Assessing the Trump Presidency on Its Own Terms

Abstract

AbstractSome scholars have judged the Trump presidency to be an ineffective failure by applying theories of presidential power derived from the research of Richard Neustadt, who emphasized the need for presidents to master the task of bargaining with other stakeholders in the American political system to overcome what he saw as the limited potency of unilateral action. Such an approach, however, fails to account for two important considerations: (1) whether Trump’s goals in office were similar to those of other presidents, and (2) whether the Trump presidency was instead organized around the principles of unitary executive theory, an increasingly popular conception of the presidency in conservative intellectual circles. Viewing the Trump presidency through this alternative lens emphasizes its successes in gaining political control over elements of the executive branch bureaucracy and resisting institutional checks by Congress, raising serious questions about whether Trump was indeed often effective in realizing his goals—and whether future presidents will follow in the same path.