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Your guide to what Trump’s second term means for Washington, business and the world
Donald Trump is forever accused of showing too little respect for the US constitution. Given its feebleness in containing him, isn’t the larger problem that liberals show too much? More hope is put on the separation of powers, on the famous checks and balances, than such frail things can bear.
Consider Congress. It is the least trusted institution in America. Its Republican members are so deep in Trump’s pocket that most voted not to ratify Joe Biden’s election win in 2020. At a rate his predecessors never did, Trump invokes emergency measures, without much resistance from the legislature. Or take the judiciary. Trump has appointed a third of the Supreme Court, which has gone on to construe his powers and privileges generously. (Let’s see if it extends the favour to the next Democratic president or if some jurisprudential epiphany strikes the bench at that point.) As for the federal executive itself, Trump gets to appoint 4,000 or so people to it, not just the cabinet and their immediate deputies.
You will notice that little or none of the above is illegal. Before he violates a single rule, Trump can bend the state to his whim. What does that say about the state? Even if his tariffs or his attempted sacking of the Federal Reserve governor this week was outside the law — the second matter is bound for the court — such breaches are a small part of his overall command of the system.
Institutions outside government have proven no harder for him to master. Business has been an alternative locus of power in the past, especially in America, where individuals can amass such large fortunes as to be able to look the president in the eye. Now, though, billionaires genuflect before Trump to secure favours or avoid punishments in a patronage economy, as do law firms. (“Big Law continues to bend the knee to President Trump,” boasted the White House spokeswoman in April. Imagine saying that deliberately, as opposed to being caught by a stray mic.) That leaves the media. Well, we try. But this isn’t Walter Cronkite’s era. So much news is now consumed via social media platforms whose owners were seated in front of cabinet nominees at Trump’s inauguration.
The lesson here is bleak, but also clarifying.
The only thing that works is winning. No check or balance is effective against would-be autocrats aside from beating them in elections. The obsession of liberals (by which I mean those who want to preserve the American way of government) should be nothing more high-minded than politics. This requires, among other mental shifts, zero tolerance of bad candidates. The fact that Kamala Harris ruled herself out of the California governorship last month, instead of being laughed out of the room at the merest hint that she might run, is proof of the problem. This odd tenderness towards high-consequence losers is not unique to US liberals. Ed Miliband’s punishment for flunking a winnable UK election in 2015, whose ultimate outcome was Brexit, is to command the nation’s energy policy a decade later.
If winning is the one reliable break against power-abusers, it is a patriotic duty to have a round-the-clock fixation with the median voter. The Democrats aren’t miles away from that person. On healthcare and the budget, it is the GOP that has the vote-losing ideas. But this is what makes the Democrats’ failure to clear up their remaining electoral liabilities, such as border control and cultural issues, so vexing. Both Trump terms were entirely avoidable.
It is an old liberal instinct to take things outside of politics: for example, to establish as incontestable “rights” that should be argued for in the democratic realm. Another version of this mental crutch is the hope that “institutions”, within and without the state, will counteract a rogue leader. It is a reasonable hope. The founding scripture of the republic sets out exactly that system. But the evidence of the past eight months, during which Trump has imposed himself on civilian and not just official life, isn’t encouraging. Institutions are made up of human beings, not magic dust, and the president can appoint them or indirectly grind them down with pressure. The point is therefore to worry about the presidency, not the institutions. All that matters is politics.
Of course, even winning elections isn’t a watertight dam against the likes of Trump, as he can just contest the result. But it is the nearest thing. A huge amount of liberal energy goes to pointing out ethical or constitutional depredations and waiting for voters to punish them. It should be plain by now that an electoral plurality, while not actively in favour of strongman rule, doesn’t mind all that much. In that case, the liberal recourse is obvious: win on other issues, and use that power itself as the check. It isn’t textbook constitutionalism. It isn’t in the Federalist Papers. But it is what there is.
This goes for liberals everywhere. Britain tends to tell itself that a permanent civil service, independent courts and a non-partisan monarchy screen the nation from a malign actor. Really? It is a far more centralised state. Capture the executive, and you capture much of the whole thing. The historic course of the UK can also change on the back of a narrow referendum result. (Amending the US constitution requires various supermajorities.) Whether against Trump or Nigel Farage, the last line of defence is the same. Politics and politics and politics.