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Is the President a King? The Unitary Executive Theory and the Presidency of Donald J. Trump

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U.S. Democracy in Danger

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Abstract

This chapter examines a significant underlying factor in recent debates about the efficacy of American governance, as it seeks to assess Donald Trump’s presidency in terms of the controversial “unitary executive” theory, which concerns the degree to which the president controls the executive branch of government. It analyzes the Trump administration’s relevant rhetoric and actions, and it finds significant evidence that comports with the unitary executive theory but also finds significant evidence that is empirically at odds with the theory. Trump’s characteristically unitary actions included trying to control executive branch employees and information, firing subordinates, and asserting his own constitutional views at the expense of the other two branches. However, in some respects Trump failed to control his subordinates, who at times ignored, contradicted, or actively resisted his dictates. Beyond cataloguing the ways in which Trump’s presidency both was and was not unitary, this chapter suggests that the equivocal evidence may be due to the theory being attractive in principle but unrealistic in practice, or to the different purposes for which the Trump administration invoked the theory.

*Portions of this chapter further develop themes originally published in Dodds, Graham G., The Unitary Presidency, New York: Routledge, 2019, p 54–60.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Alvis et al. (2013, p. 176).

  2. 2.

    Murray (2018).

  3. 3.

    See Skowronek (2009), Tushnet (2010).

  4. 4.

    See Barilleaux and Maxwell (2017).

  5. 5.

    See, chronologically: (Calabresi & Yoo, 2008; Barilleaux & Kelley, 2010; Crouch et al., 2017; Barilleaux & Maxwell, 2017; McCarthy, 2018; Somin, 2018; Dodds, 2019; Crouch et al., 2020; Skowronek et al., 2021).

  6. 6.

    Beauchamp (2017).

  7. 7.

    Friedman (2017).

  8. 8.

    https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2022/10/25/trump-kim-jong-un-remarks-woodward-tapperctn-vpx.cnn

  9. 9.

    Thompson (2016).

  10. 10.

    Crouch et al. (2017, p. 569).

  11. 11.

    Kruse (2018).

  12. 12.

    Diamond et al. (2020).

  13. 13.

    https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/549-june-2018-barr-memo-to-doj-mue/b4c05e39318dd2d136b3/optimized/full.pdf

  14. 14.

    https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-william-p-barr-delivers-19th-annual-barbara-k-olson-memorial-lecture

  15. 15.

    Weybrecht (2018).

  16. 16.

    Flavelle.

  17. 17.

    Vogel et al. (2020).

  18. 18.

    Graber (2015).

  19. 19.

    Murray et al. (2018).

  20. 20.

    Kmiec (2018), Wright and Eisen (2018), Thampson-DeVeaux.

  21. 21.

    Baker (2018).

  22. 22.

    Katyal (2019).

  23. 23.

    Davis and Shear.

  24. 24.

    Haberman et al.

  25. 25.

    Hudak (2020).

  26. 26.

    Korte (2017).

  27. 27.

    Illing (2017).

  28. 28.

    C. Savage (2020).

  29. 29.

    Crouch et al. (2017, p. 570).

  30. 30.

    Schluck (2017).

  31. 31.

    Blackman (2017a), Rudalevige (2018), Kris (2018), Illing (2018).

  32. 32.

    Ackerman (2018). Cf. Edelson (2017).

  33. 33.

    See also Edelson (2017).

  34. 34.

    D. Savage (2018), Walfish (2017).

  35. 35.

    Goodman (2018).

  36. 36.

    Whittington (2018).

  37. 37.

    Nelson (2018).

  38. 38.

    Goldsmith (2018), Schmidt and Haberman (2018).

  39. 39.

    Witherspoon (2019).

  40. 40.

    Diamond et al. (2019).

  41. 41.

    Bertrand (2019).

  42. 42.

    Douthat.

  43. 43.

    Hennessey and Wittes (2020b). The Atlantic. Jan 21, 2020a.

  44. 44.

    Byman (2018).

  45. 45.

    Byman (2018).

  46. 46.

    Wittes and Hennessey (2017).

  47. 47.

    Drezner (2017).

  48. 48.

    Brown and Gaouette (2018).

  49. 49.

    Herb et al. (2018).

  50. 50.

    Parker and Rucker (2018).

  51. 51.

    Baker (2017).

  52. 52.

    Goldsmith (2017).

  53. 53.

    Landler (2018).

  54. 54.

    Shafer (2018).

  55. 55.

    Blackman (2017b), Solitary Executive.

  56. 56.

    Levin (2018).

  57. 57.

    Goldsmith (2017).

  58. 58.

    McGinnis (2020).

  59. 59.

    Stern (2021).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Political Science Department, Concordia University, Montreal, QC, Canada

    Graham G. Dodds

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  1. Graham G. Dodds
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Correspondence to Graham G. Dodds .

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  1. IR Globe Cross-Cultural Inc, Vancouver, BC, Canada

    Adebowale Akande

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Dodds, G.G. (2023). Is the President a King? The Unitary Executive Theory and the Presidency of Donald J. Trump. In: Akande, A. (eds) U.S. Democracy in Danger. Springer Studies on Populism, Identity Politics and Social Justice. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36099-2_21

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