Trumperialist bad “reality"-TV and the “Unitary Executive” Theory

One problem with having a President who is unfortunately a master media-manipulator when it comes to projected his desired messages is that even when his consciously making threats to function as some kind of distraction, or as entertainment for his cult followers, People still have to question whether he is actually serious. Because he’s about to again become the President of the country with by far the biggest military on earth.

Kyle Kulinski has a worthwhile early analysis of Trump’s clear threats of military action against Denmark and Panama, his threats of economic action and the explicit threat of military action against Canada for the purposes of annexing it, and the threats being floated by his team to start military strikes in Mexico with the cover excuse that Mexican drug cartels are terrorist organizations and therefore a legitimate target for conventional military strikes on Mexico. (1)

Numerous commentators stress that we have to keep a focus on what Trump’s actions as President are once he’s inaugurated. It’s going to be a constant balancing act for pro-democracy Americans to not focus on Trump’s provocative statements and let them become distractions, and also to recognize that the Trumpistas are coming back to the Presidency at the head of a party that is currently acting like an authoritarian cult.

Because Trump and his movement operate on Steve Bannon’s notorious media strategy of “flood the zone with s**t,” constantly trying to “trigger the libs” by making obnoxious or incendiary statements and threats. On the other hand, Trump and his transition team are clearly operating on the general guidance of the radical-right Agenda 2025 program issued by far-right operators last year.

Michael Waldman wrote about this program in July 2024:

Usually politicians pretend to read books they haven’t opened. Donald Trump made news last week when he claimed not to have read a book, one written by his friends and allies. The 887-page doorstopper is the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 book Trump claimed to “know nothing about Project 2025” and have “no idea who is behind it.”

Why that transparent fib? Perhaps Trump wanted some distance from Kevin Roberts, leader of the Heritage Foundation. “We are in the process of the second American revolution, which will remain bloodless,” Roberts declared, “if the left allows it to be.” Perhaps, too, Trump realized that if the public knew what was in the plan, it would send chills. …

Above all else, it espouses a maximalist version of the “unitary executive theory,” the notion that the president personally controls the executive branch and can act free from checks and balances. It’s a fancy version of what Trump told civics students in 2019: “I have an Article II [of the Constitution], where I have the right to do whatever I want as president.” (2)

The Unitary Executive Theory is a career project of a former Congressman and former Vice President named Dick Cheney. There have been disputes over the limits of Presidential power since George Washington’s Presidency. And Dick Cheney certainly wasn’t the first person to elaborate some kind of theory for broader Presidential power.

Jeffrey Crouch and two co-authors describe this very expansive notion of Presidential power in The Unitary Executive Theory: A Danger to Constitutional Government (2021). (2) The disputes over Presidential power in recent decades was triggered by the many excesses of the national security state during the time of the Vietnam, including illegal acts of repression against domestic dissenters.

While Presidents Jerry Ford and Jimmy Carter were willing to accept more formal restraints on Presidential power and Carter was particularly focused on fighting the reality and the perception of government corruption, The Republicans wanted to go in a different direction. As Crouch et.al. put it:

The laws temporarily bottled up the emerging trend toward increased independent presidential powers and vastly expanded authority for chief executives, but even they ultimately ended up as merely temporary dams before the rising tide of presidential power. The unitary executive theory emerged in this context. With the presidency secured, Reagan and his supporters could now effectively push back against Congress and what they saw as illegitimate interference with the president’s constitutional responsibilities and powers.

This pushback for greater Executive power – at least for Republican Presidents – involved several figures whose names are still fairly familiar: Edwin Meese, Steven Calabresi, Samuel Alito – the Supreme Court Justice who features sleazy billionaire Paul Singer as a sugardaddy (4) – Robert Bork, torture-program criminal John Yoo, Steven Calabresi, and Reagan solicitor general Charles Fried. As Rozell and Crouch explain, a very influential case for the Unitary Executive Theory – which would better be described as an Elected Autocrat theory of government – was made in the minority report to the Iran-Contra Congressional investigation. (5)

In 1987, then representative Cheney wrote most of the Iran-Contra Minority Report, although Republican representatives William Broomfield, Henry Hyde, Jim Courter, Bill McCollum, and Michael DeWine and Senators James McClure and Orrin Hatch also signed it. The report offers valuable insights into Cheney’s thoughts on presidential power. Moreover, it provides a glimpse at what would become some of the core arguments advanced not only by unitary executive advocates in the George W. Bush administration but also by Presidents Barack Obama and Donald J. Trump, who likewise believed they could unilaterally act outside the Constitution and laws.

