Trump 2.0 Will Have an Unusual Amount of Power
It’s a feature of constitutional democracy that presidents can’t do whatever they want. But Trump will be far less constrained than other modern presidents.
Free to do what he wants, any old time?
Photographer: Chandan Khanna/AFP/Getty ImagesRight now, Democrats are asking despairingly what, if anything, can constrain Donald Trump from doing whatever he wants in his second term. And Republicans may be assuming optimistically that, with the Senate and the House in his pocket, there will be little to stand in the president-elect’s way. I have some good news and some bad news for each group.
Democracy means the rule of the people, and the people have spoken in electing Trump. Constitutional democracy means democracy with constraints. And the constraints we have now are weaker than they have ever been. The classic limits on a president’s domestic power include Congress, the courts, fear of impeachment, fear of prosecution, government bureaucracy, and the financial markets, with press and public opinion somewhere in the backdrop. Nearly all of these, except the markets, are substantially weaker for Trump than they have been for any other modern second-term president. None, however, has been absolutely eliminated, and all will matter for shaping Trump’s presidency.