The Presidency During the Trump Era and Beyond

This chapter explores the many ways in which Trump abused the powers of his office to create what it calls a Madisonian nightmare. Trump’s abuses of power included his efforts (1) to obstruct the special counsel’s investigation of Russia’s interference with the 2016 election; (2) to gain personal, political advantages from Ukraine and other countries while carrying out his official duties as president; (3) to obstruct the exercise of Congress’s impeachment and other investigatory powers; (4) to push the Department of Justice to investigate his political enemies and to protect his political allies from the enforcement of federal law; (5) to punish sanctuary jurisdictions for refusing to help implement the administration’s harsh immigration policies; and (6) to defy Congress by reallocating funds to pay for a border wall despite congressional disapproval of such action. These abuses of power show why it is crucial for progressives going forward to prioritize the reining in of presidential power in domestic affairs as a political issue, adding it to traditional liberal concerns such as economic justice and civil rights protections. The chapter ends with specific suggestions on how Congress and the courts can constitutionally limit the powers of the presidency in domestic affairs in ways that can help deter the types of repeated and dangerous presidential abuses of power that the nation experienced during the Trump era.