Trump would bypass Congress, Court in TikTok case

 

Gordon L. Weil

We have front-row seats for a major fight, perhaps the constitutional Fight of the Century.

Three contenders are in the ring, each a heavyweight.  They are the Congress, the Supreme Court and President-elect Trump, who just got involved.  The outcome could reveal which of them wields the greatest power.

Last April, Congress passed with overwhelming majorities, including all four Maine members, and President Biden signed a law ordering ByteDance, the owner of the social media giant TikTok, either to sell it or shut it down.  The new unconditional federal law gave ByteDance until January 19 to act.  The president is ultimately responsible for carrying it out

China has a record of stealing or accessing U.S. data.  This week, the Treasury Department reported a “major incident” of Chinese hacking.  China has been formally designated as an American adversary.

Congress, Biden and former president Trump have all expressed concern about the control of ByteDance by China of a company that has access to personal information of millions of Americans.  While he was president, Trump tried to shut it down, but was blocked by the courts.

But ByteDance understandably opposed the law, so it challenged it on the grounds that Congress had exceeded its authority under the Constitution.  Because the First Amendment is meant to prevent government interference with freedom of speech, it claimed that Congress had gone too far.

If ByteDance did not divest, the requirement to end the millions of communications that take place on TikTok would amount to federal control of speech.  The company also stated that it is owned by international shareholders, not the Chinese government.  But Congress had decided that China controlled it, and that decision is not the key issue.

The case went first to a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington.  All three found that Congress had not violated the Constitution, because it acted in the interest of national security.  The judges had been appointed by presidents Reagan, Obama and Trump, making it difficult to call its ruling partisan.  ByteDance appealed to the Supreme Court.

The Court is trying to act quickly on the appeal.  It must decide whether Congress exceeded its legal powers, but it will not decide if TikTok must close.  That is a judgment for ByteDance, which could resolve the matter by selling, though the law requires it to have a buyer lined up by January 19.

If the Court decides that Congress acted constitutionally, then ByteDance must quickly act.  If it finds that Congress exceeded its powers, ByteDance may continue to operate TikTok.

President-elect Trump’s lawyers recently requested that the Court delay its proceedings until after he takes office on January 20. They claim that Trump is uniquely qualified to negotiate a resolution of the issue of China’s control.  In effect, Congress and the Court should back off and turn the matter over to him. 

Trump’s last-minute move seems to ignore the fact that the law takes effect if not declared unconstitutional.  He might try to avoid that point by quickly deciding that China is not an adversary of the U.S., despite earlier findings by Biden, Congress and himself.

During the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump became quite popular on TikTok and told voters that he would not let it close down.  This may be the reason why he has changed his views on its threat to America security and the privacy of its users.

Trump has put the Supreme Court and most of the GOP members of both the House and Senate on the spot.  In effect, he has asserted that both his role as president and his superior powers of negotiation should displace the normal legislative and judicial operations of the federal government.  On January 19, Trump will not yet be president, so can he now make this claim?

When the Court decided that the president has almost unlimited powers, it might not have thought he would want the Court itself to defer to him.  Now, the Court is on trial and will reveal how it reacts to his pressure to step aside and let him settle the matter.  If it gives Trump what he seeks, it would surely have to be seen as a partisan, political body.

He would ignore a law backed by his own supporters, who responded to his opposition to China.  That’s possible, since he has explored ignoring another long-standing law that limits presidential spending powers.  His unusual Court filing is extravagant in its self-praise, making it appear that he deserves deference not usually given to presidents.

The conflict is about whether Congress acted constitutionally, if the Court should suspend acting  when asked by the president-elect, and if the election empowers the president to rule rather than to govern within a system of checks and balances.

All that makes for a big fight.

Shutdown crisis left big problems

 

Gordon L. Weil

This person has painful feet, which only get worse.  They have three ways to reduce their aching feet.

They could get a new pair of shoes, uncomfortable until broken in, but with a good fit afterwards.  Or they can hop on one foot, leaving only one foot in pain.  Or they can jump off a cliff and have no pain until they land, whenever that will happen.

The name of this person is America.  And the painful problem arises, not from shoes, but from the U.S. government always spending more money than it takes in.  Its hurtful budget habit is a symptom of a national illness that has infected the entire political system.  America’s government could get new shoes any day, but it doesn’t, because its paralyzed.

The annual deficit is about six percent of the entire value of the national economy.  Deficits in annual spending accumulate into the national debt that now equals the production of the entire economy.  Obviously, this cannot go on endlessly.

