Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin - Helsinki July 2018 Most people cannot wrap their heads around the possibility that Trump and the Republican Party will, if able, transform this country’s democracy into another form of government. Just as most people could not fathom Trump being a Russian asset, they continue to justify his actions as idiosyncratic or personal deficiencies rather than purposeful plans. Of course, Helsinki forced some people to reconsider Trump’s assault on NATO and the European Alliance as strategic acts in Putin’s service. Still, too many people continue to frame his actions as only personal deficiencies rather acts in service of a more strategic purpose.
Many people consider Trump’s lies, accusations of “fake news,” and attacks on institutions like the FBI to be public relations ploys. According to these people, Trump merely intends to mute the criminal allegations Robert Mueller’s investigation will undoubtedly produce. But it is possible that Trump, his coterie, and the Republican Party are implementing a plan to end our democracy as we know it.
While our form of representative democracy is at one end of a continuum and authoritarianism is at the other end, there is a least one other in the middle. Delegative democracy, a transitional form, maintains all the trappings of a representative democracy except separation of powers. Government officials, including the President, may be elected, but the courts and Congress yield or delegate their power to the President. And although the President, may only serve his or her elected term, they exercise nearly complete power while in office. Some conservative scholars have already claimed the Constitution nearly envisions this form of government under the legal rubric of the “unitary executive.”
Many people consider Trump’s lies, accusations of “fake news,” and attacks on institutions like the FBI to be public relations ploys. According to these people, Trump merely intends to mute the criminal allegations Robert Mueller’s investigation will undoubtedly produce. But it is possible that Trump, his coterie, and the Republican Party are implementing a plan to end our democracy as we know it.
While our form of representative democracy is at one end of a continuum and authoritarianism is at the other end, there is a least one other in the middle. Delegative democracy, a transitional form, maintains all the trappings of a representative democracy except separation of powers. Government officials, including the President, may be elected, but the courts and Congress yield or delegate their power to the President. And although the President, may only serve his or her elected term, they exercise nearly complete power while in office. Some conservative scholars have already claimed the Constitution nearly envisions this form of government under the legal rubric of the “unitary executive.”
