11-05-2025
The blueprint for Trump's executive power agenda came out in 1988
Imagine a populist president who set out to create, 'in the first weeks of his administration, a radically different perception of the presidency.' He could use 'far-reaching executive orders' to 'give various constituencies throughout the country the immediate conviction that this president, for a change, looks out for them.' The burst of presidential edicts would serve visceral as much as practical purposes: 'The nation as a whole needs to be jarred by this newcomer's determination to protect the country's vital interests, perhaps by ordering, on national security grounds, the immediate expulsion of dangerous aliens.'
