Trump’s ‘imperial presidency’ looms as he completes takeover of Republican party

MILWAUKEE:

Five days after the assassination he got away, Donald Trump will accept his presidential nomination Thursday before an adoring crowd of supporters, the final act in turning the Republican Party into the party of Trump.

His brush with death fueled growing quasi-religious fervor among the party faithful, elevating him from a political leader to a man they believe is protected by God.

“Trump, Trump, Trump” attendees roared at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee as he appeared each night this week, his right ear taped, to listen to speaker after speaker revere him and address the hand of God for his survival. to be the killer’s bullet.

Republicans are rallying behind him this week. With most dissent stifled and his grip on the party never tighter, Trump will be in a much stronger position than in his 2017-2021 term to continue his agenda if he wins. November 5 election.

Unfettered by the internal divisions that sometimes hampered him in his first term, Trump would be freer to pursue tough policies that include mass deportations as part of a crackdown on illegal immigration, aggressive trade policies and firing government officials deemed insufficiently loyal.

“You need a strong leader at the top,” said Bill Dowd, a 79-year-old lumber business owner who was a guest of the Colorado delegation in Milwaukee.

“I’m a very, very big fan of Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan threw the party, too,” Dowd said.

Dowd acknowledged that some of his Republican friends feared that Trump might try to abuse his power. He said while he did not share that fear, he believed dissent should not be stifled in any party.

For Trump’s critics and political opponents, this is a dark and troubling moment: they see the modern Republican Party as a cult of personality, a base from which Trump could pursue extreme policies and create America’s first truly imperial presidency , threatening the future of its democratic rules.

“Donald Trump called for an end to the Constitution, promised to be a ‘dictator’ on ‘day one,’ and now Supreme Court justices say he can rule without any checks on his power,” said campaigner Ammar Moussa. representative of the establishment President Joe BidenTrump’s Democratic opponent.

“Trump is a liar, but we believe him when he says he will rule as a dictator,” Musa said.

Trump campaign spokesman Steven Chung said Democrats’ claims that Trump threatens American democracy and could become authoritarian if re-elected are “fearmongering” and “a blatant attempt to deceive the American people.”

In Milwaukee, nearly all 30 delegates, invited and elected Republicans interviewed by Reuters for this story acknowledged that their party had become the party of Trump, but rejected any suggestion that it had become a cult.

“I believe President Trump is a transformative figure, a man of destiny who God providentially saved from death on Saturday,” Louisiana Rep. Ed Tarpley said. “He has been given a special mission in our country. The providential hand of God has elevated Donald Trump to a different status.”

Respondents said they wanted a President Trump who was not constrained by bureaucracy or Congress from carrying out his agenda. He favored more extensive use of executive action—decisions made by a president that do not require approval by Congress.

They want nothing to stand in the way of his plans to deport millions of people in the country illegally and shrink the size of the federal bureaucracy. In his first term Trump often complained about “deep state” bureaucrats who he said were trying to thwart him.

“The president should be allowed to implement his policies without a bureaucracy that resists them and unelected officials who don’t agree with them,” Tarpley said.

But there are constitutional limits to what Trump can do through the power of his office, and any policies could face lawsuits.

Half of Republican respondents to Reuters/Ipsos poll this week they said they agreed with the statement that “the country is in crisis and needs a strong president who should be allowed to govern without undue interference from the courts and Congress.”

That was significantly higher than the 35% of Democrats and 33% of independents who agreed with the sentiment.

Only one conference attendee interviewed by Reuters, a senior Republican from a southern state, said he was worried about a second Trump administration. He said he feared Trump would become authoritarian, fill government agencies with yes and seek revenge on his political enemies.

Referring to Trump’s pledge to supporters that he would be their “opposite,” the Republican, who asked to remain anonymous, said: “This effort is going to be horrible.”

Trump was widely criticized for saying on the campaign trail that if he won, he would be a “dictator” — if only for a day, a comment he later said was a joke.

Democrats rebuked him for promising to pardon supporters jailed for the deadly January 6, 2021 riot at the US Capitol sparked by his refusal to accept defeat in the 2020 election.

Trump, who was convicted of hush money payments to former porn stars and faces charges related to his efforts to overturn Biden’s victory, has threatened to use the Justice Department to go after his opponents, including Biden.

Former Republican presidential candidate Asa Hutchinson said he was concerned about Trump’s lack of limits on a second term.

“The Department of Justice is probably the perfect example of that. Clearly, a President Trump would have a tight hand in directing the operations of the Department of Justice,” Hutchinson, a former governor of Arkansas, told Reuters.

The consequences of a second Trump term are deeply troubling for America and the world, said presidential historian Timothy Naftali, a former director of Richard Nixon’s presidential library who resigned in disgrace in 1974 after the Watergate scandal.

Naftali said a recent Supreme Court ruling granting a president sweeping immunity for most acts while in office, combined with a flexible Republican Party, means there are limited restrictions on Trump if he acts maliciously and takes advantage of the office for his own personal power and political retribution.

“He can blow up the Justice Department and go on a revenge tour that would make Nixon blush,” Naftali said.

To be sure, Trump would not be the first president to test the limits of executive power. Leaders, including former Democratic presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Barack Obama, have taken an expansive view of their power.

Even with the high court’s July 1 ruling on presidential immunity, Trump would seemingly still be bound by the U.S. Constitution’s separation of powers that reserves key functions to Congress and the judiciary.

Lara Trump, the co-chair of the Republican National Committee and Trump’s daughter-in-law, acknowledged this week that governing by executive action — which can be overturned in the courts or by a successor — was not ideal. That’s why it was vital for Republicans to keep the House in November and take the Senate from Democrats, he said, “so we don’t have to rely on executive action and we can actually see some lasting change.”