Sources of Trump's Power

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is has been full of ominous developments, with Trump much more powerful than in his first term.

Jason Willick at WP:

Trump has wrought a genuine revolution within his party. His four years out of power might even have been an advantage in that regard. About two-thirds of the current GOP House caucus was elected in 2016 or later. Senators most likely to exercise independent judgment have retired. Trump and his movement have been highly successful at finding loyal, battle-hardened individuals to staff the executive branch at all levels. Even if the Democrats were in top shape, this revolutionized GOP would give Trump significantly more power than he had in 2017.

...

The barrage of prosecutions of Trump while he was out of power probably made his second presidency more willful and vindictive. Arguments for forbearance in the White House and Justice Department presumably have more trouble gaining traction when MAGA’s pit bulls point out that Democrats tried to convict Trump of crimes that could have put him in prison for life. Democrats who still defend the prosecutions ought to at least acknowledge the natural result of them. The failure of the prosecutions probably also contributes to Democratic political demoralization: They used the strongest possible tools against Trump and it didn’t work.

...

For most of Trump’s first term, Republican appointees made up a 5-4 majority on the Supreme Court. That changed only in late 2020 with the appointment of Amy Coney Barrett, shifting the majority to 6-3. The single vote makes a big difference because Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. can no longer decide by himself which side will win the 5-4 split in politically charged cases. The court has been a brake on Trump’s most abusive immigration gambits but has done little else to interfere with his accumulation of power. That might well change as his actions are litigated and appealed, but the change in the Supreme Court’s composition in Trump’s first term probably at least delayed confrontation in his second.

Defying Courts

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start. The rule of law is under threat.

Justin Jouvenal at WP:

The Post examined 337 lawsuits filed against the administration since Trump returned to the White House and began a rapid-fire effort to reshape government programs and policy. As of mid-July, courts had ruled against the administration in 165 of the lawsuits. The Post found that the administration is accused of defying or frustrating court oversight in 57 of those cases — almost 35 percent.

Legal experts said the pattern of conduct is unprecedented for any presidential administration and threatens to undermine the judiciary’s role as a check on an executive branch asserting vast powers that test the boundaries of the law and Constitution. Immigration cases have emerged as the biggest flash point, but the administration has also repeatedly been accused of failing to comply in lawsuits involving cuts to federal funding and the workforce.

The Great Grovel

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start.

John F. Harris at Politico:

Prestigious law firms have cowered at his threats to tank their business; Paul, Weiss, which fought against Trump in his first term, pledged $40 million in pro bono legal services to issues Trump has supported. And Skadden Arps, one of the largest law firms in the world, reached a deal with Trump to provide $100 million in free legal work to administration-friendly causes — before Trump had taken any action against them.

One of the country’s most storied news networks, ABC News, settled a defamation lawsuit with Trump for $15 million that will go to his future presidential library, and another, CBS News, appears poised to settle for millions more. The Washington Post and the LA Times, both legacy papers owned by Trump-friendly billionaires, have adjusted the content of their editorial pages in ways that pleased the White House. And Columbia University, alma mater to Alexander Hamilton, agreed to nine policy changes in an effort to unfreeze $400 million in federal funding. Other universities hired Republican lobbyists to stay on the president’s good side.

Partisan Gap in Presidential Approval

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start.

 Bruce Mehlman:

The gap between approval of U.S. presidents by their own party vs approval by members of the other party has been growing for decades. New Gallup data this week make clear this trend persists, with 91% of Republicans approving Trump's job performance vs 4% of Democrats.

Napoleonic Code

 Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start. 

He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 15, 2025

Maggie Haberman, Charlie Savage and Jonathan Swan at NYT:

By late afternoon, Mr. Trump had pinned the statement to the top of his Truth Social feed, making it clear it was not a passing thought but one he wanted people to absorb. The official White House account on X posted his message in the evening.

The quote is a variation of one sometimes attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte, although its origin is unclear.

...

The Trump administration at first did not offer a public legal rationale for blowing through the statutes that provide various kinds of job protections to the officials that Mr. Trump has summarily fired, including members of independent agencies like the National Labor Relations Board.

