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There are particular moments in our history where rules for certain events are unwritten and have helped so many presidents expand their powers, leading some to wonder precisely how wide-ranging presidential powers can be or become.
When Donald Trump was campaigning for president in 2016, he guaranteed to be a rule-breaking, normie-busting leader. During the Republican National Convention, he announced, “I alone can fix it.” More than two years post his presidency, many on the other side of the political isle remain laser-focused on the ways he had sought to expand presidential powers relative to the other branches and historical precedent. But the big difference with Trump is that although his approach was decidedly unconventional, Trump was distinctly different in that his desire and efforts to exercise greater control was over events and not people.
Did you catch that? Control over events and not people. This is why President Trump can successfully make his impact felt long after he has left office.
But as is always the case, various formal and informal checks, developed over time that have curbed some presidential efforts.
There has always been the suggestion that the shifting strength of presidential power over time is a response to the times themselves, the person in office, and public perceptions. The three most recent presidents have consistently learned from their predecessors and have used lessons from the past as blueprints to expand their personal capacity. By the way, this is not a compliment to these men but in the same right none of them could have possibly contemplated what would transpire with Donald Trump. A man dead set on expanding influence over events without expanding his personal capacity.
REAL CONTROL
In part 1 of this series, I ended it by saying ‘let’s not forget that we are talking about a guy that trademarked the phrase ‘Make America Great Again’ just a few days after Romney lost to Obama back in 2012. For all the talk of his bombastic and in-the-moment nature it can make us blinded to just how much Trump plays the long game. Historically, in a football game the teams that win championships perform best in the 4th quarter when the opponent is drained both mentally and physically. Getting to the 4th quarter can be one of the hardest achievements. But performing at the top of your game once you’re there is even harder.
Is this the 4th quarter? Not even close and you better be thanking your lucky stars. I’ll explain more later.
Long before presidents were using various levers to maximize their powers, the framers were creating the structures that would allow for but limit the options that were available to them. In addition to separating the government’s legislative, executive, and judicial branches, the framers imposed a range of other limitations as well. Some examples are, presidents had relatively short terms, had to get re-elected, and they could be impeached. But what the framers could not possibly have foreseen was the dramatic way that the world and the United States’ role in it would drastically change in the centuries to come. Those changes almost necessarily have led to presidents with more influence and control than the framers could have imagined.
It’s important to understand the difference in terms of impact between an Obama or Biden with a pen in their hand versus Donald Trump. It can be summarized in one word. Time. I have a 3-phrase combination I use often, as I believe it does a good job of summarizing the Trump framework of operation.
- 45 knows.
- 45 decides who knows.
- 45 decides who decides.
As the midterm elections approach all the chatter is about weather ‘they’re going steal this or that’. The various narrative battles rage over Durham and his role, mass arrests vs. plea bargains, varying views on COG (continuity of government), or whatever the case may be. But as I have said for the better part of a year the plan is in execution and has been for at least 6 full years now so this idea that Trump is ‘reacting’ to anything is a long distant thought. The collective enemy is the only one that has been reacting and continues to do so. Trump has done and continues to do his part. Our part is very simple, vote and do so with a smile because you should be.
Votes are important but not nearly as important as those that cast them. Pay close attention. This is a pretty amazing and largely untold end-to-end story.
ONE QUESTION
The Department of Commerce v. New York from 2019 was a case decided by the Supreme Court dealing with the 2020 United States Census. The case revolved around the decision of the United States Census Bureau under the Trump administration to include a question asking whether respondents are United States citizens or not on the standard census questionnaire sent to all households. Such a question had been purposely omitted from the “short form” as officials and sociologists widely fear it would reduce participation in the census. It has been used on the “long form” American Community Survey sent to a subset of households and used for statistical estimation.
The Supreme Court case was a culmination of three separate cases decided between September 2018 and March 2019. Additionally, many state and city officials have raised concerns that inclusion of the question would significantly depress response rates, which in turn would affect the quality of Census data. Due to the urgency of printing the Census forms, the government expedited the case to the Supreme Court. On June 27, 2019, the Court decided that the Enumeration clause allows for a citizenship question to be added. Victory, right? However, it also stated that such additions can be reviewed by courts noting that the administration’s explanation for adding the question “appears to have been contrived”. Unable to meet certain legal deadlines when the case was remanded to the District Court, the Trump administration announced it would issue an Executive Order to collect existing data from the Department of Commerce instead to tally immigration numbers. A final court order was issued in July 2019 barring the administration from adding the question to the 2020 Census or delaying the Census any further.
What in the heck was that all about?
- COURT: Yes, you can include the question…. kind of.
- COURT: Your explanation for doing so was bogus so we’ll make you slow walk it through the courts.
- TRUMP: Then I will write an executive order and we’ll figure this out one way or another.
- COURT: We take that back. No, you can’t include the question.
THERE IS ALWAYS A WAY
In steps long time Trump ally and focus subject #1 – Wilbur Ross
What Trump and Ross did with the 2020 census is a picture-perfect representation of the above ’45 knows’ framework. But how much do you want to bet this flew right past 95% of the population? Without reading the EO in its entirety here is a key excerpt which is in response to the Supreme Court forcing his administration to exclude the citizenship question:
Executive Order 13880 – July 11th, 2019
Collecting Information About Citizenship Status in Connection with the Decennial Census
To hear President Trump speak to the EO click on the link below.
VIDEO >>> PRESIDENT TRUMP SPEAKS TO EO 13880
Therefore, we are pursuing a new option to ensure a complete and timely count of the non-citizen population.
Trump went on to say he would use the most comprehensive databases available (Dept. of Homeland Security, Social Security Administration, etc.) and “leave no stone unturned”. He also said that because of the executive order the longstanding obstacles to data sharing are now removed and will allow for far more accuracy than “asking the single question alone”.
So, Trump dispatches and empowers Wilbur Ross to work with both federal and private entities to collect and assemble accurate citizenship data.
Neither the president nor his Secretary of Commerce were going to be deterred in their quest to make sure they were empowered to collect census data as outlined and mandated by Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution. But more specifically the goal was to determine who is and is not in this country legally.
But I want us to stop and think about it for a second. Does anyone really think that Trump did not see this fight coming long ago? He knew that once the citizenship question was taken out, the enemy would fight tooth and nail to make sure he was not able to include it again. So, he had a plan whether he won or lost the court battle because he knew the long-term importance of the moment. But you know what? I have every reason to think he never really wanted the question in there to begin with. Think about the brilliance of that approach. Would you tell someone you were here illegally? Of course not. Trump knew that would be the worst possible means to get to truth about who is and is not here legally. The citizenship question was never the story. Nor was the story that Trump and Ross would figure it out somehow. The real story was about the actual counting itself and that story did not kick in until well after data collection had started.
Rose Rambles... 