Jan.22

electoral-vote.com

Dem 47

   

GOP 53

Will a Future Democratic President Try to Turn the Clock Back?

Let's look at the last three presidential elections:

There seems to be a pattern here: The people are unhappy these days, and are always in a mood to throw the bums out. Could it happen again? If Donald Trump's sinking approval hits what Sarah Longwell calls the Bushline (32% approval), it is more likely than not, even though Trump himself will not be a candidate. What would a Democratic president want to do and what could he (or, less likely, she) pull off?

A key question—and probably a big issue in the primaries—is how much time and effort should be spent trying to root out Trumpism? One school of thought is that every vestige of Trumpism must be aggressively wiped off the face of the earth. Some of those are easy. On Day 1, The Army Corps of Engineers could take a wrecking ball to the big room where Trump's balls were located, selling the gold to some company that refines metals. Ditto the soon-to-be-constructed Arc de Trump near Arlington National Cemetery. ICE could be broken up and useful pieces (if there are any) divided among other departments. There are numerous other symbols that could be destroyed quickly. The president's first XO could read: "All XOs signed between Jan. 20, 2025, at noon and Jan. 20, 2029, at noon are hereby repealed."

Also in this vein is a major push to get Congress to change the laws so there can never be a Trump II. For example, all emergency powers would last only a week unless both chambers of Congress renewed them. Laws about economic emergencies could be repealed (economics is not an area given to emergencies). Similarly, laws about the president federalizing the National Guard against the wishes of the governor could be tightened. The Posse Comitatus Act could be strengthened in various ways to prevent misuse of the Armed Forces on a presidential whim.

Also in this bucket is reining in the Supreme Court, something we have discussed before at length. There is a long list. The goal would be to turn the clock back to a time when the president's job was to see that the laws passed by Congress were executed.

But another school of thought is that the new president might just be able to put all the new presidential powers to good use. For example, unions have always favored protectionism and the new president might want to use his newly acquired tariff power surgically to protect key industries, rather than using it to bend other countries to his will. For example, he could put a high tariff on Chinese electric cars and batteries to protect those domestic industries.

FBI directors serve (by law) for 10 years and can only be fired for cause. Will a Democratic president say: "Gee, I think Kash Patel is completely incompetent but my hands are tied so I can't fire him"? Or will he send Patel an e-mail on Day 1 with "Subject: You are hereby fired"? That goes for a large number of other agency heads who are supposed to serve fixed terms.

The next president could also announce that his lawyers have determined that the Second Amendment applies only to the smooth-bore, muzzle-loading muskets available in 1791 and nothing invented after that and send ICE door to door to confiscate guns other than pre-1792 muskets. After all, ICE is the president's personal goon squad.

Trump got tech titans to dance to his music. A new president could change the tune but still demand that the titans dance to it, lest they lose government contracts or be punished in other ways. Might the new president announce he was planning to nationalize SpaceX and merge it into NASA, but if Elon Musk cleaned up eX-Twitter, he might be willing to reconsider? Mark Zuckerberg might well be willing to hire thousands of fact checkers to aggressively vet postings for lies and hate if the president told him he wanted to repeal Sec. 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (which would leave Meta open to being sued for libelous content posted by users). The list is long and Trump (well, really the Project 2025 folks) provided a playbook for how to maximize the pressure.

The danger here is that everyone becomes accustomed to living in an authoritarian state, where the only difference between a Democratic president and a Republican president is who gets targeted. The people's constitutional rights then hinge on presidential whims. If future potential candidates for FBI director know they can be fired anytime the president doesn't like what they are doing, will they ever dare to investigate a corrupt cabinet official knowing that means also finding a new job?

However, there is also a third possibility. A Democratic president could say: "The past is past. I don't want to try to repeal it. I want to go forward and lower the price of eggs and houses." He could just ignore the 2025-2028 period and focus on carrying out his own program.

This question is unavoidable and is likely to come up in both the Democratic and Republican primaries in 2028. (V)