The Imperial Presidency
I’ve Studied How Democracies Fail. Here’s My Unified Theory of Trump
There’s a through line that runs from tariffs to toppling a foreign leader. It’s all about expanding the power of the presidency.
With his barrage of executive orders and daily challenges to the judicial system feeding a nonstop White House news cycle, few people step back and wonder whether there’s a philosophy guiding President Donald Trump and his closest advisers. The bombastic pronouncements and sometimes entertaining missteps from senior officials and the president himself make it easy to assume there isn’t one.
Yet there is a theory of Trump, of sorts.