Trump’s the president, not the king
The most powerful man in the world is not as powerful as he thought he was.
U.S. President Donald Trump may command the most powerful military on earth, convene or dismiss Congress at will, veto legislation and grant pardons as his mood moves him.
But he and his radical — arguably ridiculous — agenda are increasingly being restrained and even stopped by forces beyond his control.
It’s not some clandestine security operatives or foreign autocrat keeping Trump in line, either.
It’s the American Constitution and the other branches of government checking his authority as that foundational document intended them to do when it was written with quill pens more than 200 years ago.
The wisdom of this system of government was on full display last week when Trump’s highly touted election promise to “repeal and replace” Obamacare was shot down in flames by Congress.
This was, of course, the same Congress controlled by the president’s fellow Republicans.
Trump had pledged to overhaul the health care reforms of his predecessor, Barack Obama, while keeping the best parts of Obama’s Affordable Care Act.
Considering that Trump’s legislation, crafted by House of Representative’s speaker Paul Ryan, would have deleted millions of American names from the health-care rolls, it looked like a tangled knot of bad ideas. Surprise, Mr. President. Congress agreed. The most right-wing Republicans rejected Trump’s initiative because they believed it didn’t do enough to scrap Obamacare. Many of the most moderate Republicans said no to it, too, because they’d heard from constituents worried about losing health care coverage.
As a result, Trump’s first piece of legislation dealing with an issue at the top of his agenda was pulled back. Today, Obamacare remains in full force.
This is more than a minor set-back for Trump. It is a humiliating, political defeat.
It exposes him as a rank amateur in executive politics, a presidential poseur who can’t co-ordinate his own plans with his own party.
But the episode should also provide a modicum of reassurance to the millions of people in America and around the world who fear what this wrecking ball of a man might do.
As president, Trump heads the executive branch of the American federal government.
But on most matters, especially in domestic affairs, he needs support from the federal government’s legislative branch in Congress, which consists of the Senate and House of Representatives.
In addition to this, the courts provide further restraints on Trump if he tramples existing laws.
The courts have not shied away from doing this. In the first two months of Trump’s presidency, they have repeatedly halted his clumsy attempts to introduce misguided, prejudiced changes to the country’s immigration and visa system.
Meanwhile, if Trump doesn’t behave himself, disaffected American voters could give the Democrats control of Congress after the mid-term elections in 2018. Checkmate.
The authors of the U.S. Constitution had fought a revolution against a monarch.
That’s why they created a republic led by a president, not a king. Trump has now received an overdue history lesson.