A Few Thoughts on the Accumulation of Presidential Power

To the editor:

I have a few thoughts for my friends who enthusiastically support President Trump (and yes, I do have a few). President Trump—backed by the Supreme Court justices he appointed, and by a Congress often unwilling to challenge him—has accumulated presidential powers at a level we haven’t seen before.

So I want to ask my Trump-supporting friends: What do you think will happen when these expanded powers become the new normal for future presidents? Once a president gains new authority, it is almost never given back. Does it give you any pause that the GOP may have strengthened the executive branch at the expense of the traditional checks and balances provided by Congress and the courts?

We are living through a very troubling time. The breakdown of the usual separation of powers created by the Constitution’s First, Second, and Third Articles represents a serious challenge to the democratic republic envisioned by founders like James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay. This aggregation of power in the executive branch endangers our long experiment in democratic governance. Great Republican presidents such as Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush would be alarmed by the damage President Trump has done to our country. I seriously doubt they would even recognize President Trump as a traditional Republican—or even as a conservative in the historical sense.

The Founders never imagined that someone like Donald Trump—a political wrecking ball—would reach the highest office in the land with a primary focus on enriching himself and his family at the expense of the nation’s welfare and progress. Surely the American people, theybelieved,wouldneverelect a convicted felon, or someone who would encourage a violent insurrection against the most carefully monitored and secure election in our history, in order to remain in power.

If Trump’s accumulation of presidential power doesn’t concern you now, imagine a future president, whose politics you strongly oppose, wielding the same unchecked authority. What might they do with a weakened judiciary and a Congress too intimidated to act? Are you comfortable with that? Eventually, a liberal president will take office—just as surely as Donald will doze off during the next Cabinet meeting— and they will inherit the same expanded powers.

Frankly, I don’t want to see our system break down. Our democratic Republic is grounded in the will of the people and protected by a Constitutional structure of checks and balances. We must not allow it to erode. Further, we need two strong political parties, one out of power, but serving as the loyal opposition to check on the one in power.

However, with apologies to my Trump supporting friends, I do have to admit— the thought of an all powerful President Bernie Sanders does amuse me.

Bill Balch La Grange