• Home
  • Independent Voter News
  • Quizzes
  • Election Dissection
  • Sections
  • Events
  • Directory
  • About Us
  • Glossary
  • Opinion
  • Campaign Finance
  • Redistricting
  • Civic Ed
  • Voting
  • Fact Check
  • News
  • Analysis
  • Subscriptions
  • Log in
Leveraging Our Differences
  • news & opinion
    • Big Picture
      • Civic Ed
      • Ethics
      • Leadership
      • Leveraging big ideas
      • Media
    • Business & Democracy
      • Corporate Responsibility
      • Impact Investment
      • Innovation & Incubation
      • Small Businesses
      • Stakeholder Capitalism
    • Elections
      • Campaign Finance
      • Independent Voter News
      • Redistricting
      • Voting
    • Government
      • Balance of Power
      • Budgeting
      • Congress
      • Judicial
      • Local
      • State
      • White House
    • Justice
      • Accountability
      • Anti-corruption
      • Budget equity
    • Columns
      • Beyond Right and Left
      • Civic Soul
      • Congress at a Crossroads
      • Cross-Partisan Visions
      • Democracy Pie
      • Our Freedom
  • Pop Culture
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
  • events
  • About
      • Mission
      • Advisory Board
      • Staff
      • Contact Us
Sign Up
  1. Home>
  2. Balance of Power>
  3. trump administration>

How Trump is turning the American presidency into a dictatorship

Tom Coleman
May 08, 2020
President Donald Trump
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Coleman was an assistant Missouri attorney general and later a Republican member of the House of Representatives from 1976 to 1993. Now retired as a lobbyist, he is an advisor to the Protect Democracy Project, an anti-authoritarian watchdog group.


Since taking office more than three years ago, President Trump has consistently shown a complete lack of understanding of the fundamental precepts of our constitutional system.

He doesn't fathom the doctrine of separation of powers, the limitations placed on a president through the Constitution's checks and balances. And he doesn't comprehend the foundation upon which all of it rests — the rule of law. All of which raises the question: Will Trump become an unaccountable dictator?

Last year Trump asserted he could personally take over special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into possible Russian influence in the 2016 election and his own role in it "if I wanted to." Emboldened after being acquitted by the Senate on the House's impeachment charges, he said, "I'm actually, I guess, the chief law enforcement officer of the country." And he has claimed that, as president, the Constitution gives him "the right to do whatever I want."

Most Americans had never considered an American president would speak such words. They are the musings of a monarch from centuries ago, or a dictator ruling in a banana republic.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

It's doubtful the president came up with these constitutional perversions by himself. Assistance was surely provided by his current White House counsel, Patrick Cipollone, and Attorney General William Barr. Both are leading proponents of what's known as the unitary theory of the executive, an extreme doctrine of presidential power that has no legal boundaries. It is radical, wrong, undemocratic — and dangerous.

This theory is as obscure as it is controversial. It is a viewpoint that proponents argue is found in Article II of the Constitution: "The executive power shall be vested in a president of the United States of America." Those words have been variously interpreted to theoretically invalidate any statute passed by Congress that denies the president "exclusive control" over a "purely executive" power — and thus violating the principle of the separation of powers in the Constitution.

Other supporters of the theory take a more extreme view. They consider independent federal regulatory agencies as illegitimate, since they are structured to be insulated from presidential control. They believe Congress has no power to demand information from any part of the executive branch. And they assert that executive authority, under the Constitution, gives a president whatever powers are left specifically unchecked by either Congress or the courts.

Advocates of the theory posit that Congress cannot compel executive branch personnel to appear on Capitol Hill, even under subpoena. Not surprising, these were the same arguments put forth by Trump's lawyers in several court cases brought by the House against the president. They also served as a cornerstone of Trump's defense in the Senate impeachment trial.

While not the first presidential proponent of the theory — George W. Bush referred to it in more than 161 bill-signing statements — Trump has taken it to a significantly higher level.

Consider if Trump really has all the powers he thinks he should have. If only the president could determine what presidential powers exist, then a president could do more than act whenever Congress had not set specific parameters on a given topic. Under this extreme theory, his unilateral actions, even in the face of explicit congressional opposition, would be nonetheless constitutional.

This is precisely the issue now before the federal Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Is it appropriate for the House to challenge Trump's decision to build a wall on the southern border with funds not appropriated for that purpose?

Richard Nixon pretty well summed up the essence of the unified theory of the executive this way: "When the president does it, that means it's not illegal."

If Trump continues to lean on this crackpot theory to justify his governing decisions, it will have historical consequences for our nation. He would end our democracy based on the rule of law and replace it with an unaccountable dictatorial king.

