Donald Trump’s rhetoric regarding issues such as building — and getting Mexico to pay for — a border wall, or imposing a ban on Muslims entering the US stands out “because his promises are rarely accompanied by details on how he might implement his initiatives,” writes Marc Fisher in The Washington Post, noting that scholars of the presidency say presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and those before them have added so many powers that “a President Trump could fulfill many of his promises legally — and virtually unchecked by a Congress that has proven incapable of mustering much pushback for decades.”
“The presidential toolbox of unilateralism is quite deep,” says Andrew Rudalevige, Bowdoin’s Thomas Brackett Reed Professor of Government, who shares his insight in the piece.
“But you can’t have an imperial presidency without an invisible Congress that is willing to take a back seat because it doesn’t want to be blamed for a war or some other unpopular policy.”
Read about the scenario Rudalevige says could lead to a “constitutional crisis” in the Washington Post article, “Donald Trump and the expanding power of the presidency.”
