A weak president grasps for real power
Just weeks into Trump II, the alarm bells are ringing. It feels like the Reichstag fire, the U.S.A. version.
The blitzkrieg of executive orders, the attacks on career employees of the federal civil service, on bureaus, on departments of government, on independent agencies, on agents of the FBI and lawyers at the Department of Justice, on inspectors general, on foreign assistance and domestic grants, are designed to weaken and incapacitate, to confuse and frighten, and to paralyze the government.
The invasion by Elon Musk of the Treasury Department, and his access to the Treasury’s check-writing system – you know, the one that churns out monthly Social Security checks – and Wednesday’s raid on the payment systems at the Department of Health and Human Services – responsible for Medicare – are something else all together. What is the richest man in the world up to? What does he want, what is he after? Is the unelected Musk in charge now?
The situation is bad, and the future is bleak. By stepping on the Constitution and bypassing Congress, Musk and Trump dangerously portend a thirst for power unequaled in scope and reach in all of American history. At this rate of breakdown, what will the Constitutional order look like in six months? In 12? In 18? What degree of decay is necessary for a forever game-changing government coup to take place?
I’m baffled. What country are we living in? It certainly doesn’t seem like the United States.
We agree the country needs defined and secure borders. We should know who’s crossing the doorway into this land of promise and potential. However, what we don’t need are lawful citizens living in dread, concerned with who might be watching and waiting for them. Last week, the 蘑菇视频 documented the case of a Uniontown woman, a legal American citizen, who carries her U.S. passport with her whenever she goes, in the event she is stopped and questioned by the authorities.
Imagine, an American living in fear in America.
What year is this? Can it really be 2025? It feels like it’s not, not when the president of the United States is talking about taking the Panama Canal, about acquiring Greenland, about making Canada the 51st state.
In 1945, when an unchallenged America stood atop the world and anything and everything seemed possible, the country rejected every notion of self-aggrandizement. We lived in the spirit of the Marshall Plan, in the glow of the “good” war, World War II.
So what year is it really? 1846? 1898? Is it the year of Manifest Destiny? Of benevolent colonialism?
Maybe it’s the year of the odd-ball idea: American troops in Gaza, the U.S. facilitating the removal of 2 million Palestinians off the land where they were born and converting Gaza into Palm Beach East, or, as the president prefers, the “Riviera.”
How to think about the Musk raids and Trump’s overwrought ambitions? Emeritus law professor Peter L. Strauss of Columbia University put it this way: “President Trump and his friends are upending federal law and the … limitations of presidential power in Article II of the Constitution. The Constitution did not imagine what we are seeking now.”
Loren DeJonge Schulman, an associate director of the Office of Management and Budget in the Biden administration, in specific reference to Musk’s warren of lawless raiders, insists, “They illegally broke into a secure facility … hijacked sensitive data on vulnerable people and U.S. businesses, cut off resources for the sick and hungry families, and fired Americans across the country.”
The commentator Ezra Klein says, “Trump has always wanted to be king. His plan this time is first to play king on TV. If we believe he is already king, we will be likelier to let him govern as king. Don’t believe him.” He is not king. He is a president who “cannot rewrite the Constitution” to suit his image of himself or to bring America to heel.
Maybe.
It seems that at least some of the people who like President Trump best are the people who believe he is in complete charge of things, that he acts from a position of unrivaled strength and power.
However, by relying on paper-thin executive orders and by turning to the kind of tactics employed by Musk, the president underlines just how weak his position is. Strong, effective presidents put their names to laws. They work with Congress to enact an agenda. They do not act unilaterally and, least of all, illegally.
Richard Robbins lives in Uniontown. He can be reached at dick.l.robbins @gmail.com.