[Spoiler alert: The photograph by Doug Mills of the New York Times captures President Donald Trump, flanked, a few steps behind, by the Attorney General of the United States and the Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, making a triumphant walk into Lafayette Park. No other man in the country could have led this walk. No one else holds such a powerful position. Nonetheless, after trying to establish that Trump is a strong president, I conclude that this is not the case.]
In the United States we like to “rate” a President. We measure him as “weak” or “strong” and call what we are measuring his “leadership.” We do not wait until a man is dead; we rate him from the moment he takes office. We are quite right to do so. His office has become a focal point of politics and policy in our political system. – Richard Neustadt, Presidential Power, p. 3.
A number of political scientists and commentators, adhering to the Neustadt model of presidential power, have contended throughout his term that Donald Trump is a weak president. I made the case for this view in a previous post. In this post, I will argue that this conclusion leaves out a singular presidential power (unobserved by Neustadt) that greatly enhances Trump’s political influence. This must be factored into the equation in assessing Trump’s leadership. Yes, the man displays a profusion of weaknesses (reviewed in my original post), but in assessing his relative power as president, attention must be paid to an unprecedented strength that stems from Trump’s domination of the Republican Party.
This domination has guaranteed Trump a measure of immunity from consequences that no president before him enjoyed. A Republican Party united in the refusal to buck its leader renders all criticism of Trump partisan, which transforms the narrative in the mainstream media into tiresome politics-as-usual bickering between the parties. Republican unity, in the face of off-the-rails leadership, is a huge asset, resulting in unprecedented presidential immunity from substantive objections or pushback from his party.
To set up my argument, I’ll begin with observations made last week on June 7 by George Will (interviewed after publication of his op-ed, “Trump must be removed. So must his congressional enablers.”). From the interview:
Twenty-sixteen: people faced with two candidates they didn’t like, opted for the one they knew least and that was Mr. Trump. Three and a quarter years later the fact is that 90-percent of the Republican Party approves of his conduct. Ninety percent. The Republican Party has never been so united in the 20th century – not really since it was founded in 1854.
It was divided between the Teddy Roosevelt and the Taft Republicans in 1912, between the Dewey and Taft Republicans in the 1940s, between the Goldwater and Rockefeller Republicans in the 1960s. Today it is a united party and united behind someone unfit to lead. That is a sobering thought.
Chuck Todd: … How do we fix this? … Is it a new party, new conservative party?
No, what you do is, is you give, as a disobedient child, is you give them a time-out. You give them time to reflect on the cost of suspending their judgment, and suspending their principles and convictions, and turning themselves into a cult of personality. Which is why I think a very thorough rejection of the party, top to bottom, in the elections, will cause them to pause and think: Is it worth it? What am I gaining from this acquiescence? In a man that no one, that – no Congressional Republican to speak of has any affection for the President. This is all fear. Fear grounded in the 90-percent. [Link at MSNBC: Sorry, video is no longer available.]
The takeaway: Trump’s base – party activists, FNC viewers, talk radio listeners, devotees of rightwing websites and social media, and folks still chaffing at Obama’s election – will turn out in Republican primaries to punish office holders and candidates who have gotten on Trump’s bad side. It is hardly an exaggeration to refer to this, as Will does, as a cult of personality.
It had been uncommon, before Trump, for a president to go after a Senate or House member of his own party. Trump is ready, willing, and able to follow through with this threat, which can bring an abrupt end to a political career.
Politicians with an instinct for survival are quick learners. They watched the takedown of Mark Sanford, a member of the House Freedom Caucus, whose conservative credentials were solid, but who was a sometime Trump critic. He lost his primary when Trump turned on him. Another solid conservative, who decided not to seek reelection as a Senator after straying from the Trump fold, commented on the Sanford takedown:
“This is Trump’s party,” said Republican Sen. Jeff Flake, a fierce critic of the President who decided not to run for re-election in Arizona. “We’ve all felt it. It was reiterated last night. If you want to win a Republican primary, you can’t deviate much from the script. It’s the President’s script. You can’t criticize policy or behavior.”
The resulting fear throughout the GOP caucuses of both houses ensures that contradicting Trump on anything that he cares about (which is always about him) is exceedingly rare. Trump speaks or tweets. And caucus members reinforce his message, comment evasively, or stand silent. The possibility of a bipartisan critique of presidential misbehavior vanishes. Republican Party unity means not giving an inch and being always “willing to engage in overlooking the truth, overlooking the facts.” Any rebuke or criticism of Trump is reported as just more squabbling between the parties because Republicans won’t criticize their leader. They’re with him come what may.