Obama was particularly fond of using his “Unitary Executive “powers for drone warfare unauthorized by Congress nor justifiable in terms of international law. (6)

In fact, Mark Halperin and John Heilemann reported in 2011, while Obama was still in his first Presidential terms, he told his staff, “Turns out I’m really good at killing people. Didn’t know that was gonna be a strong suit of mine.” (7)

The degeneration of the US government’s commitment to the rule of law is primarily due to the authoritarianism that Republicans have adopted over the decades. But it has definitely been a bipartisan failure. But I assume that Obama could also brag on that topic, “Didn’t know that was gonna be a strong suit of mine.”

Maybe that what he was chuckling about during his cozy chat with incoming President Trump at Jimmy Carter’s funeral.

Notes:

(1) 'HE'S LOST IT!': Trump Threatens Panama & Greenland With WAR. Secular Talk YouTube channel 01/08/2025. <https://youtu.be/6E6nUPJbEeo?si=wcDzuYRPBh-Hxh8v> (Accessed: 2025-11-01).

(2) Waldman, Michael (2024): A Dangerous Vision for the Presidency. Brennan Center for Justice 07/10/2024. <https://www.brennancent governmer.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/dangerous-vision-presidency> (Accessed: 2025-11-01).

(3) Crouch, J. Rozell, M.J. & Sollenberger, M.A. (2021): The Unitary Executive Theory: A Danger to Constitutional Government (2021). Lawrence KS: University Press of Kansas.

(4) Elliott, Justin et al (2023): Justice Samuel Alito Took Luxury Fishing Vacation With GOP Billionaire Who Later Had Cases Before the Court. ProPublica 06/20/2023. <https://www.propublica.org/article/samuel-alito-luxury-fishing-trip-paul-singer-scotus-supreme-court> (Accessed: 2025-11-01).

(5) Minority Report of Members of House and Senate Select Committees on Secret Military Assistance to Iran and the Nicaraguan Opposition, November 18, 1987. National Security Archive. <https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/18221-national-security-archive-doc-05-minority-report> (Accessed: 2025-11-01).

(6) Murphy, Ian (2013): Obama Brags He's 'Really Good at Killing People'. Progressive Magazine 11/04/2024. <https://progressive.org/latest/obama-brags-really-good-killing-people/> (Accessed: 2025-11-01).

(7) Zenko, Micha (2017): Obama’s Final Drone Strike Data. Council on Foreign Relations 01/20/2017. <https://www.cfr.org/blog/obamas-final-drone-strike-data> (Accessed: 2025-11-01).

(8) Obama, Trump share moment at Jimmy Carter’s funeral. FOX 32 Chicago 01/10/2025. <https://youtu.be/yKkdhp76Iyo?si=-pVhGXZH8P9AdyUI> (Accessed: 2025-11-01).

Trump's continuing scam, the COVID-19 crisis, and critics' desperate to believe the situation isn't as bad as it looks

Peter Wehner writes, "Trump’s success as a politician has been built on his ability to impose his will and narrative on others, to use his experience on a reality-television show and his skill as a con man to shape public impressions in his favor, even—or perhaps, especially — if those impressions are at odds with reality." (The President is Trapped The Atlantic ß3/25/2020)

One big mistake the Democrats made in campaigning against Trump in 2016 was to smugly assume that Trump's professional-wrestling style of politicking couldn't win him the Presidency. Wehner continues, "He convinced a good chunk of the country that he is a wildly successful businessman," which he wasn't. Now that he has essentially $4.5 trillion dollars that he can allocate to pretty much any companies he wants including his own, maybe he will finally make his business fabulously successful.

But being a lucky and unscrupulous grifter isn't the same as being the business genius he claimed to be. David Cay Johnston has been telling anyone who would listen for years that Trump was a mobster and a scamster, not a brilliant business titan.

Wehner continues that sentence by saying that Trump's persuasion of "a good chunk of the country" also extended to conning them into thinking that he "knows more about campaign finance, the Islamic State, the courts, the visa system, trade, taxes, the debt, renewable energy, infrastructure, borders, and drones than anyone else."