But last week, the administration offered something of an explanation. Sarah M. Harris, the acting solicitor general at the Justice Department, sent a letter to Congress saying the department would not defend the constitutionality of statutes that limit firing members of independent agencies before their terms were up. Such laws say the president cannot remove such an official at will, but only for a specific cause like misconduct.

While not using the phrase “unitary executive theory,” Ms. Harris’s letter echoed its ideological tenet that the Constitution does not allow Congress to enact a law “which prevents the president from adequately supervising principal officers in the executive branch who execute the laws on the president’s behalf,” and said the Trump administration will try to get the Supreme Court to overturn a 1935 precedent to the contrary.

...

But, taken at face value, Mr. Trump’s statement on Saturday went much further, suggesting that even if what he is doing unambiguously breaks an otherwise valid law, that would not matter if he says his motive is to save the country.

...

While national security cases rarely get litigated, when they have, the Supreme Court has been skeptical of sweeping theories of presidential power — striking down President Harry S. Truman’s attempted seizure of steel mills as a Korean War measure, for example.

In any case, Mr. Trump’s moves so far have largely not been in the realm of national security. Rather, he has been attempting to stamp out pockets of independence that Congress created within the executive branch in order to centralize greater power in the White House over issues that are largely ones of domestic policy.

Mr. Trump and some of his allies have pushed the political argument that the nation has been under siege from what they characterize as leftist policies and values, and has fallen into a spiral of decline that must be reversed by any means necessary.

Among them, Mr. Trump’s budget chief, Russell Vought, wrote an essay in 2022, declaring that the United States was already in a “post-Constitutional moment” and that to push back against liberals, it was necessary to be “radical in discarding or rethinking the legal paradigms that have confined our ability to return to the original Constitution.”

Trump: "He who saves his County does not violent any Law."

Rod Steiger as Napoleon Bonaparte in the 1970 film Waterloo asserting his dictatorial power:

"He who saves a nation violates no law."

Waterloo 1970 https://t.co/VeZIwnSunS pic.twitter.com/WIVKMMspxi

— Aaron (@BlueCardPack76) February 15, 2025

I've seen many news reports that Trump's Napoleon quote came from the 1970 Rod Steiger movie "Waterloo," but this isn't exactly true. The line was borrowed from a 1916 translation of Jules Bertaut's book of Napoleon quotes and has appeared in many conservative political texts. pic.twitter.com/c5WzS03tUl

— Jason Colavito (@JasonColavito) February 15, 2025

Trump v. Freedom of the Press

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start.

At NYT, Jim Rutenberg briefly describes Nixon's war on the press and then writes:

The scandal he thought he had outrun, Watergate, would ultimately force his resignation. And his brazen anti-press moves, which initially appeared to cow journalists, would stall in an onslaught of revelations about his role in covering up wrongdoing in his West Wing.

That dark chapter in media history is suddenly relevant again, as the second administration of President Trump resorts to a heavy-handed approach to traditional journalists that has all the hallmarks of his predecessor’s attempted press crackdown some 50 years ago.

...

Much of the early action has emanated from the F.C.C., which is an independent agency with a bipartisan board whose chair is selected by the president. Mr. Trump named a longtime Republican commissioner, Brendan Carr, to the post in November, calling him a “warrior for free speech.”

Already raising Nixon-style threats to tie television-station license renewals to government determinations about content — which the agency has some leeway to do under regulations that still require licensed broadcasters to serve the “public interest” — Mr. Carr has revived previously dismissed complaints against the three traditional broadcast networks, and opened an investigation into PBS and NPR.

An inquiry into CBS played out in public in recent days when the network cooperated with the F.C.C.’s request for information relating to the editing of a “60 Minutes” interview last fall with Vice President Kamala Harris. Mr. Trump had accused the network, in his own multibillion-dollar lawsuit, of deceptively altering the interview to boost Ms. Harris’s presidential campaign, which CBS denies.

Mr. Carr has said the outcome of the inquiry could factor in his agency’s review of a pending merger between CBS’s parent company, Paramount, and Skydance, creating a division between him and Democrats on the commission.