The proponents of the unitary theory of executive power have constructed an alternative Constitution in much the same way Trump has used what his aides describe as "alternative facts" to conjure an alt reality.

If that sounds scary, well, it is. This president believes he has found the keys to the kingdom made possible by this discredited constitutional theory. It makes him, effectively, a king.

To overcome and reverse Trump's actions, we are encouraged by the wise counsel of Justice Robert Jackson, who came up with a famous test for evaluating claims of presidential power in a 1952 opinion preventing President Harry Truman from taking over the steel mills to avoid a strike during the Korean War.

"With all its defects, delays and inconveniences, men have discovered no technique for long preserving free government except that the executive be under the law, and that the law be made by parliamentary deliberations," he wrote.

It's time for Congress and the courts — and the voters — to act accordingly, before it's too late.

From Your Site Articles
  • The instruction manual for autocratic governing was written just ... ›
  • How Trump is using religion to undermine our democracy - The Fulcrum ›
  • Trump takes back willingness to help USPS but House steps in - The Fulcrum ›
  • Trump's false victory claim rattles democracy again - The Fulcrum ›
  • Trump's false victory claim rattles democracy again - The Fulcrum ›
  • Trump keeps up false claims as Barr abandons him - The Fulcrum ›
  • Trump rails anew against a resilient democracy - The Fulcrum ›
  • The 7 main ways Trump tested the democratic system - The Fulcrum ›
  • Latin America's lessons about autocrats unpunished - The Fulcrum ›
  • Time for a cross-partisan push to prevent abuses of power - The Fulcrum ›
  • Tangible fixes abound for restoring the rule of law - The Fulcrum ›
  • This could be the year to recalibrate war making authority - The Fulcrum ›
  • Take our Constitution Day quiz - The Fulcrum ›
  • How our democracy eroded into a partisan power game - The Fulcrum ›
  • Parliamentary study shows path to regaining citizens' trust - The Fulcrum ›
  • Here's how to taming our inner authoritarian - The Fulcrum ›
Related Articles Around the Web
  • Can we stop tiptoeing around the fact that Trump is behaving like a ... ›
  • Republicans Have Made It Clear They Will Let Trump Become a ... ›
  • The United States Is Getting Infected With Dictatorship ›
  • Donald Trump wants to be a dictator. It's not enough just to laugh at ... ›
trump administration

Want to write
for The Fulcrum?

If you have something to say about ways to protect or repair our American democracy, we want to hear from you.

Submit
Get some Leverage Sign up for The Fulcrum Newsletter
Follow
Contributors

Freedom is just another word

David L. Nevins

Harnessing the power of 'we the people' on Independence Day

Jenna Spinelle

Young people, patriotism and the Fourth of July

Layla Zaidane

Landing on the moon was a hard thing. So is preserving democracy.

Kahlil Byrd

Texas leads the way

Lawrence Goldstone

Why the Founders would be aghast at the Supreme Court’s abortion ruling

Beau Breslin
latest News

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s swearing in makes history during unprecedented time for the Supreme Court

Candice Norwood, The 19th
01 July

A Jalapeño a Day: What America Can Learn From Bridging in the Hispanic Community

Our Staff
01 July

Your take: 'I stand for ...'

Jeremy Garson
01 July

The Civic Season soundtrack

David L. Nevins
01 July

Bringing history’s posters to today’s civic action efforts: A Q&A with Globe Press

Cameron Katz
30 June

Podcast: Past, present, future

Our Staff
30 June
Videos

Video: Memorial Day 2022

Our Staff

Video: Helping loved ones divided by politics

Our Staff

Video: What happened in Virginia?

Our Staff

Video: Infrastructure past, present, and future

Our Staff

Video: Beyond the headlines SCOTUS 2021 - 2022

Our Staff

Video: Should we even have a debt limit

Our Staff
Podcasts

Podcast: Did economists move the Democrats to the right?

Our Staff
02 May

Podcast: The future of depolarization

Our Staff
11 February

Podcast: Sore losers are bad for democracy

Our Staff
20 January

Deconstructed Podcast from IVN

Our Staff
08 November 2021
Recommended
Freedom is just another word

Freedom is just another word

Music, Poetry & Arts
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson being sworn in

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s swearing in makes history during unprecedented time for the Supreme Court

Judicial
A Jalapeño a Day: What America Can Learn From Bridging in the Hispanic Community

A Jalapeño a Day: What America Can Learn From Bridging in the Hispanic Community

Leadership
sample posters

Your take: 'I stand for ...'

Your Take
People at a concert

The Civic Season soundtrack

Music, Poetry & Arts
Flags in front of the Capitol

Harnessing the power of 'we the people' on Independence Day

State