Julia Azari: “The key to understanding Trump’s expansion of presidential power – to use the Justice Department to investigate political opponents, to use the National Guard as a police force, to use ICE to detain and deport without due process – is the absence of countervailing political forces. This isn’t for lack of opposition. There’s plenty of that, and poll after poll shows that a lot of this is very unpopular. But the Republican Party has become a vehicle for Trumpism, and conservatives with reservations about what the administration is doing don’t have a lot of ways to work together…”
“Similarly, the Democratic Party has trouble figuring out how to craft national messages while managing a complicated national coalition…”
“In other words, we have a president doing lots of things that violate our traditions, our laws, and our Constitution. Some Americans like this and voted for this – but many oppose it, vocally so. But the capacity to actually do something about it is weakened because of a party system that’s both overly fragmented and very vulnerable to being dominated by individuals, especially presidents.”