David Enrich at NYT:

The lawsuits are part of a broader campaign by Mr. Trump and his allies to attack major news organizations. This week, the president and his close ally Elon Musk falsely accused media outlets, including The New York Times, of being government-financed organs of the state. (Some government agencies purchase subscriptions to the publications.) Some of Mr. Trump’s nominees for top administration jobs, as well as Mr. Musk, have threatened to sue media companies for critical articles. The Federal Communications Commission is investigating outlets including NPR and PBS.

...

Days before the presidential election, Edward Paltzik, a lawyer with a small New York law firm, sued CBS on Mr. Trump’s behalf in federal court in Amarillo, Texas. The suit argued that CBS “doctored” its interview with Ms. Harris to present her in a positive light, violating a state law against “false, misleading or deceptive acts or practices in the conduct of any trade or commerce.” It sought $10 billion in damages.

There was no evidence in the complaint that CBS edited the interview in a manipulative fashion, instead of for clarity or brevity. There was no evidence that the interview misled viewers or damaged Mr. Trump. And it was unclear what legal standing Mr. Trump had to bring a lawsuit in Texas, where he does not live and which was not the site of the interview.

But filing the suit in Amarillo meant it would be heard by Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee who has been hospitable to conservative lawsuits that many lawyers regard as meritless.

About six weeks later, in December, Mr. Paltzik filed the suit against The Des Moines Register and Ms. Selzer in state court in Iowa, claiming that Ms. Selzer’s poll had been warped to harm Mr. Trump. The suit did not present evidence that the poll was deliberately skewed, that Mr. Trump had been hurt or that he had standing to file a lawsuit in Iowa.

 

Amateur Hour 2025

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics.   The second Trump administration is off to an uneven start.

Jonathan Swan and Zolan Kanno-Youngs at NYT:

The explosive Trump administration order that froze trillions of dollars of federal grants and loans this week was published without vetting by key officials in the White House, according to three people with knowledge of what happened.

The order was drafted inside the Office of Management and Budget by the agency’s general counsel, Mark Paoletta, two of the people said. And it was released without being shown to the White House staff secretary, Will Scharf, or to Mr. Trump’s top policy adviser, Stephen Miller.

The people spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive discussions.

The White House rescinded the directive on Wednesday after legal challenges and widespread condemnation and confusion, including the interruption of the Medicaid system, which provides health care to millions of low-income Americans. President Trump was angered by the media coverage of the order and its aftershocks, according to a person who spoke to him.

During a bill signing at the White House on Wednesday, Mr. Trump cast blame on the media for the confusion. “We are merely looking at parts of the big bureaucracy where there has been tremendous waste and fraud and abuse,” he said.

Absolutely bush league and childish.

It’s like listening to a child figure out what happened.

Let grown adults work it out first Mr. President then you can send your opinion https://t.co/JwqEot9DW7

— Adam Kinzinger (Slava Ukraini) 🇺🇸🇺🇦🇮🇱 (@AdamKinzinger) January 30, 2025

Convicted Felon Trump

In Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics, we look at Trump's dishonesty and disregard for the rule of law.

Our next book will look at the 2024 campaign and the impact of Trump's legal problems

Peter Baker at NYT:

A big economic package, mass deportations, maybe even some invasions of other countries. Oh, and one more item. “I’ll do my little thing tomorrow,” a busy President-elect Donald J. Trump mentioned the other night.

That little thing was the first criminal sentencing of an American president. That little thing was confirmation that Mr. Trump, just 10 days later, would become the first president to move into the White House with a rap sheet. That little thing is the latest shift in standards that once governed high office.

Mr. Trump does not really consider it a little thing, of course, given how strenuously he sought to avoid Friday’s sentencing for 34 felony counts in his hush money case. But to a remarkable degree, he has succeeded in making it a little thing in the body politic. What was once a pretty-much-guaranteed disqualifier for the presidency is now just one more political event seen through a partisan lens.

