Boston Herald

Like Obama, Trump takes to imperial presidency

- By LINDA CHAVEZ Linda Chavez is the author of “An Unlikely Conservati­ve: The Transforma­tion of an Ex-Liberal.”

For eight years, conservati­ves — rightly, in my view — railed against the imperial presidency of Barack Obama. When he couldn’t get what he wanted through the ordered and deliberati­ve legislativ­e process, he used other means, issuing regulation­s and executive orders that accomplish­ed his goals without having to convince the people’s elected representa­tives of their wisdom. Even Obama’s signature legislativ­e accomplish­ment, the Affordable Care Act, became law without a single Republican vote.

The deep polarizati­on that resulted from President Obama’s ham-fisted approach helped lay the groundwork for the election of Donald Trump. But in his first two weeks in office, President Trump has shown no signs of throwing off the imperial mantle of his predecesso­r. Instead, he’s ignoring even members of his own Cabinet, not to mention Congress, to draft orders and directives that will dramatical­ly alter not just policy but, in the case of proposed immigratio­n changes, the very compositio­n of the American population. In doing so, he jeopardize­s one of the most important features of American democracy, stability.

The transfer of power between administra­tions of differing political parties always signals change, but the scope and tempo of change have traditiona­lly been moderated by procedural safeguards. Presidents appoint Cabinet and sub-Cabinet officials but must secure the advice and consent of the Senate in doing so. The leadership of department­s and agencies changes at the top, but the work is carried out by career staff members who remain from one administra­tion to another. An administra­tion may want to abandon existing programs and start new ones, but it must go to Congress for the authority and appropriat­ions to do so.

When voters elect a new president, they may well be voting for change, but that change doesn’t happen overnight, nor should it. No matter how frustratin­g it might seem to have to wait and go through the slow process of working through Congress — and sometimes having to make compromise­s — that process protects us. We don’t lurch from one extreme to another. Rather, we work through our difference­s. The Obama administra­tion ignored this example to its detriment and ushered in an era of confrontat­ion that saw the Congress change political hands in large part to exercise a check on executive power.

In his first two weeks in office, President Trump has seemed intent on ignoring the lessons of the Obama overreach, choosing instead to follow Obama’s example. Trump is rewriting foreign policy, insulting allies in the process. As The Wall Street Journal noted in an editorial last week, Trump is treating Mexico as Obama treated Israel. A putative transcript of Trump’s telephone conversati­on with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto this week quotes Trump talking about “bad hombres” and threatenin­g to send in the U.S. military to deal with them because Mexico’s military is weak. The Mexican president’s office, unsurprisi­ngly, has denied that Trump made the threat, which would precipitat­e a crisis in Mexico if proved true, but the White House has remained uncharacte­ristically mum.

No one, however, is denying that Trump insulted Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in his abbreviate­d — one might call it Trumpcated — call with the leader of one of the United States’ most stalwart allies. Before that, there was Trump’s decision to issue an executive order — one that temporaril­y bars immigrants from seven majority-Muslim nations and indefinite­ly bans the entry of Syrian refugees — on the very day he met with British Prime Minister Theresa May, without giving her the diplomatic courtesy of a heads-up.

Those decisions will make everything that follows more difficult. There is no question that immigratio­n policy requires an overhaul, but the way to do it is not by issuing ill-conceived and highly divisive orders from the Oval Office. Leaks of more orders to come suggest that President Trump will begin to shut the door for high-skilled immigrants, roll back legal immigratio­n and deport millions of unauthoriz­ed and even legal immigrants whom this administra­tion finds undesirabl­e. Such drastic measures require debate and deliberati­on — and none of it is occurring in the echo chambers of Trump’s White House.

If the president keeps on this track, he should not be surprised that he will meet fierce resistance. Right now, that resistance is manifestin­g itself in the streets and among Democrats in Congress. But if Trump continues to try to bully his way to policy changes, eventually members of his own party will begin to apply the brakes. And if they don’t, the American people will do so in the next election.

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