The New York Times, in a front-page story titled “Trump and Allies Seeking Vast Increase of His Power,” attempted to frighten voters who might support Donald Trump. To be clear, I support neither Trump or Biden in the 2024 election. But to believe Trump has the intellectual chops to restructure the country administratively, and to reassign the role of Congress, regardless of who is in charge of Capitol Hill is total hogwash.
This is another attempt by the media, the New York Times specifically, to influence the election with misinformation and crazy speculation. Some statements in the article are outrageous. They include the following:
- Trump and his allies are planning a sweeping expansion of presidential power over the machinery of government.
- They’re going to reshape the structure of the executive branch to concentrate far greater authority in the president’s hands.
- They’re going to end the post-Watergate norm of Justice Department independence from White House political control.
- They’re going to increase the president’s authority over every part of the federal government.
- The FCC and the FTC would be under direct presidential control.
- They will abscond funds that Congress has allocated to finance independent projects.
- They will strip employment protections from thousands of career civil servants, making it easier to replace them if they are deemed to be obstacles to Trump’s agenda.
- They will scour the intelligence agencies, the state department and defense bureaucracies to remove officials that the president has vilified as the sick political class that hates our country.
I’m not really commenting on the wisdom of restructuring critical parts of the government. The fact is that Trump could not even keep anyone working for him during his first term. Just about every important individual he recruited quit. Trump has no people or leadership skills.
The initiatives in this article are so far out of bounds I can’t believe the Times published the article. So many of the proposals by Trump’s people are flat out unconstitutional. Congress is not going to allow the president to interfere in its budgetary process. Only the veto would be available to the president. The justice system will never allow Trump to approve or inspire actions against his political opponents. The legislature and judicial branches of our government would go bonkers if any president attempted such a restructuring.
And finally, once again, Trump is not capable of intellectually doing so much harm to our government. We may as well start the impeachment process right now, except Republicans will vote with Democrats to throw the man out of office this time around.