After all, no one seemed shocked after Friday’s sentencing in New York. While Mr. Trump was spared jail time or financial penalties, he effectively had the word “felon” tattooed on his record for all time unless a higher court overturns the conviction. But that development was already baked into the system. Voters knew last fall that Mr. Trump had been found guilty by a jury of his peers, and enough of them decided it was either illegitimate or not as important as other issues.

Toss-Up America

In Defying the Odds, we talk about the social and economic divides that enabled Trump to enter the White House. In Divided We Stand, we discuss how these divides played out in 2020. 

 At Axios, Jim Vande Hei and Mike Allenn offer eight immutable laws of Toss-up America. 

1. The 50-50 rule. Only twice since 2000 has the White House, Senate or House not flipped. Hence, constant political volatility. Move a few hundred thousand votes in three states in 2016 or 2020, and the loser would have been president.
2. The popularity mirage. Democrats have won the popular vote for president in seven of the last eight elections. But they still lost the electoral vote, which decides the winner — George W. Bush in 2000 and Donald Trump in 2016. The same dynamic is often true for House and Senate races. Democrats pack themselves so tightly into big cities in big states, which is why those red and blue maps look like red seas.
3. Women rule — voting. More women than men have voted in every election since 1980 — and almost always a majority for Dems. The number of U.S. women registered to vote is typically 7 million to 10 million more than the number of men, according to the Center for American Women and Politics. Among young women (ages 18 to 29) in six swing states, N.Y. Times-Siena College polls in August found an astonishing 38-point advantage for Harris (67%-29%).
4. Most states don't matter. Both parties see the same seven swing states for the White House. The states change a bit — but the number hardly budges. The ballgame in 2024 will be the Blue Wall states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania + the fast-growing Sun Belt swath of Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and North Carolina. You can boil it down to: Harris needs Pennsylvania, and Trump needs Georgia. In the past four elections, 40 states have voted for the same party.
5. The Trump hump. Roughly 45% of voters are diehards who can be expected to be with him no matter what. But he also has a ceiling: He didn't break 47% in 2016 or 2020, and is unlikely to go much above that this year. That's why third parties and double-haters matter on the margins.
6. The Senate is almost always in play. It all comes down to which 33 states have Senate races in a given two-year cycle. It's all about the map. And this year, Republicans have a formidable advantage: West Virginia is certain to go red after the retirement of Sen. Joe Manchin. Democrats have to win Trump-friendly Ohio and Montana — plus the White House — for a 50-50 Senate majority, with the vice president as the tie-breaker. Candidate quality plays an outsized role: Republican Senate candidates have consistently underperformed Trump in battleground polling, giving Democrats an edge in what otherwise would be toss-ups. But Dems also face tough maps in 2026 and 2028.
7. Flipping the House is easier than ever. Redistricting — and self-sorting, where conservatives and liberals literally move next to like-minded neighbors — has rendered 400 of 435 races over before they begin. Rural areas and big cities are rarely, if ever, competitive. After several changes Friday, The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter rates only 24 House races as toss-ups, with 13 held by Republicans and 11 held by Dems — a nearly even split. Dave Wasserman, Cook's senior editor and election analyst, tells us Democrats need to win 15 of 24 toss-ups (60%) to win the majority. They won 75% of Cook's toss-ups (27/36) in 2022.
8. There's no Election Day. Yes, Nov. 5 is technically Election Day. But most people voted long before. COVID "accelerated voting trends that had been building for the past decade," Doug Sosnik, a top adviser to President Clinton, wrote last year in his "10 New Rules of American Politics." Several key states — including the biggest prize of all, Pennsylvania — start early voting this month.
9. 
   
10. Stat for the road: Dave "I've Seen Enough" Wasserman turned us onto a fascinating metric. In a House where Republicans hold the narrowest majority, just 16 districts out of 435 (4%!) voted for a different party for president than for House — toss-up America.

Power and Violence

Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good. Some Republican leaders -- and a measurable number of rank-and-file voters -- are open to violent rebellion, coups, and secession.  Trump has accused the Biden Administration of trying to kill him. 

Justice: Let's talk about some of the things that you might be able to do as president.

