Trump: Hellbent on Autocracy
Terry H. Schwadron
July 18, 2023
We should be paying close attention to a New York Times analysis that shows a steady drumbeat within the Donald Trump candidacy for president that — quite apart from all the daily nonsense — is aiming to restructure government to make a Republican presidency far more powerful.
It is both an example of what political reporting should be and the result of seeking out the less-overt rivulets beneath the Trump movement that could fundamentally reshape the way government works and to propel Trump himself towards the kind of autocracy he continuously and erroneously suggests he is due, should he be reelected.
The analysis is thoughtful and well-researched, and reached well beyond the daily blather of inane quotes and boasts to look at raw organization through conservative circles to create a government that would magnify the ability of a Trump presidency to harness all the arms of government in partisan union to wreak the kind of political vengeance that Trump promises us.
The vision of a president who can micromanage the powers not only of Cabinet agencies but of proscribed independent government institutions that direct the economy or the Justice Department or the tax authorities not only violates the spirit of split autonomies and power checks built into our systems, but in many cases the actual written law.
To make this thinking crazier, it is exactly this current debate over whether powers of prosecution and policy emanate from a single regal figure that leaves the day-to-day criticisms of Joe Biden by Congressional Republicans so full of holes. The very vocal House Freedom Caucus wants powers wrested away from Biden for deciding debt ceiling issues or the federal budget or whether the Defense Department provides abortion services.
The simple translation: If our guy wins, we want him to have the power to use government to steamroll or destroy our enemies, but only if our guy wins.
A Campaign to Structure Government
What The Times reported was a campaign “to alter the balance of power by increasing the president’s authority over every part of the federal government that now operates, by either law or tradition, with any measure of independence from political interference by the White House.” The bald conclusion was based on Trump’s campaign policy proposals and 0n interviews with people close to him and with deep conservative political roots.
The campaign envisions a Trump in the White House with a sweeping expansion of presidential power over the machinery of government. Trump wants direct control over Justice and agencies like the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, and The Fed. His policies advocate “impounding” funds or refusing to spend money Congress has appropriated for programs a president doesn’t like, stripping federal employment protections, and to go after intelligence and defense agencies to replace those who might oppose or criticize his notions.
The long-promised war on the “deep state” would be elimination of any obstacles, legal, traditional, human, or bureaucratic, that would question an autocratic president.
The Times quoted John McEntee, a former personal aide-turned White House personnel cbief, who said, “The president’s plan should be to fundamentally reorient the federal government in a way that hasn’t been done since F.D.R.’s New Deal” to systematically remove officials seen to be disloyal. His quote was backed by a lot of others from conservative think tanks and former Trump officials who are readying themselves for a chance to go well beyond what was achieved in the Trump years.
There is a Project 2025, a $22 million presidential transition operation that is preparing policies, personnel lists and transition plans to recommend to any Republican who may win the 2024 election, said The Times. Central players include the right-leaning Heritage Foundation and former immigration policy adviser Stephen Miller, among others.
The Political Context
None of this comes in a political vacuum. Just this week, Trump told Fox interviewer Maria Bartiromo basically that the only mistake he made as president was to hire non-loyal Cabinet secretaries who questioned the appropriateness or Constitutionality of some of his plans.
It comes amid a debate over a made-up “unitary executive theory” that seems the opposite of even recent Supreme Court decisions that are bending all federal rules to return more power to states, not to the White House. This unitary theory suggests that Congress can’t give away powers to, say, a Federal Drug Administration, to decide what exactly is safe for us to take.
Of course, Trump believes himself omniscient and the only person on Earth who can solve problems correctly, despite a societal mirror that suggests he is a serial liar regularly incapable of taking in information in even the most simplified ways.
As a principle, it’s been around for decades, always getting thrown out by the courts when it is raised. Apparently, if you accept the theory that only the White House, Congress and the courts can establish all federal rules and regulations, you also accept the idea that Trump could have fired the special counsels who have investigated him, that he could order tax probes against individuals he doesn’t like, that he would not be bound by congressional votes over how to spend money on a border wall.
Of course, if Biden tries to lean on the Education Department to forgive student loan payments, there is hell to pay in Congress. How we add powers only for Republican presidents or only MAGA-agreeing presidents is an open question in this debate.
Structured government is never on the Trump speaking agenda, but its dangers are lurking through the election campaign.
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