The most powerful president ever

Trump 2.0

Donald Trump is about to become the most powerful president in American history. By virtue of America’s being the most powerful country in world history, this pretty nearly makes him the most powerful person in history.

Trump’s unprecedented power reflects a constellation of developments, some longstanding and others recent, some institutional and some idiosyncratic with Trump.

The presidency as an office has been accruing power since George Washington held it. Thomas Jefferson made the president the leader of his party. Andrew Jackson made the president the tribune of the people. Abraham Lincoln suspended parts of the Constitution and ignored the Supreme Court and got away with it. Theodore Roosevelt fomented foreign revolution (in Panama) and pocketed a canal zone in the process. Woodrow Wilson made the president a world leader. Franklin Roosevelt made America the leading country of the world, a position consolidated when Ronald Reagan pushed the Soviet Union into an inescapable nosedive.

Congress collaborated in the aggrandizement of the executive, especially in the era since 1945. Congress had always deferred to the president during wartime, per the clause of Article II of the Constitution making the president commander in chief. But during the Cold War the deference became permanent. The president determined whether and when American military forces went to war. The clause in Article I reserving to Congress the authority to declare war was rendered a nullity. Congress transferred to the president its power to impose tariffs and otherwise regulate trade. Congress created a massive military and intelligence establishment and handed the controls to the president. Congress granted the president power to override immigration laws in cases of asserted emergency.

Any president inaugurated in 2025 would inherit this panoply of powers. But Trump adds elements peculiar to him. He is less constrained by party than any president before him. His hold on his base of Republican voters is such that time and again other party officials have been forced to bend to his will and kiss his ring. The Republican party of Eisenhower and Reagan has disappeared. In its place is the Trump party.

Trump has made himself essentially immune from impeachment as a method of removal from office. Conceivably if the Democrats have a House majority during his term they might try impeachment a third time. But having failed twice, and with the needed supermajority in the Senate beyond reach, they shouldn't waste the effort on a useless show.

The Supreme Court has immunized Trump against criminal prosecution for official acts and has defined such acts broadly. No previous president could be so confident of being above the law.

Trump has immunized himself against complaints of falsehood by trafficking in it so egregiously that no new instance raises an eyebrow. In the same way he is unbound by campaign promises or commitments to individuals or groups. He has devalued the truth, as it applies to him, so thoroughly that going back on his word costs him nothing.

He is unconstrained by historical expectations of what it means to act in a presidential way. He broke the mold in his first term by withholding his tax returns, by ignoring concerns about conflicts of interest, by failing to reach out to those who hadn't voted for him, and, most provocatively, by attempting to overturn the election of 2020.

What will Trump do with his great power? His critics warn that he will make himself a dictator.

This would be a stretch. He has no secret police, although he has said he will use the justice department against his enemies. He has spoken of employing the army against protesters and undocumented aliens.

Would he use the army to keep himself in power beyond the normal end of a second term? He might not need to. Lincoln considered postponing the 1864 election on grounds of the emergency of the Civil War. Trump could engineer an emergency and do what Lincoln rejected. If Trump’s second term never ends, the 22nd Amendment’s stricture on third terms might not be triggered.

If the courts ruled against him, he might mobilize the army in his defense. He will have had time by then to appoint officers sympathetic to his views and perhaps personally loyal to him. Before this recent election he said he never should have left office after the 2020 election. Unless he changes his mind, he might apply the same thinking to 2028.

Maybe no such thing will happen. Maybe Trump will use his unprecedented power for the nation’s interest. His supporters presumably think this will happen. Or at least that he will use his power in their interests.

But power is a loaded gun, capable of inflicting harm even inadvertently. “With great power comes great responsibility," Peter Parker is told by wise Uncle Ben in Spider-Man. Trump has his gifts, but a well-developed sense of responsibility hasn't been conspicuous among them. Trump wasn't the first president to have difficulty distinguishing the national interest from his own.

“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely," said Lord Acton. Trump's power, though great, will be far from absolute. Yet it will tend to corrupt all the same.