Trump: You can do everything. The President has such power. It does. Such power. pic.twitter.com/tzpcLgIi3D

— Acyn (@Acyn) August 31, 2024

“That’s okay.” Man tries to violently attack the press at Trump rally in Pennsylvania. Trump, who often denigrates the press and promotes violence, defends him, says “that’s beautiful” and “he’s on our side”. pic.twitter.com/brDNXXROY5

— Mike Sington (@MikeSington) August 31, 2024

Mike Davis, the former Chief Counsel for Nominations to Senator Chuck Grassley and current employee of The Federalist Society, is now dog whistling for violence because he knows his master is going to lose.

Wouldn’t be surprised if he’s dragged in for a hearing or has an… pic.twitter.com/OluzLBWzoD

— Art Candee 🍿🥤 (@ArtCandee) September 1, 2024

Hannah Knowles at WP:

Donald Trump amplified a vulgar joke about Vice President Kamala Harris performing a sex act. He falsely accused her of staging a coup to secure the Democratic nomination and faulted her without evidence for a security lapse that enabled a rogue gunman to try to assassinate him. He shared a manipulated online image of Bill Gates in an orange jumpsuit and a call for Barack Obama to face a “military tribunal.” He promoted explicit tributes to the QAnon conspiracy theory. He hawked digital trading cards in an online infomercial along with pieces of his debate night suit. (“People are calling it the knockout suit.”) His campaign feuded publicly with Arlington National Cemetery over their visit. And that was just in the span of 24 hours.

Why Biden Ran

Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. The 2024 race has begun.  It is a fight between two very old men.

In light of  Biden's poor debate performance, many political observers are wondering why he ran in the first place.

Peter Baker at NYT:

If any of the president’s advisers has ever addressed Mr. Biden’s age with him in a forthright way, they have not acknowledged it. According to recent interviews with dozens of his closest aides and friends, the president engaged in no organized process outside of his family in deciding to run for a second term.

None of the advisers described a meeting or a memo that outlined pros and cons of a re-election campaign that might have addressed the consequences of age. None said they discouraged him from running or, for that matter, discussed how to address his age if he did. Instead, he simply told them to assume he was running unless he decided otherwise.

Such a conversation would be painfully difficult for presidential aides. There is something fundamentally different about raising such a personal issue with a boss as opposed to impersonal factors like battleground states, polling or policy questions.

Mr. Biden’s closest current and former aides, like Ron Klain, Anita Dunn, Jeffrey D. Zients, Steve Ricchetti, Mike Donilon, Jen O’Malley Dillon and Bruce Reed, deeply admire and respect the president. They would not want to hurt him and they see the best in him, according to fellow Democrats.

“He’s famous for having really, really loyal people,” Ms. [Elaine] Kamarck said. “He’s like a father to Ron Klain. What do you say to your father? This is tough, very tough.”

...

Indeed, given his age and experience, Mr. Biden has few people he truly sees as peers, as much as anyone could be a peer to a president. His relations with Mr. Clinton and Mr. Obama are complicated, and some Biden advisers said he would bristle if either of those former presidents had told him last year not to run or told him now to think about dropping out. Most of the senators Mr. Biden served with for so many years, the ones whose opinions he valued, are largely gone. Ted Kaufman, his close friend and longtime aide who succeeded him in the Senate, has been one of the most supportive of a re-election bid.

The Biden Cocoon

Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. The 2024 race has begun.  It is a fight between two very old men.

Jonathan V. Last: "When people say Biden is “old” what they mean is “frail.” Trump is functionally the same age as a Biden, with a much worse BMI and cognitive functioning. But because Trump can yell at the moon like a mad dog, people see him as “vigorous” and age isn’t a problem.

Katie Rogers and Lisa Lerer at NYT:

Aides have President Biden take the shorter stairs to board Air Force One. When it comes to news conferences, they yell loudly — and quickly — to end the questions, sometimes stealing a classic awards show tactic and playing loud music to signal the conclusion of the event. And forget about regular interviews with major news publications, including a traditional presidential sit-down on Super Bowl Sunday.