And Wehner predicts that as the COVID-19 crisis proceeds:

Trump’s hallmarks will be even more fully on display. The president will create new scapegoats. He’ll blame governors for whatever bad news befalls their states. He’ll berate reporters who ask questions that portray him in a less-than-favorable light. He’ll demand even more cultlike coverage from outlets such as Fox News. Because he doesn’t tolerate relationships that are characterized by disagreement or absence of obeisance, before long we’ll see key people removed or silenced when they try to counter a Trump-centered narrative. He’ll try to find shiny objects to divert our attention from his failures. [my emphasis]

Unfortunately, Wehner's piece reflects a lot of the weaknesses the American commentariat has displayed in dealing with Trump's Malicious Orange Clown Show. He presents Trump's success at selling his con job image of himself as due to Trump's own talent for scamming. Which is part of the story.

But there is a great deal of the story to which Beltway media types don't want to call attention. One of those factors is the corporate media itself. CBS Executive Chairman and CEO Leslie Moonvies described his view of the Trump campaign at a media conference in early 2016 (Paul Bond, Leslie Moonves on Donald Trump: "It May Not Be Good for America, but It's Damn Good for CBS" Hollywood Reporter 02/29/2016):

"It may not be good for America, but it's damn good for CBS," he said of the presidential race.

Moonves called the campaign for president a "circus" full of "bomb throwing," and he hopes it continues.

"Most of the ads are not about issues. They're sort of like the debates," he said.

"Man, who would have expected the ride we're all having right now? ... The money's rolling in and this is fun," he said.

"I've never seen anything like this, and this going to be a very good year for us. Sorry. It's a terrible thing to say. But, bring it on, Donald. Keep going," said Moonves.

"Donald's place in this election is a good thing," he said Monday at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference in San Francisco.

"There's a lot of money in the marketplace," the exec said of political advertising so far this presidential season. [my emphasis]

Yes, Virginia, there is such a thing as corportate media. And their approach to covering politics is radically different from the classical image of Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite that many older Democrats still have in their heads as the normalcy that a successful Make America Boring Again campaign this year would restore.

That doesn't diminish Trump's own success in working that system. He's unmistakably a talented demogogue. But Wehner's article also reflects the very narrow and unrealistic framing of NeverTrumper rightwing Republicans and the Democratic "Resistance" types, which portrays Trump as a unique aberration whose departure from the political scene will somehow restore a lost normal state. The Republican fever will break, conservative Democrats keep telling themselves and the public, year after year, and decade after decade.

The media malfunction, which has very much to do with the business laws that frame the media market, won't go away without serious reforms to the legal framework that currently controls matters such as media concentration.

The political environment that made Trumpism and a President Trump possible is one of asymmetric partisan polarization in a system in which essentiall all meaningful limits to spending in political campaigns have been aboloished. (On the latter point, I don't mean to imply it can't get worse!) The campaign financing model in the US is a system of legalized bribery in which even illegal bribery and corruption become much harder to detect, deter, and prosecute.

For Democrats - to the extent that they actually want a healthy representative democracy - it's especially important to stop pretending that Trump is akin to a Thanos or Cthulhu dropping in from space. The criminal and anti-democratic aspects of the Trump Presidency were present and on very prominent display during the Bush-Cheney Administration. And the subsequent Obama-Biden Administration gave Cheney's project to establish an authoritarian Unitary Executive system of government the one thing a Republican Administration could never give itself: immunity from prosecution for criminal activity granted by an administration of the other party.

Wednesday's escalations in Trump's authoritarian drive

There were two remarkable pieces of news on Wednesday related to Republican authoritarianism.

The Republicans are escalating their push toward an "Orbanist" authoritarian government under their control on several fronts. Continuing the long Republican drive to establish Dick Cheney's "Unitary Executive" government, this time with the Orange Clown in the Oval Office, President Trump's lawyer argued explicitly that the President is exempt from all laws as long as he's President. Pete Williams reported for NBC News (Trump's lawyers argue he can't be charged while in office — even if he shoots someone 10/23/2019):

The long-standing view of the Justice Department is that a president cannot be indicted while in office. William Consovoy, Trump's lawyer, told the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals that the immunity extends to the entire criminal justice process, including grand jury subpoenas for documents. ...

Carey Dunne, New York District Attorney Cy Vance Jr.'s general counsel, said the president's position is too absolute.

There could be examples in which a state should be able to conduct a criminal investigation of a sitting president, "if, for example, he did pull out a handgun and shoot someone on Fifth Avenue."

