Donald Trump’s admiration for world leaders has been evident during his years in the White House. It was clear that he would have preferred the powers of a dictator to that of a president. Now, as he campaigns to return to the White House, he and his allies plan to move the US administration closer to authoritarianism — but key parts of the plan are not new to Trump. This is his additional form of authoritarian rule over the old Republican system.
Team Trump is not making a secret of the plan. They want people to know about this, whether in a Steve Bannon complains at Turning Point USA—“This is a meeting! This is a Holy War against the Deep State! Donald Trump is our weapon of revenge! ”—or in plain language to the press.
“The president’s plan should be to reform the government in ways that haven’t been done since FDR,” said John McEntee, former White House chief of staff. he told The New York Times.
“Our main branch,” according to Mr. McEntee, “was created by liberals for the purpose of proclaiming the principles of freedom. There is no way to make the existing system work in a sustainable manner. It is not enough to get good workers. What is needed is to reform the whole system.”
As former Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought said, “What we’re trying to do is identify pockets of freedom and seize them.” This is a direct statement of wanting to bring the federal government under control – and based on the interests of one individual. One person who, right now, is hoping to be Donald Trump.
Team Trump’s wish list includes expensesthe act in which the president refuses to use the money that Congress has given for certain programs or projects. According to Trumphe would say “instead put the money back in the savings bank and maybe even lower your taxes.” The problem is that there is a law preventing the President from doing this that was enacted in 1974 “under the direction of President Nixon.” If the money is authorized by law, the president cannot just refuse to give money. But Trump wants to turn back the clock and get that power back. He also wants to regulate independent agencies like the Federal Communications Commission.
In 2020, Trump moved in the bowels of the nonpartisan civil service, replacing expertise and qualifications with the test of political integrity even for civil servants. He wants to restore the system if he returns to the White House in 2025.
But even though Trump is, well, Trump—a dictator-loving, ketchup-slinging, narcissist who believes his own interests are at the center of everything—Republicans have long pushed to expand the president’s powers. William Barr was not Trump’s top lawyer. He was previously the attorney general of George HW Bush, who is often considered one of the most moderate Republican presidents. It’s Barr he lived for many years to promote the idea of ”holding unity”. Writing in Just Law in 2020, Caroline Fredrickson explained, “A dangerous and highly contested proposal – it shows that the President has the power to create. everything branch decisions, including hiring, firing, and—perhaps most alarmingly—to initiate or withhold litigation.”
The George W. Bush administration also forward the idea of a unitary executive. This isn’t just Trump’s surge, it’s a long battle between establishment Republicans. If Trump carries this forward, the next Republican president—even if he is not, on the surface, Trump’s type—will be happy to take what Trump left him and push it a little further.
In 2016, Democrats warned that Trump’s presidency would mean the end of the Roe v. Wade. That warning was widely ignored, even scorned and ignored by the old radio stations. Then Trump, with the help of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, filled the court, and those predictions came true in 2022. Dobbs election. This time we have an ominous warning: Trump and the Republicans want to expand the power of the President so that there are fewer checks and more decisions in the hands of one person. That Donald Trump and their current plans for who that person will be is not the most alarming thing about this.