Over the years, some of Mr. Biden’s key aides have gone from letting “Joe be Joe” to wrapping a presidential cocoon around him that is intended to shield him from verbal slips and physical stumbles.

All presidents are shielded by the strictures of the office, yet for Mr. Biden, who at 81 is the oldest person in history to hold the job, the decision is not only situational but strategic, according to several people who are familiar with the dynamic. The cloistered nature of his White House reflects a concern among some of his top aides that Mr. Biden, who has always been prone to gaffes, risks making a mistake.

Trump Personnel Plot

Our recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good. Trump and his minions falsely claimed that he won the election, and have kept repeating the Big Lie.  And we now know how close he came to subverting the Constitution.   

He is planning an authoritarian agenda and would take care to eliminate any internal dissent.

Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen at Politico:

Former President Trump's allies are pre-screening the ideologies of thousands of potential foot soldiers, as part of an unprecedented operation to centralize and expand his power at every level of the U.S. government if he wins in 2024, officials involved in the effort tell Axios.

Why it matters: Hundreds of people are spending tens of millions of dollars to install a pre-vetted, pro-Trump army of up to 54,000 loyalists across government to rip off the restraints imposed on the previous 46 presidents.

• The screening for ready-to-serve loyalists has already begun, driven in part by artificial intelligence from tech giant Oracle, contracted for the project.
• Social media histories are already being plumbed.

...If Trump were to win, thousands of Trump-first loyalists would be ready for legal, judicial, defense, regulatory and domestic policy jobs. His inner circle plans to purge anyone viewed as hostile to the hard-edged, authoritarian-sounding plans he calls "Agenda 47."

...

Behind the scenes: The government-in-waiting is being orchestrated by the Heritage Foundation's well-funded Project 2025, which already has published a 920-page policy book from 400+ contributors. Think of it as a transition team set in motion years in advance.

• Heritage president Kevin Roberts tells us his apparatus is "orders of magnitude" bigger than anything ever assembled for a party out of power.
• The policy series, "Mandate for Leadership," dates back to the 1980s. But Paul Dans, director of Project 2025, told us: "Never before has the entire movement ... banded together to construct a comprehensive plan to deconstruct the out-of-touch and weaponized administrative state."

...

How it works: The most elaborate part of the pre-transition machine is a résumé-collection project that drills down more on political philosophy than on experience, education or other credentials.

• Applicants are asked to "name one person, past or present, who has most influenced the development of your political philosophy" — and to do the same with a book.
• Another query: "Name one living public policy figure whom you greatly admire and why."

...'

•  We're told immense, intense attention will be given to the social-media histories of anyone being considered for top jobs. Those queasy about testing the limits of Trump's power will get flagged and rejected.

The Disqualification Clause

 Our book, Divided We Stand, looks at the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection.

J. Michael Luttig and Laurence H. Tribe at The Atlantic:

The former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, and the resulting attack on the U.S. Capitol, place him squarely within the ambit of the disqualification clause, and he is therefore ineligible to serve as president ever again. The most pressing constitutional question facing our country at this moment, then, is whether we will abide by this clear command of the Fourteenth Amendment’s disqualification clause.

We were immensely gratified to see that a richly researched article soon to be published in an academic journal has recently come to the same conclusion that we had and is attracting well-deserved attention outside a small circle of scholars—including Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Anjani Jain of the Yale School of Management, whose encouragement inspired us to write this piece. The evidence laid out by the legal scholars William Baude and Michael Stokes Paulsen in “The Sweep and Force of Section Three,” available as a preprint, is momentous. Sooner or later, it will influence, if not determine, the course of American constitutional history—and American history itself.

At WP,  Jason Willick says that there are problems with the argument

An insurrection in a colloquial or political sense is not the same as an insurrection in a constitutionally binding sense. The Congressional Research Service notes that the Insurrection Act describes a situation in which it is “impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States in any State by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings.” That doesn’t seem to apply to the Jan. 6 violence, after which participants were vigorously prosecuted in federal court.

