How Trump's Imperial Presidency Could Outlast Him

Personal qualities aside, the executive powers once expanded can be hard for his successors to resist.

- Ross Douthat

A limp caudillo. That was a phrase I once applied to Mr. Donald Trump's pretense to be a strongman in a first term that was actually characterized by the imperial presidency's retreat. Mr. Barack Obama and Mr. George W. Bush were far more successful at consolidating presidential power, and Trump 1.0 mostly demonstrated that an inexperienced, incompetent president could still be pinned down like Gulliver.

But there is nothing limp or constrained about Trump 2.0: It's an imperial presidency, full stop. We can debate how it compares with prior peaks of presidential Caesarism—Franklin Roosevelt still sets the standard—but the second term of Trumpism has exceeded its recent predecessors in powers claimed and exercised with minimal or ineffective opposition.

The only question now is whether the change is permanent, whether President Trump's successors (of either party) will consolidate these powers, or whether this version of the imperial presidency requires a Man of Destiny and will dissolve in the hands of a mere politician.

Categorizing the powers is helpful.