The new pair of shoes would take the form of a balanced budget, financed by debt to pay for long-term purchases and taxes, including increases when necessary, to pay for current operations.  Increasing taxes might be uncomfortable for a while, but it would reduce the pain before the debt kills the economy or cripples future generations.

Hopping on one foot happens when the government relies only on debt, while trying to cut spending and hoping to cut taxes.  But hoping and hopping get harder as the costs of new promises mount.  America gets a bit wobbly on its feet.

Or America can neither cut costs nor raise taxes.  It simply jumps off the cliff, spending and borrowing with its eyes closed, not thinking about the hard landing.

The budget bill passed just in time to avoid a government shutdown is a clear case of jumping off the cliff.  It kept the government running by extending an earlier budget, some of it wasteful and poorly aligned with current needs.   Seemingly do-good items like emergency aid and farm funding were tacked on. 

By preventing a government shutdown, the bill has been celebrated as a bipartisan legislative success. It passed mainly because neither party wanted the blame for closing the government.  In reality, it is a policy failure, because the two sides could not reach any agreement on a normal budget, the most basic function of Congress. 

The entire process revealed that most in Congress did not get the message of the election.  People don’t respect Congress, because it ignores their concerns in favor of playing its usual political games. More House Democrats than Republicans were needed to support the GOP Speaker’s budget deal, revealing how badly Washington is working. 

The original bill and the final version were Christmas trees, decorated with goodies for both parties.  Instead of understanding that voters prefer a practical government over one that uses debt without discipline, Congress continues to believe that the best solution is to throw money at any problem.  No wonder it’s not popular.

In effect, many voters have decided that the federal government has moved on from New Deal-style government to at least a partial return to more traditional American conservatism.  The business-as-usual of the past nine decades should be updated.  But its handling of the budget bill shows that Congress won’t change.    

The Democrats, as busy as the Republicans in adding tinsel to the tree, missed a great opportunity.  They could have promptly agreed with President-elect Trump (and Elon Musk, apparently his prime minister) on a bare extension of spending with no add-ons.  Where would that have left the House GOP?  Any added spending would have been passed in a new bill.

Instead, the Democrats blocked Trump’s demand to raise the debt limit, believing a higher cap would permit him to extend and even increase current tax cuts.  They wanted the GOP to accept full responsibility for piling on more debt.  The debt cap was not in the final bill.

In reality, many Democrats, Trump and some Republicans agree that the debt ceiling is nothing more than an attention-grabbing tool to be used in budget negotiations.  Only hardline Republicans seem willing to push the U.S. into default, if that’s what it takes to reduce spending. 

The debt ceiling could be a clear violation of the Fourteenth Amendment requiring the federal government to make good on the borrowing arising from its spending commitments.   This would have been the moment to kill this troublesome financial gimmick.

Trump’s grandstanding and hostile behavior, the unrealistic Democratic hopes of restoring the old ways and the mindless Republican warfare against compromise come at a price.  They lead Washington to ignore popular demands for a well-functioning government that produces practical results.

The federal budget fiasco just proved that.

Trump's DOGE could face Congress protecting its turf

 

Gordon L. Weil

There’s a new government department.  Except that it’s not part of the government and it’s not a department. 

It’s the Department of Government Efficiency, known at DOGE.  Sounds like something you’d make up, maybe as a video game, but it is real.  Its leaders aren’t confirmed by the Senate, its staff is not taxpayer funded, it communicates by social media, and it reports to a president who is not yet in office.

It exists and is functioning.  President-elect Trump expects it to respond to the broad concern that the government is not working and is not responsive to the public’s needs and priorities.

Trump has been acting presidential well before he takes office.  Of course, he has presidential experience, but his early moves are likely to set a new precedent in governing.  Creating a seemingly real government department before he gets into the White House is part of his effort.

He gave the agency to Elon Musk, on paper the world’s richest man, and Vivek Ramaswamy, who wants to be president one day.  Both are wealthy enough to finance DOGE and use Musk’s X social media to communicate.

The two men issue recommendations, which at times sound more like their wish list than measures to improve federal government operations.  But DOGE should be taken seriously, because it was created for them by President-elect Trump, and he takes it seriously.

DOGE has three purposes.  It would bring federal spending under greater control to reduce the annual deficit, allowing taxes to be cut, not raised.  It would eliminate unwanted, unnecessary or overlapping agencies or functions, reducing the size of government.  It would give the president increased ability to control the government.

