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How Trump’s imperial presidency could outlast him
Personal qualities aside, the executive powers once expanded can be hard for his successors to resist.
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US President Donald Trump is proving that the executive can do a lot of things before constitutional restraints catch up with him, says the writer.
PHOTO: AFP
Ross Douthat
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A limp caudillo. That was a phrase I once applied to Mr Donald Trump’s pretence to be a strongman in a first term that was actually characterised 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.