Trump probably gave “aid or comfort” to the mob with his disgraceful delay in responding to the violence at the Capitol — but to be constitutionally disqualified, an official must give aid or comfort to “enemies” of the country. As the Congressional Research Service also notes, “history … suggests that an ‘enemy’ is one who owes allegiance to an opposing government and not merely a U.S. citizen opposing the U.S. government.”

Baude and Paulsen anticipated such objections:

IInsurrection is best understood as concerted, forcible resistance to the authority of government to execute the laws in at least some significant respect. The term “insurrection” connotes something more than mere ordinary lawbreaking. It suggests an affirmative contest with, and active resistance to, the authority of the government. It is in that sense more than just organized resistance to the laws—more than just a protest, even one involving civil disobedience. Rather, it is organized resistance to the government. Insurrection is also more than mere “protest” in that it implies some element of forcible resistance. It is something more than a mere spontaneous, disorganized “riot.” Insurrection suggests at least some degree of coordinated, concerted action. The term also implies something more than acts of solitary individuals: to qualify as an insurrection the acts in question must involve some form of collective action, even if not an advance plan.

...

 We believe that “enemies” as employed in Section Three, embraces enemies both foreign and domestic. That now-familiar phrase (“enemies foreign and domestic”) comes from the “Ironclad Oath,” written into law in 1862, in the midst of the Civil War, and it seems clear from the political context of Section Three, enacted in the wake of a domestic civil war, that domestic enemies are enemies. It is almost unthinkable that Confederate rebels would not have been thought “enemies” in the sense employed by the text. Given the history and context of Section Three “enemies” seems to include the domestic rebels and insurrectionists just described earlier in the sentence. 

 

Heritage Personnel Database

Our new book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good.  Neither is the condition of the conservative movement.

 Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman at NYT:

If a Republican enters the Oval Office in 2025, whether it’s Donald J. Trump or someone else, there is a good chance that president will turn to the same electronic database to staff the White House and federal agencies.

Think of it as a right-wing LinkedIn. This so-called Project 2025 — part of a $22 million presidential transition operation at a scale never attempted before in conservative politics — is being led by the Heritage Foundation, a group that has been staffing Republican administrations since the Reagan era.

Heritage usually compiles its own personnel lists, and spends far less doing so. But for this election, after conservatives and Mr. Trump himself decried what they viewed as terrible staffing decisions made during his administration, more than 50 conservative groups have temporarily set aside rivalries to team up with Heritage on the project, set to start Friday.

They have already identified several thousand potential recruits and have set a goal of having up to 20,000 potential administration officials in their database by the end of 2024, according to Kevin Roberts, the president of Heritage. Heritage has contracted the technology company Oracle to build a secure personnel database, Dr. Roberts said.

...

Mr. Trump wants to demolish that career civil service — or what he pejoratively calls “the deep state.” He has privately told allies that if he gets back into power he plans to fire far more than the 4,000 government officials that presidents are typically allowed to replace. Mr. Trump’s lawyers already have the legal instrument in hand.

In late 2020, Mr. Trump issued an executive order that would establish a new employment category for federal workers, called “Schedule F.” Barely anyone noticed because the order was developed in strict secrecy over more than a year and issued only two weeks before the 2020 election.

... 

Mr. Trump’s staff estimated that Schedule F would give the president the power to terminate and replace as many as 50,000 career government officials who served in roles that influenced federal policy.

Unpopular Trump

In Defying the Odds, we discuss the 2016 campaign, where Trump suggested that he would not acknowledge defeat.  Divided We Stand, our next book, explains that his legal challenges to the election of Joseph Biden have toggled between appalling and farcical.    But his base continues to believe the bogus narrative.

 On January 6, his dishonesty and demagoguery ended in violence and death.

Outside the base, people have noticed.

 Jeffrey M. Jones at Gallup:

As President Donald Trump prepares to leave the White House, 34% of Americans approve of the job he is doing as president, the worst evaluation of his presidency. His 41% average approval rating throughout his presidency is four points lower than for any of his predecessors in Gallup's polling era. Trump's ratings showed a record 81-percentage-point average gap between Republicans and Democrats -- 11 points wider than the prior record.