The early proposals by the two DOGE bosses are somewhat scattershot, but responsive to the Trump Republican agenda.  The Department of Education and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are at risk of outright elimination.  Even the Defense Department bureaucracy may be in for cuts.

In line with the Supreme Court’s doubt about the powers of independent regulatory agencies, DOGE might want to pare down the staffs of such bodies, including the IRS.  Outlays for culture, public health, and NASA could all be reduced.  But plans have not yet taken final form.

Ultimately, the DOGE spirit might extend to dealing with the two largest areas of federal spending, Social Security and Medicare.  Decisions about their future funding must come soon.  One solution would be to reduce benefits, which may sit well with DOGE.

The success of this cost-cutting approach may depend on Congress.  The president cannot close agencies or programs that exist under law.  Although Trump disagrees, the law now prevents a president from refusing to spend money on congressionally mandated programs.  He would need the consent of Congress to enact at least some major DOGE proposals.

While that may sound easy with a GOP Congress, it’s not a certainty. Many programs exist because members of Congress want to please specific constituencies.  Regardless of their party, they may be reluctant to kill or cut them.  Partisan support for the president may not overcome catering to their backers.

Evidence exists that Trump and DOGE may inevitably face a hard sell.  The Government Accountability Office, something like the national accountant, has already looked at much of what DOGE is supposed to do, but the agency is mostly ignored.

The GAO has published a detailed list of hundreds of federal programs that duplicate or overlap other programs.  For example, 80 economic development programs are run by four different agencies.  They exist thanks to proposals by members of Congress or turf battles among the agencies.  They probably waste billions of dollars.

Even more worrisome is the GAO High Risk Series, which “identifies government operations with vulnerabilities to fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement, or in need of transformation.”  Sometimes agencies heed warnings and undertake enough reforms to get off the list.  There are now 34 GAO warnings. but the president and Congress take little interest in them.

Presidents and department heads are selected for political reasons, not their administrative abilities.  A function like DOGE could make sense if it were independent and not overly ideological.  Of course, GAO could be used, if it were taken more seriously.

So-called zero-base budgeting for agencies could also be used.  Under it, they would regularly develop the lowest budget needed to get their missions accomplished and request any new funding for going beyond that.  Congress could eliminate or create programs.  President Jimmy Carter installed a workable ZBB, but it was gone by the presidency of George W. Bush.

Large organizations, public or private, will always be inefficient.  Though its agenda may turn out to be overly personal, too partisan or controversial, Trump’s DOGE recognizes that inefficiency may have gone too far, causing lost public confidence in government.

Trump's tariffs: both good and bad

Gordon L. Weil

Many years ago, I found myself in the middle of an international war.

As tough as each side was, I was fortunate that the ammunition was not bullets.  It was chickens.

The U.S. was the major supplier of chickens to Europe, but the organization now called the EU or European Union wanted to promote its own production, mainly in Germany.  So, it increased its tariff on imported chickens.  American producers protested, and the government retaliated by raising U.S. tariffs on several products.  The result was the “Chicken War.”

The most important U.S. tariff was placed on trucks with the aim of cutting imports of VW vans.  But trucks from all over the world were affected.  Eventually, tariffs on other items, including chickens, were either dropped or lost importance.  But the tariff on trucks remains, decades later, though some foreign producers learned how to dodge it.

As the sole American on the EU staff, my role was to improve understanding between the U.S. and Europe and help defuse the conflict.  Eventually, EU President Walter Hallstein met with President Lyndon Johnson.  Acting on behalf of the Europeans, I had the unusual opportunity of negotiating with the State Department the joint statement of the two presidents.

The moral of the story is that tariff wars have consequences.  Trucks are probably more expensive in the U.S. today thanks to the surviving tariff and because American producers could raise their prices when faced with less competition from abroad.   The Chicken War was hardly just chicken feed.

President-elect Trump likes tariffs.  He sees them as both a threat and a promise.  He seems reluctant to accept that they drive up prices and are likely to bring retaliation that will reduce U.S. exports.  Because other countries can sometimes sell Americans essential products or have lower costs of production, he claims the U.S. is subsidizing them.

Beyond economics, Trump clearly would use tariffs as an instrument of foreign policy.  If he wants a country to halt the flow of immigrants or drugs or even to increase its own military spending, he uses the tariff threat to force change.  Trump’s surprising style, untethered to tradition, can cause others to take his threats seriously. 

