Trump Thread

[Xiahou]

Trump actually did announce plenty of outrageous things and seems to show more authoritarian behavior than Obama.

It's all perspective, I'm afraid. Obama did more to consolidate power in the presidency and to weaken the other branches of government. He just got better PR.

Many constitutional scholars and politicians on the right have spent the last eight years rallying against the Obama presidency, arguing that he had overstepped his powers, especially with regard to national security.

But this is now likely to yield to protests from the left, with the same criticisms applying to Trump.

“For eight years Republicans have complained that the presidency was too powerful, that President Obama ruled like a dictator, and that the powers of the presidency needed to be curbed,” Nichols said. “My guess is that they’re not going to be very serious about that principle.”

With the shoe on the other foot, the left may soon realize how terrifying some of the president’s authorities can be.

“If you are concerned about overreach of executive authority, and the only thing that was keeping your concerns at bay was that President Obama had that authority… [it’s] going to come back to bite people in the rear, because now a President Trump will rely on those same authorities,” said Bradley Moss, a lawyer specializing in national security law.

Call me when Trump prosecutes a war without congressional approval or orders the death of American citizens without judicial review. Then we'll be onto something. Most of the anti-Trump theatrics thus far, look too much like naked partisanship. It's ok if my guy does it, but if the other guy does it he's Hitler 2.0. Trump's executive overreach hasn't come near Obama's yet. And I don't want him to go as far as Obama did. I didn't vote for Trump, and if he abuses his power as badly, I won't vote for him next time either. But we survived Obama and we'll survive Trump too.

[Montmorency]

It's all perspective, I'm afraid. Obama did more to consolidate power in the presidency and to weaken the other branches of government. He just got better PR.

Call me when Trump prosecutes a war without congressional approval or orders the death of American citizens without judicial review. Then we'll be onto something. Most of the anti-Trump theatrics thus far, look too much like naked partisanship. It's ok if my guy does it, but if the other guy does it he's Hitler 2.0. Trump's executive overreach hasn't come near Obama's yet. And I don't want him to go as far as Obama did. I didn't vote for Trump, and if he abuses his power as badly, I won't vote for him next time either. But we survived Obama and we'll survive Trump too.

Ironically, you and others IMO end up conflating the Presidency and the Executive. The latter has increased its ambit over national security, but the POTUS itself is still much weaker than during the mid-century. Now, admittedly there is indeed scope for a sitting POTUS to take advantage of the growth of his department to work toward conjoining the two, to consolidate power away from party consensus rule, and to exercise personal authority over increasingly-fine matters - but this has not been the case for generations. Obama did not buck the trend, and I believe Trump is not doing and will not do so, regardless of his conceits or the indignation of his opponents.

Concisely: the indirect power of POTUS in the world (coercive, that is) has increased, but the direct power of POTUS in the US government has decreased. Moreover, the former is more an outcome of technological factors and the nature of contemporary conflicts than any mechanical developments in law.

That's my line and I'm sticking to it.