That’s powerful. That’s a presidential strength that would have prompted Richard Neustadt to add an additional chapter to his book, had he witnessed the phenomenon.
Democrats have noticed Congressional Republicans’ submission to Trump. Sherrod Brown wrote after the Senate impeachment trial (“In Private, Republicans Admit They Acquitted Trump Out of Fear”):
In private, many of my colleagues agree that the president is reckless and unfit. They admit his lies. And they acknowledge what he did was wrong. They know this president has done things Richard Nixon never did. And they know that more damning evidence is likely to come out.
But:
They are afraid that Mr. Trump might give them a nickname like “Low Energy Jeb” and “Lyin’ Ted,” or that he might tweet about their disloyalty. Or — worst of all — that he might come to their state to campaign against them in the Republican primary. They worry:
“Will the hosts on Fox attack me?”
“Will the mouthpieces on talk radio go after me?”
“Will the Twitter trolls turn their followers against me?”
Republicans gave Donald Trump a pass on impeachment. Before that they gave him a pass on the abuses documented in the Mueller Report. Before that they gave him a pass on undermining the nation’s intelligence agencies, sabotaging international alliances that keep the peace, and wrecking relations with democratic governments across the globe. Republicans have given Trump a pass on moving millions of dollars from the U.S. Treasury to Trump family businesses. The list goes on: the hollowing out of the State Department, the purging of career professionals across the executive branch, and serial firings of inspectors general.
What has happened in the Department of Justice is especially egregious. Bill Barr has sought – with considerable success – to undo criminal prosecutions brought by Mueller’s team against Trump cronies and grifters, while weaponizing the justice department to go after Trump’s political enemies (from Senator Richard Burr to Joe Biden, the President’s 2020 opponent, as well as numerous career officials in place during the previous administration).
Checks and balances are anachronistic
In another era, Congress would have had an active role in uncovering and remedying much of the corruption and malfeasance in evidence. Not so long ago, the effort (in at least some instances) would have been bipartisan. No longer. The White House has stonewalled Congressional investigators in wholesale fashion and asserted broad executive privilege in court. It refused absolutely to cooperate with the House impeachment investigation – no documents, no witnesses:
Trump has succeeded in neutering Congressional oversight (and with the firings of inspectors general, oversight within the executive branch) and in shrugging off checks on the White House to a degree unthinkable four years ago. And at every step, Congressional Republicans have gone along with whatever Trump has brought their way. The Republican Senate has gone further.
Trump directs the reality show
In another era, a conspiracy theory with a catchy name, but otherwise devoid of facts, evidence, or even a coherent theory of the case, wouldn’t receive much attention. Trump, who has cited “Obamagate” dozens of times, signals to Republicans to get on board with the charade:
On May 16 Trump, retweeting a complaint that McConnell has done nothing about “the Russian collulsion hoax,” sent a tweet directing McConnell to “Get tough and act quickly, or it will be too late.”
Three days later, McConnell gave “a full-throated endorsement of an aggressive Senate Republican investigation of the counterintelligence probe into whether the then-candidate and his campaign colluded with the Russians in 2016.” The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, chaired by Ron Johnson, and Lindsey Graham’s Judiciary Committee, have both opened investigations.
The President dominates his political party in a way that no previous president has done, and that no one would have expected of any presidential nominee of either party before Trump. Justin Amash has suggested that Trump’s shamelessness “gives him this superpower that other people don’t have.” I regard Trump’s immunity from consequences to be vastly more significant. Personal immunity to feelings of shame in a president goes a long way, but not nearly as far as historically unparalleled party unity. This is shamelessness writ large – across a whole political party following its leader: “…suspending their judgment, and suspending their principles and convictions, and turning themselves into a cult of personality.”
Taking a step back
Donald Trump has been a remarkable (and I would venture, consequential) president. Trump and the Trump presidency have generated much debate, including the disagreement about whether or not Trump is a weak or a strong president. Let’s review:
● Donald Trump has an historically unique set of strengths: 90% approval from Republican voters and the willingness – and ability – to punish Republicans (who dare venture criticism of the President) in primary elections. This has served to instill fear among Republicans in the House and the Senate, silencing dissent or criticism, and giving Trump immunity from bipartisan resistance to foolish, reckless actions. I regard this – especially within the context of the conventions of mainstream journalism – to be highly consequential.