Aside from the impact on exports and imports and on consumer prices, the liberal use of tariffs may bring political and economic change.  Trading partners will look for alternatives and not merely submit.

He threatens both Canada and Mexico with higher tariffs unless they stop illegal immigration.  As a result, they may take action even before he takes office.  But the U.S. depends heavily on Canadian crude oil.  If a 25 percent tariff were added, U.S. refineries and their customers would pay more.  And Canada can redirect some sales to Asia.

Trump may do a lot to boost European unification.  Europe is equal to the U.S. as a market, so it could absorb much of its production that can’t enter the U.S.  Higher world prices created by the Trump tariffs would be an incentive for the Europeans to step up their own production to displace American imports.

The aspect of tariffs that holds promise for Trump is that new federal revenues would be collected at the border.  His assumption must be that imports will not be slowed by higher tariffs, so they could create the income necessary to finance the federal government, which meanwhile would be cutting income taxes.

For the moment, that’s pure theory.  Tariffs drive up prices unless foreign suppliers swallow them.  In practice, imports decline when imported goods cost more. Lower imports may produce lower tariff revenues. The revenue effect is greater when the tariff increase is greater. So, tariffs may not be quite as magical as Trump seems to believe.

Yet good reasons exist for raising some tariffs.  That happens when Americans are willing to pay more for goods through a tax disguised as a tariff to achieve national policy goals. 

If the U.S. is concerned about excessive dependence on imports of essential goods, aiding domestic producers or ensuring worldwide environmental standards, greater tariff protection may make sense.  Labor unions oppose trade deals because jobs may be shipped abroad.  But helping workers comes at a price.

China profits from exploiting its own labor and using its polluting coal to produce low-cost goods for American merchants.  Its gains pay for increased Chinese military spending used to expand its influence, threaten Taiwan and to menace the U.S. and its allies on the seas. 

It makes sense to cut China’s sales to the U.S. to level the playing field and reduce its funds for military expansion.  Customers may willingly be taxed for this effort.

Trump’s tariff threats may sometimes work, but their effect goes well beyond raising consumer prices.  Higher tariffs have both economic and political effects, sometimes long-term and often not obvious.  

Bigger U.S. House could renew fading Congress

 

Gordon L. Weil

Jared Golden is trying to close a circle that’s as old as the Constitution.

As one of Maine’s U.S. House members, he wants the House to take a new look at an old subject.  He has proposed that the House of Representatives should consider adding members.

During the drafting of the Constitution, the Framers debated the size of the House.  The original argument was so heated that it was the sole issue that caused George Washington to speak out at the Constitutional Convention.

How many people should be represented by a member of the House?  Too few would be undemocratic and but too many might be hard to manage.  James Madison, the chief drafter and later the fourth president, argued the problem would solve itself.  As more states joined, the House would naturally grow.

That worked until 1900, when the number of members stopped at 435.  In 1929, it was formally frozen there.  When Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, Alaska and Hawaii had joined, their seats were taken from other states.

The result is that the number of people in any single House district is now larger that the entire population of some states.  Each Maine district includes more people than the entire population of the state of Wyoming.   The math shows that a voter in Wyoming has more power than a voter in Maine.

An easy path to voter equality would be to set the population for each district across the country at the population of the smallest state, Wyoming.  I calculate that would increase the House to about 573 members, an added 138 seats.  Even a larger House could make sense.

Adding new states should mean more seats were added, as originally intended.  The number of House seats should also increase as the national population grows. The purpose should be to keep the House representative and its members in touch with voters.

That increase would still leave the U.S. with a higher population per voter than any other major nation.  Citizens would remain distant from their representatives, and members might remain limited as true representatives of their people’s pulse.

One advantage of expansion would be the need for thorough redistricting into smaller districts.  That would make racial or political gerrymandering more difficult by making districts more compact. And it would certainly open the way for many new faces in Congress, which could enable more women and minorities to gain seats.

With a larger House, each member would not need to be assigned to several committees. Assigned to fewer committees, they would have more time to become more expert.  There might also be more committees or subcommittees, allowing each to have a far sharper focus than is possible today.

House expansion, allowing members to become more expert on specific subjects, is not political daydreaming; it could turn out to be critically important.

The Supreme Court is moving steadily toward stripping regulatory agencies of their independent powers. When it completes its works, perhaps quite soon, their decision-making powers would end up with the president.  Yet regulation is nothing more than powers that Congress could itself exercise by law.  Congress, not the president, could take on more responsibility.

