace and stability to Europe. The American economy has left its citizens wealthier than ever despite its ups and downs. Employment is almost at an historic high. Inflation is coming down. GDP is rising. 

I’m not saying everything is perfect; it’s not. We have plenty of problems and I have been a constant and reliable critic of policies that have been wrongheaded and don’t work. But if you pull back your focus on the arc of history, we are all doing pretty well. Let’s hope we can keep it that way and improve on what we have with things that actually work.

We all know how our government is set up: there are three branches of government that have “checks and balances” over each other. Each legislative, judiciary, and executive branch has only so much power (balances) and the other branches can act if one branch exceeds its authority (checks). But there is a flaw in the system. The flaw is that Congress and the Supreme Court have ceded too much power to the executive branch. Each party thinks that’s great when their candidate is president. But now we have a president who is taking maximum advantage of that power to the detriment of national and world order.

The deeper issue is not just Trump – it’s that our system has allowed one person to hold too much unchecked power. We now have what can be called an imperial presidency.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was perhaps the worst offender. During his administration the executive branch was given enormous powers over the economy. His “Brain Trusters” mistakenly thought it was a way to revive the economy from the Great Depression. Their inspiration was Soviet Russia and they enacted policies that almost abolished our market-based economy. These policies failed like they always have and resulted in the “great” part of the Great Depression. Eventually the Supreme Court struck down many of these laws, but many persisted which is why the depression lasted so long.

The problem is that we don’t know what Trump is going to do next and that uncertainty is destabilizing the whole world order that has been in place since the end of World War II. 

The result is the disruption of our well-oiled global supply chains, the persecution of his political enemies, the militarization of our immigration policies under the false claim of national security, ignoring our treaty obligations, hobbling the economy with tariffs, higher costs for consumers, weakening the dollar, destabilizing our financial markets, dangerously jeopardizing our sovereign bond status, and possibly ignoring the rule of law by disobeying the Supreme Court (we’ll see).

The Founders designed a system to prevent exactly this kind of autocracy. Yet here we are – confronting a president who believes he is on a divine mission and acts on “instinct.” Whatever your politics this needs to change.