● This could have only happened with a Republican president. Reflect on a single off-the-rails incident, the Helsinki summit conference, and consider a counterfactual. What political repercussions would have ensued, had Barack Obama sided with Vladimir Putin and against the U.S. Director of National Intelligence? This almost certainly would have split the Democratic Party in two. Many Democrats, concerned with national security and aware of Putin’s hostility to democracy, would have been unwilling to rally round the president.
Now consider that Helsinki was not a single off-the-rails incident. We’ve had many such incidents. And Trump’s conduct has become more deviant over time. Nonetheless, the GOP “has never been so united.”
● But this phenomenon is not just a function of the distinct character of the Republican Party in the highly polarized era of the Tea Party and Fox News Channel. Trump’s weaknesses – impulsive angry tweets, narcissistic sensitivity to criticism, and indiscriminate vindictiveness – have solidified his hold on the Republican Party. Trump’s unbridled lack of restraint has served to build that fear among Republicans and fortify maximal party unity.
Trump’s irrational, impulsive, narcissistic behavior has – in this regard – worked for him. None of Trump’s 2016 competitors for the party’s nomination could have expected to be as feared as Trump, or to have silenced criticism so effectively, since none of them would be at all likely to behave in ways that Trump by all appearances is compelled to do.
● Jonathan Bernstein and Matt Glassman, two prominent and consistent adherents of the Neustadt thesis, have argued that (apart from the tax bill) Trump has no legislative accomplishments. Republicans in Congress, in their view, aren’t afraid to buck Trump about issues where they disagree with the President. Glassman writes, “… GOP legislative power mostly lies in Congress right now. Republican leaders have almost completely ignored the policy priorities of President Trump.” Far from being dominated by Trump, on this view, Congressional Republicans control the agenda.
My reply: Yes, but only on issues that are of negligible concern to Trump. What matters to Trump are perceived slights, petty resentments, and personal payback. Seeing Mark Sanford go down matters. Trump has a short attention span and a meager interest in public policy. (Glassman makes this point as well.) The policy prescriptions Trump mentions – whether a payroll tax cut or an infrastructure bill or anything else – are idle chatter. Mitch McConnell and other Republicans understand this. Thus, they can control the (insignificant) legislative agenda (at least in the Senate).
As Bernstein has explained (“The Post-Policy Republicans Seized Control Long Ago”), Republicans have no interest in governing. Powerful people in the Republican Party – from the crew at FNC, to Rush Limbaugh et al. on talk radio, to the House Freedom Caucus – are focused on fanning the flames of resentment among the base, and decapitating leaders who aren’t on board with that, not on creating a governing agenda.
In Bernstein’s words (regarding GOP fears that the party’s angry base could wreak havoc on Republicans’ electoral prospects): “The hallmark of all this dysfunction is a political party that is rarely interested in, and increasingly unable, to articulate and enact public policy — a post-policy Republican Party.” (That’s why, for instance, after campaigning in 2010, 2012, 2014, and 2016 on the promise to repeal and replace Obamacare, Republicans never bothered to craft a replacement.) Trump’s indifference to legislation matches his party’s.
● Furthermore, Trump gets his way even when he loses legislatively. Consider the wall, perhaps Trump’s premier campaign issue in 2016. I’ll grant that a ‘stronger’ president could have found a way to get Congress to fund it. It would have required negotiating with Democrats and a willingness to accept a legislative compromise. This was beyond Trump’s capacity.
But then what happened? Trump defied Congress and carried the day. In February 2019, Trump declared a national emergency and moved billions of dollars of military funding to construction of the wall. In July 2019, the five Republican men on the Supreme Court backed him up. In January 2020, Trump moved billions more – for a total of $18.4 billion – toward construction of his wall.
Trump won on his own terms. It was an ugly, drawn-out spectacle, but that might have won him points with his base. This president got what he wanted. Congressional Republicans acquiesced, rather than offering principled objections, jealously safeguarding Congressional prerogatives (contrary to the expectations of the Founders) or opposing presidential overreach.
● Legislation aside, both Glassman and Bernstein insist that Senate Republicans, not Trump have the upper hand. Glassman has argued, “Senate Republicans—if they cared—could *still* demand Trump clean house in WH, install a real CoS, and start running administration in a modestly non-corrupt manner. Yes, they have a collection action problem and face some individual risk, but they have plenty of leverage, too.” Bernstein has argued:
At one point, Trump echoed civil-rights era reactionaries by threatening “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” only to back down when Republicans urged him to. That is, even when all Trump has is words, he’s easily rolled by his own allies. (They’re not willing to remove him from office, partly because they know how easy he is to defeat any time they want to.)