A larger Congress should include enough members that focused House committees could take on more detailed decision-making.  Such targeted committees could produce strict, general rules, allowing less room for special interests to work out deals with regulators behind closed doors. If Congress fails to act, it will continue to lose its powers to the president.

There’s another benefit to the proposal for expanding the House.  Many want the electoral vote for president to better align with the popular vote.  One major reason they can misalign is the unbalanced voting power of some states over others. Each state’s electoral vote is the sum of the number of its House and Senate members.

If the House were larger, the Electoral College would be larger.  The number of voters per electoral vote member would be closer to equal than it is now.  With electoral votes better distributed based on population, the electoral vote will come closer to reflecting the popular will. 

Of course, each state would retain at least one House seat and two senators, no matter its population.  That’s what the Constitution requires and would prevent a fully popular vote for president.

While amending the Constitution is almost impossible given today’s political divide plus and the growing efforts by the Court to apply its constitutional views, some issues like term limits or maximum ages of officials cannot be addressed. But Congress can change the number of House members, which could breathe some new life into an old system.

Unlike many of his colleagues who routinely accept the current system, Golden has a good idea that could produce major bipartisan reform.  It’s worthy of study and action.

Trump's trifecta: Congress, states help

Gordon L. Weil

Trifectas are not only for racetracks. 

At the track, you win a trifecta bet by picking the first three finishers in order.  The pay-off is usually big.

In politics, trifectas also exist.  That’s when one party controls the executive and both branches of the legislature.  President-elect Trump will have one.  That could give him a big payoff in presidential powers.

The scope of Trump’s victory cannot be measured solely by his big margin in the electoral vote or his narrow margin in the popular vote.  The voters did not split their tickets and gave him a Republican Congress free from any Democratic check on him. What made Trump’s win so large was his undisputed win and having a potentially compliant Congress.

A trifecta-plus occurs when a majority of the highest court sides with a trifecta party in power.  Given the conservative, sometimes openly partisan, majority on the Supreme Court, Trump could enjoy that kind of government.  Its decision on allowing considerable presidential immunity gives him broad discretion to skip applying the law or to rule by executive orders.

Political trifectas often exist at the state level.  Next year, 23 states will have Republican trifectas, 15 will be Democratic and 12 states will have divided governments.  In terms of population, 42 percent of the people live in Democratic states and 41 percent in GOP states.  Maine is a trifecta state, and the Democrats frequently dominate, as they will again in 2025.

While there will be some defectors, most Republican trifecta states can be expected to follow Trump’s lead, adding to his power. When he seeks their involvement in enforcing his immigration policies, they are likely to provide help in finding and expelling illegal immigrants.  These states could multiply the effect of his federal actions on other issues as well.

During Trump’s first term, Democratic states managed to avoid action on some federal government demands.  That administration had moved too quickly to put Trump’s platform into effect.  Its hasty work was sufficiently sloppy that Democratic state administrations could find and exploit loopholes.

The new Trump term promises to be somewhat more professional and based on more than loyalty alone.  His appointees should pursue his goals, but may be able to develop their own methods.  If he micromanages or impatiently demands immediate action, he may not avoid the same kind of errors he previously made.

One federal law may somewhat slow Trump’s progress.  The Administrative Procedure Act may sound dry, but it can be an effective way of slowing sweeping change.  Government agencies may add or drop a rule only if they can justify their plans and allow for public comment.  The APA process takes time.

The president, no matter his mandate, must follow the law.  Some states will inevitably challenge Trump’s moves in federal court.  Washington State often brought actions during the first Trump term, winning 55 separate cases.  Such proceedings can serve to slow changes. 

Ultimately, the conflict between the Trump administration and Democratic states is likely to boil down to a dispute about one of the key parts of the Constitution.  It’s called the Supremacy Clause.

While the original states believed they were delegating only some of their sovereign powers to the federal government, that clause has given Washington great powers over the states.  It says that laws enacted under the Constitution are “the supreme law of the land.”  Such laws may simply overrule state laws.

In practice, the federal government has moved into areas that the Framers may not have thought would be taken from the states.  That opens the question of whether a state is blocked from all independent action on a matter or if it shares authority with Washington. 

Can a state accept the federal rule, but go beyond it by being even more strict?  The question is whether the supremacy clause can preempt any state power or allows states to exercise sovereignty alongside the federal government.  Cases are likely to be decided one issue at a time.

If all of this sounds like the making of a legal mess, it is.  It surely could slow federal action, though the Supreme Court has been quickly issuing procedural orders that could be favorable to Trump, even while its final decisions may take many more months. 

