Donald Trump believes presidents have almost absolute power. In his second term, there will be few political or legal restraints to check him.
The president-elect’s sweeping victory over Vice President Kamala Harris suddenly turned the theoretical notion that he will indulge his autocratic instincts into a genuine possibility.
When Trump returns to the White House in January as one of the most powerful presidents in history, he’ll be able to take advantage of his own filleting of guardrails during his first presidency, which he continued through legal maneuverings out of office.
It’s not guaranteed that just because Trump has massive power he will spurn constitutional checks and balances. His past behavior doesn’t have to predict the future. But the lesson of Trump’s business and political careers is that he seeks to obliterate all constraints.
He has, for instance, crushed opposition in the Republican Party and driven out political heretics who oppose his “Make America Great Again” creed. This will be increasingly significant since the GOP has already flipped the Senate and still hopes to complete a monopoly on Washington power by keeping the House, which CNN has not yet projected.
No other president has come into office armed with a Supreme Court ruling that grants significant immunity to presidents for official acts. The decision, a direct result of Trump’s effort to challenge his federal indictment for 2020 election meddling, is limited — but he is certain to take an expansive view of its meaning. The ruling emerged from a conservative court majority fashioned by Trump in his first term and that many legal observers now see as a rubber stamp on future power grabs.
A mandate
Perhaps most significantly, Trump can claim democratic legitimacy for what is already shaping up as the most intemperate presidency of the modern era, after increasing his vote share across multiple demographics. “Everybody knew this when they voted yesterday. So yes, the American people voted for basically this unchecked power that the president is going to have,” said former Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who alienated himself from his party by standing up to Trump following the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.
Related article How Donald Trump completed a historic political comeback
Trump tried to destroy democracy to stay in power after the 2020 election. Four years later, he presented his platform to voters and won an Electoral College majority. He may also bolster his legitimacy by becoming the first Republican president to win the popular vote since 2004.
“America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate,” the former and future president said at his Mar-a-Lago victory party early Wednesday.
Trump has denied that he wants autocratic power, saying his claim he’d be a dictator on day one is a joke and that he is instead the savior of democracy.
Yet millions of Americans chose Trump after his extreme closing argument in which he proposed the biggest deportation operation in US history, mused about using the military against “enemies from within” and vowed to prosecute political opponents and expel Haitian refugees in Ohio who are legally in the country and whom he falsely accused of eating people’s pets.
Ignoring legal attempts to hold him to account
Trump’s willingness to wield unchecked executive power will not only be facilitated by his interpretation of the Supreme Court ruling on immunity. He has already subverted constraints on presidential authority. His two impeachments — over trying to coerce Ukraine with aid and the Capitol insurrection – didn’t rein in his impulses. And the Republicans’ refusal to convict him in the Senate showed the toothlessness of this crucial constitutional remedy when a political party has chosen to appease an extreme president in return for power.
In Trump’s first term, some Republicans sometimes hampered his agenda. The late Arizona Sen. John McCain, for instance, thwarted an attempt to overturn key provisions of the Affordable Care Act with his thumbs down vote. But Trump ally Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene warned Wednesday that dissent would not be tolerated from GOP members. “I will not let them and neither will the American people who have given us this amazing opportunity to save this country,” the Georgia Republican posted on X.
Related articleWhat happens to Trump’s criminal and civil cases now that he’s been reelected
Kinzinger scoffed at the idea that a GOP Congress would temper Trump. “On paper, it’s a real thing, in practice no,” the former Illinois lawmaker told CNN’s Dana Bash Wednesday. “There is no chance, 0.0% chance, that Donald Trump says something and Republicans in the House buck him anymore.”
Trump, by winning back the Oval Office, has also evaded the constraints of the law. So, in addition to having the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling in his back pocket, why would he be cowed by the possibility of future legal action against him?
Within hours of election night. Special counsel Jack Smith was already talking with the Justice Department about ending two federal prosecutions against Trump — over his efforts to subvert the 2020 election and his hoarding of classified documents — in line with Office of Legal Counsel curbs on prosecutions of sitting presidents. A state election meddling case in Georgia is now imperiled. And huge doubts also hang over the pending sentencing of Trump after a conviction in a hush money case in New York.