I disagree with both judgments. I believe that Trump is leading the Republican Party and McConnell (and other Republicans) are trailing in his wake. At this stage, it is fantasy to think that a significant handful of Senate Republicans would “demand that Trump clean house.” Not in the real world with 90% of the base backing him. And not the least because no rational Senator has reason to suppose that anything Senators could ‘demand’ could possibly put Trump’s White House on track. When Generals Kelly and Mattis and other ‘adults in the room’ surrounded Trump, things were less erratic. But no one, at this stage, is going to make Trump go back to those days. The men surrounding Trump now would push back as fiercely as Trump himself.
And, while I agree that we can make a case in some contexts that Trump “is easily rolled by his own allies,” it is only in some contexts. In this case, Trump has seen (what he has regarded as) his ticket to reelection (the good economy and rising stock market) disappear and has seen Biden leading in virtually every poll in the past year, with his lead increasing as we approach the election. Trump, who has a small bag of tricks, is in desperate straits. He is willing to listen occasionally, though not consistently. He will be beating the law and order drum – with demands for domination and violence on city streets again and again between now and November. His allies have won a news cycle at most. Trump is in charge. He dominates a Republican Party that might be better off without him, but the best evidence of the past three years is that Republicans can’t slip out of his grip.
So, is Trump a strong president?
No, he’s not. Here’s why: While Trump has unprecedented control of his party, and benefits from the consequences of that control, a solitary asset isn’t enough of a counterweight to Trump’s many glaring weaknesses. Trump is a poor strategist, a poor negotiator, and a poor manager. He is so obsessed with himself that he is compelled to do and say things every day that aren’t in the least helpful to a president. Wishful thinking, not planning, is the order of the day. Trump’s absolute failure to take command of the federal government to defeat the coronavirus is a case in point; instead he has imagined it magically going away. And, as the public health disaster continues to unfold, his hope for an economic rebound in the midst of the pandemic, is risible. He doesn’t have a plan. Not for the virus, not for the economy.
Not a day goes by when Trump’s weaknesses are not on full display. Steve Schmidt, speaking colloquially, rather than as a scholar, has said, “this is a moment of unparalleled national humiliation. Of weakness. When you listen to the President, these are the musings of an imbecile, an idiot.” The evidence for this view – whatever nouns and adjectives we choose – is overwhelming.
While Neustadt was in no position to evaluate Trump’s unique strength, we are. And the balance still tilts toward weak.
Dan Drezner has written, “If Neustadt is correct in his view that the chief power of the presidency is the ability to persuade, then Donald Trump has been a weak, ineffectual president.” Then, after reviewing the extensive damage Trump has done in three years, Drezner offers an assessment with reference to the Imperial Presidency. Drezner writes that
constraints on the presidency have been severely eroded in recent decades, enabling even a comparatively weak leader to be a powerful president. Trump assumed the office at the zenith of its power, and his willingness to flout norms has empowered the office even further. For half a century, Trump’s predecessors have expanded the powers of the presidency at the expense of countervailing institutions. Trump himself has attempted massive executive branch power grabs, but the underlying trends eroding formal and informal constraints on the president long predate his inauguration. They make the existence of a president with Trump’s peculiar psychology far more worrisome now than it would have been even amid the heightened tensions of the Cold War. Crudely put, Trump is a weak man who occupies a powerful office, and the power of the office demands that greater attention be paid to Trump’s unique psychology.
This matches Nancy Pelosi’s critique of the President. She takes for granted the power of the office and the capacity of a president to lead the nation, but regards Donald Trump as a weak man. In an April 14 press release, the Speaker takes Trump to task for his “incompetent reaction” to the pandemic: he dismantled the infrastructure to overcome a pandemic, ignored warnings, dithered instead of acting to prevent the death and disaster that ensued, failed to provide for testing, masks and PPE, and told his followers that the pandemic was a hoax that would magically disappear. Describing Trump’s flight from responsibility, she says: “a weak person, a poor leader, takes no responsibility. A weak person blames others.”
No walk through the park — no matter that only he can lead it — can change the fact that a weak man occupies the Oval Office.
[Post revised for clarity.]