In the end, conflicts between Trump and the Democratic trifecta states may be settled by the Supreme Court.  The Court decides what the Constitution means. It seems likely that, given the current Court’s pro-Trump leaning, its decisions in supremacy clause disputes would result in judgments favorable to the president.

The Supreme Court could allow Trump to force Democratic states to follow his agencies’ orders. American politics could be arriving at government under a federal-state, trifecta-plus regime.    With that kind of wall-to-wall control, Trump would hold the winning trifecta ticket. 

Congress should hold Trump accountable

 

Gordon L. Weil

“The Man Who Would Be King.”

That’s the title of a short story (made into a movie) by Rudyard Kipling, a famous British writer.  The tale is about a man who works his way to absolute regal control.

The question today is whether that title would apply to President-elect Donald Trump.  Maybe what Kipling made happen in a distant land can’t happen here.

“In England,” Alexander Hamilton wrote in arguing for the Constitution, “the king is unaccountable….”   American presidents should have comparable powers to kings.  But, unlike the royals, they could be held both politically and legally responsible. 

Presidents are subject to elections plus check and balances from other parts of the government.  They may also face “legal punishment,” Hamilton said.  In short, presidents should be king-lite, only kept from full power by being held accountable.

The Constitution allows a president to be both convicted by the Senate and subject to prosecution for the same actions.  This July, the Supreme Court sharply limited presidential exposure to prosecution and retained final control to decide what matters could go to court.  That watered down Hamilton’s promise.

Proven immune to impeachment and conviction and given a free pass by the Supreme Court, Trump wants a clear path, unimpeded by the Constitution and laws, to unchecked action.  To him, the election means winner-take-all. The Democrats struggled to explain what they meant about a “threat to democracy,” but that would be it.

Take the current case. The Senate is supposed to give its “advice and consent” to key presidential appointments. It has sometimes rejected presidential choices.   To reach a decision, it investigates the nominees, holds public hearings, and then votes.  This is part of checks and balances.

If the Senate recesses for more than 10 days, the president may make a “recess appointment.”  The appointee may serve without Senate review until the end of the current Congress, as long as two years.  In practice, the Senate now avoids lengthy absences, so recess appointments have disappeared.

Trump wants the new Senate to take a recess shortly after it begins work in January, too early to justify a break.   He could then install in office for two years people who might turn out otherwise to be unacceptable to the Senate.

Some senators, with Maine Republican Susan Collins among the leaders, say they will insist on the normal confirmation process, perhaps sped up.  The big government split may be institutional not political, between Congress and the president rather than between Republicans and Democrats.

Congress comes ahead of the president in the Constitution to emphasize its role as the lead institution of the federal government.  The world has become more complex, so the president must deal with complicated and fast-moving matters.  However, national policy is supposed to be decided by the people’s representatives.  It’s still the constitutional role of Congress.

If it insists on applying checks and balances, Congress might improve its tattered reputation. Trump could try to totally discredit it or accept some limits, knowing he can count on strong GOP support for most of his policies.

The Connecticut government commissioned a study on what makes governors strong or weak.  It could help in evaluating Trump’s presidential power. 

For his formal powers, he would be rated strong, because he was independently elected, picks his own administration, has veto power and enjoys legislative backing.  But he does not control the budget, and his appointments must be confirmed.

For his personal power, Trump’s overall weak popularity does not undermine his political appeal.  He enjoyed a clear election mandate, which must be seen as a positive report card on his first term.  And he pulled off an historic comeback.  These are attributes of a strong president.

On balance, Trump could end up with that rating.  His reputation as a successful president may depend on how well he can work out an institutional deal with Congress.  He stands to gain more power by cooperating with a GOP Congress than by stirring up unnecessary turf wars.  By asserting itself, Congress could restore some of its lost powers and recover its reputation.

In foreign affairs, presidents have great scope, so Trump may also become a strong leader by adopting popular policies and avoiding unnecessary domestic disputes. Closing the border may well be broadly popular, but not mass deportation.  He could unilaterally end military conflicts by forcing concessions on some countries, but avoid high tariffs that would bring high prices. 

Kipling’s king makes unwise and egotistical use of his power, bringing his downfall.  The people realize they have been misled, rebel and dump their king.  That’s the usual fate of absolute rulers.

Even as he dreams of a third term, Trump must understand that his presidential legacy – strong, weak or wise – is being made now.