Trump’s Second-Term Ambitions Are Decades in the Making

[Social Media]

 

Trump’s Second-Term Ambitions Are Decades in the Making

 

While much attention has been paid to “Project 2025,” the sweeping conservative policy plan associated with Donald Trump’s second-term ambitions, the ideological blueprint for an aggressive executive branch dates back far earlier—to the Reagan-Bush era. A book of essays published in 1988, The Imperial Congress, by the Heritage Foundation and the Claremont Institute, anticipated much of the executive assertiveness that Trump has since embraced.

 

The volume reflected conservative frustration as Reagan’s presidency came to a close, arguing that Congress had become too dominant and the presidency dangerously weakened. Its authors envisioned a president who could reshape national perceptions through bold and immediate executive action. One essay imagined a president who, “in the first weeks of his administration,” would use “far-reaching executive orders” to convince Americans that “this president, for a change, looks out for them.” The president might even order the “immediate expulsion of dangerous aliens” on national security grounds—a vision uncannily echoed in Trump-era rhetoric and actions.

 

This wasn’t written about Trump, but rather George H.W. Bush. Yet it laid a theoretical foundation for a presidential style now reaching its apex under Trump. At the time, Republicans had held the White House for 16 of the prior 20 years and were about to continue their streak. But they faced a formidable obstacle: a Democratic-controlled House of Representatives, which had not flipped since the 1950s. Conservatives feared their presidential victories were being nullified by a stubborn Congress. Newt Gingrich, then on the rise and the author of the book’s foreword, would lead the eventual Republican takeover in 1994. But back in 1988, thinkers like Gordon S. Jones, the editor of The Imperial Congress, believed the answer was a stronger executive. “To wield the weapon of a reinvigorated executive,” he wrote, was essential.

 

The book’s prescriptions were radical for their time. It called for the president to exert control over independent agencies by firing all commissioners, to “ignore, or challenge directly” congressional micromanagement, and to resist Senate influence on appointments. One essay advocated repealing the two-term limit for presidents. Another suggested presidents fight publicly with the judiciary and vigorously defend executive privilege—even in defiance of Supreme Court rulings. Political scientist Thomas G. West questioned why the media should have special access to the White House, while the book urged the creation of “new centers of authority and information” under the president’s control.

 

The logic was echoed again in The Fettered Presidency, a 1989 American Enterprise Institute publication. Its editors, L. Gordon Crovitz and Jeremy A. Rabkin, insisted presidential powers must be used “with greater vigor and resolve.” At the time, the view was that a domineering Democratic Congress constrained Republican presidents. But today’s political landscape is different. Republicans have controlled the House for much of the 21st century and have appointed a majority of the Supreme Court justices. Nevertheless, the Trump administration has carried forward the old vision with unmatched intensity.

 

Rabkin himself, now at George Mason University, recently noted that “a Republican majority in Congress does not want to challenge a Republican president and it has such slim margins that it can’t dare anything controversial (as trying to restrain Trump would be).” Thus, Trump’s expanded executive power is not a response to hostile opposition, but rather a product of its weakness.

 

The original architects of this philosophy knew their arguments could blur into partisanship. As The Fettered Presidency acknowledged, “Republican complaints about an overbearing Congress might be interpreted as the cries of one set of partisans against the institutional leverage of their partisan opponents.” Yet those opponents have largely lost that leverage. Presidents have grown more assertive, and their congressional allies more compliant. Trump’s presidency is the culmination of that evolution.

 

Gordon S. Jones, writing decades ago, pointed to moments in history when presidents pushed beyond their legal limits—Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase, Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus, Roosevelt’s pre-war military aid—and argued their boldness was vindicated by popular support. “Their power to do any of these things was suspect,” he wrote, “but their actions were supported by substantial majorities of the citizens, and the actions stood.”

 

Some of Trump’s actions will likely stand too. But the landscape has changed. Presidential power is no longer a proxy for Republican dominance, and conservatives may soon find those powers wielded against them. That risk, ironically, is baked into the very presidentialism they once championed—to act decisively, before your rivals can do the same.

 

  Adapted by ASEAN Now from Washington Post  2025-05-14

 

 

[Thingamabob]

In other words any President can get away with stretching the rules if he or she was voted in with a substantial majority. 

[AgMech Cowboy]

16 hours ago, Social Media said:

Some of Trump’s actions will likely stand too. But the landscape has changed. Presidential power is no longer a proxy for Republican dominance, and conservatives may soon find those powers wielded against them.

 

9 hours ago, Thingamabob said:

In other words any President can get away with stretching the rules if he or she was voted in with a substantial majority. 

I don't agree with your conclusion and I don't think this is what the article was implying.