The Democratic Pendulum

Paul Rosenzweig: “In this first year of his second term, President Donald Trump has claimed broad powers to unilaterally restructure much of how the U.S. government functions. Some of these assertions have gone completely unchallenged. Others have been litigated, and although lower courts have been skeptical of many of these efforts, the Supreme Court has been more approving. Trump has taken as much advantage of his new powers as he plausibly can, prosecuting his political enemies, firing independent agency heads, and dismantling federal agencies almost at a whim.”

“One salient question now is: When and if the Democrats return to power, how much of Trump’s damage can they undo? Let’s assume, for the moment, that the Supreme Court acts in good faith—that its views on presidential power are without partisan favor, and that it doesn’t arbitrarily invent carve-outs to rein in a Democratic president. What then?”

“Even with such (unlikely) parameters, the outcomes of this thought experiment suggest few opportunities for a Democratic president to make positive use of these novel presidential powers.”