A Presidential Primer on the Rule of Law

There are rules that apply to everyone, even the head of the executive branch.

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Donald Trump is constantly claiming powers he doesn’t actually have while ignoring those he’s entitled to. That’s the theme of an excellent Jill Colvin story:

Threatening to shut down Twitter for flagging false content. Claiming he can “override” governors who dare to keep churches closed to congregants. Asserting the “absolute authority” to force states to reopen, even when local leaders say it’s too soon.

As she notes, all of this is Trump, as is his failure to fully exploit the Defense Production Act as part of his reaction to the pandemic.

Regular readers will recognize this combination as signs of presidential weakness that nonetheless is dangerous to democratic government. Another way to put it is that it’s the essence of lawlessness. It’s not that Trump necessarily breaks laws (although he surely has done that), but that he appears oblivious to the whole idea of the rule of law — the idea that there are rules that apply to everyone, including the president.

Another way of looking at it is that Trump doesn’t seem to understand that he’s been hired to do a job, and that he has more than 300 million bosses. As with any job, it comes with written rules, and an employee — that’s what he is — must thoroughly master the terms of employment if he or she hopes to perform well. Instead, Trump seems to believe he’s won some sort of honor, and it entitles him to things. That’s simply not the reality of the presidency. Sure, there are perks (as there are with many jobs), but more than anything, it’s employment.

The worst part of this is that failing to recognize and uphold the rule of law is a fundamental abuse of power by the government employee whose job it is to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” That is the core of his obligation to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.” It is the heart of the presidency.

Now, for normal presidents this gets complicated very quickly. Defending the rule of law is not incompatible with disputing what exactly the law means, including the rules constraining the president. Every modern president has pushed around the edges of what the Oval Office is able to do. All of them fought to further enlarge an office already loaded with far more powers than their 18th- and 19th-century predecessors had. We expect presidents these days to do things that were simply not part of the job for Martin Van Buren or James Garfield, and we provide them with a large White House staff to fight for the president’s program. So it’s hard to say that this or that attempt at presidential power crosses a line into autocracy.

But Trump? His entire approach to the presidency ignores all the lines about what he’s authorized to do and what he isn’t. It’s true, as my Bloomberg Opinion colleague Francis Wilkinson and the political scientist Dave Hopkins say, that the Republican Party paved the trail Trump is on and are deeply implicated in all of this. But it’s also true that Trump is very different than George W. Bush, George H. W. Bush, or Ronald Reagan in this regard. It’s always hard to tell what’s in someone’s mind, but I’ve never heard anything from Trump that suggested any real respect for the rule of law.

1. Chryl N. Laird, Julian J. Wamble and Ismail K. White at the Monkey Cage on Biden and black voters.

2. Ed Kilgore on Trump’s convention dreams.

3. Amy Walter on Trump’s popularity and the economy. Not sure I agree — not sure I don’t.

4. David Weigel on Trump and masks.

5. Annie Lowrey on the economy and young adults.

6. And my Bloomberg Opinion colleague Timothy L. O’Brien on Trump’s war, sort of, on Twitter.

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Jonathan Bernstein at jbernstein62@bloomberg.net