Asked about that, Consovoy said a president could be charged with such a crime once he was out of office or if he was impeached and removed from office. "This is not a permanent immunity," he said.

"I'm talking about while in office. Nothing could be done? That's your position?" Judge Denny Chin asked.

"That is correct," Consovoy said.

That's where we are at not yet three years into the Trump Presidency.

And the Republicans in Congress mobbed a closed and specially secured hearing room to prevent a Pentagon official from testifying before the House Committee investigating what's come to be known as the Ukraine scandal. This is a 17-minute PBS Newshour report, Republicans disrupt testimony in Trump impeachment inquiry 10/23/2019:

PBS also has an AP story of the same name here. Matt Fuller and Arthur Delaney report on it in Republicans Try To Storm Impeachment Room, Break Rules In Process Huffpost 10/23/2019

The PBS Newshour item on it from the daily program took a "this-side-says, the-other-side-says" approach to the reporting it, though they followed it up with a more analytical discussion, though conventionally scrupulous in presenting Both Sides. It also discusses the Unitary Executive immunity claim the Administration is making in Court. GOP lawmakers violate House rules to disrupt Pentagon official's testimony PBS Newshour 10/24/2019:

Yamiche Alcindor notes in that report:

The scheduled witness was Laura Cooper, who oversees Ukraine policy at the Pentagon. She was expected to discuss the $400 million in military aid for Ukraine that President Trump temporarily blocked.

But Republicans brought cell phones into the facility, where phones are not allowed. Cooper's testimony was delayed for hours.

And Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell is quoted saying, "The tactics are in an effort to delay the inevitable. They have obstructed the hearing. It was an effort to intimidate a witness. They brought in electronics into a secure room." (my emphasis)

Of course the Republicans will defend this action. It's who they are. But this was not a case of ordinary citizens or people deprived of a voice demand attention and action for an important issue. And Republicans sit on the committee whose hearing from which they claim that they are being excluded.

But it's important for the Democrats to recognize the level of escalation in which the Republicans are engaging. More than interrupting the immediate testimony and getting on the news with their phony protest against being excluded, they are showing their base and the public more generally that they are willing to fight. The Democrats have to find a way to show they can fight back effectively, e.g., by some formal sanction against members of the Republican mob yesterday who violated security procedures by bringing mibile phones into areas where they were banned. But they need to understand that they need to show the public, the press, and the Democratic base that they are at least as committed to fighting back as the Republicans were in staging this scene and exploiting it to the hilt in their political propaganda.

This MSNBC report featuring Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna illustrates some of the ways the Democrats can legitimately push back against this action, Oversight Cmte. Member: Republican Deposition Stunt Like A 'Fraternity' 10/24/2019:

As we know, Dear Leader Trump likes mob scenes:

The group of Republicans who disrupted an impeachment inquiry hearing by storming into a secure room at the Capitol had the blessing of President Trump https://t.co/x7N7vxN2Ze

— Bloomberg Politics (@bpolitics) October 23, 2019

Stephen Walt asks a pertinent question, too:

Ask yourself: would those unpatriotic, law-breaking Republicans have disrupted the impeachment hearings (by busting into a secure facility), if they believed the witnesses’ testimony was exonerating #trump?

— Stephen Walt (@stephenWalt) October 24, 2019

Using mobs for propaganda isn't a new tactic for the Republicans. One of the most dramatic moments in the disputed Florida vote count in 2000 was the "Brooks Brothers Riot" staged by the Republicans. See:

• John Latigua, Miami's rent-a-riot Salon 11/28/2000
• Miranda Spencer, Who Won the Election? Who Cares? FAIR 01/01/2002
• Mickey Kaus, Everything the New York Times Thinks About the Florida Recount Is Wrong! Slate 11/13/2001
• Mickey Kaus, Update: Hot Recount Docs! Slate 11/19/2001
• Michael Miller, ‘It’s insanity!’: How the ‘Brooks Brothers Riot’ killed the 2000 recount in Miami Washington Post 11/15/2018

This is a report from 2009 on the incident, Maddow & Scarborough: Two Views Of The 'Brooks Brothers Riot' Of 2000 (HQ) 08/07/2009, provided by YouTube user "dawgnpony", Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes take a retrospective look at the Brooks Brothers Riot and connect it to the astroturf opposition hecklers that were showing up to shout down Democratic members of Congress at public meetings in the summer of 2009, with Obamacare their nominal topic of outrage.