...
Trump's refusal to concede the election and his attempts to overturn the results, the Jan. 6 riots on Capitol Hill, a U.S. surge in coronavirus cases and deaths, and his second impeachment contributed to a postelection erosion in support for him.

The total 12-point drop in approval for Trump after the election is especially notable in that most departing presidents -- including two who were defeated for a second term -- enjoyed increases in job approval ratings between the time of the election to choose their successor and his inauguration. On average, "lame duck presidents" before Trump saw a seven-point increase in job approval. Jimmy Carter is the only other president whose approval ratings declined during the transition period.

Domenico Montanaro at NPR:

As President Trump is set to leave the White House after a tumultuous and chaotic four years, having been the first president to ever be impeached twice and having his last year dominated by a worldwide pandemic, most Americans say he will go down as either below average or one of the worst presidents in U.S. history, according to an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist survey.

Ben Leonard at Politico:

Republican support for convicting President Donald Trump in his Senate impeachment trial has grown in his final days in office, according to a POLITICO/Morning Consult poll released Tuesday.

About 20 percent of Republicans said they “strongly” or “somewhat” approved of convicting in the latest poll, conducted Jan. 15-17. That’s an increase from the previous poll, conducted Jan. 8-11, in which 14 percent of Republicans said the same.

Trump's Tepid Rally Effect

In Defying the Odds, we discuss the 2016 campaign.  The update  -- recently published --includes a chapter on the 2018 midterms.  In 2020, a good economy could tip the election in Trump's favor.  A bad economy would drag him down. Coronavirus threatens the economy -- as well as American lives.

Jacqueline Alemany at The Washington Post:

President Trump is seeing a small spike in public support in the face of the coronavirus crisis: Six in 10 Americans say they approve of the job he's doing to combat the pandemic, and his approval rating is back up to match the highest in his presidency, according to a new Gallup poll.

By the numbers: Trump is seeing what Gallup calls a “fairly sudden increase” in job approval ratings — and among independents and Democrats no less. These dynamics — which Gallup senior editor Jeffrey M. Jones calls “both highly unusual for Trump in particular” — signal a boost amid the outbreak, which has infected nearly 55,000 and claimed the lives of more than 700 people in the U.S. as of this morning, despite efforts to slow the spread.

• Forty-nine percent of U.S. adults, up from 44 percent earlier this month, approve of the job Trump is doing as president. As Gallup notes, Trump also saw 49% job approval ratings in late January and early February around the Senate impeachment trial that resulted in his acquittal.
• Trump's job approval ratings are up 8 points among independents and 6 points among Democrats in the poll conducted March 13-22, compared to earlier in the month.
• The 60 percent of Americans who approve of his response to coronavirus crisis includes 94 percent of Republicans, 60 percent of independents and 27 percent of Democrats. 38 percent of Americans say they disapprove of his response.

The numbers are striking especially since many public health experts, medical professionals and Democrats have criticized Trump for a delayed and disorganized initial response to the coronavirus crisis – including struggling to ramp up testing capacity and downplaying the severity of the early threat and potential for massive crisis.

In keeping with past trends: “Historically, presidential job approval has increased when the nation is under threat,” according to Jones. “Every president from Franklin Roosevelt through George W. Bush saw their approval rating surge at least 10 points after a significant national event of this kind. [George W.] Bush's 35-point increase after 9/11 is the most notable rally effect on record. During these rallies, independents and supporters of the opposing party to the president typically show heightened support for the commander in chief.”

David W. Moore, Gallup, September 24, 2001
:

Note that this spike occurred before Bush even started military action against the terrorists in Afghanistan on October 7.

Partisan polarization is part of the reason for Trump's limited rally.  Obama got only a modest bounce after the killing of bin Laden.

Unpresidented

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's dishonesty and his record of disregarding the rule of law. The 2019 update includes a chapter on the 2018 midterms.

Mike Allen at Axios:

• Other presidents lamented disloyal servants, but rarely purged them en masse and in public. Trump told staff after his impeachment acquittal that he felt surrounded by "snakes" and "bad people" he wanted ousted.
• Other presidents plugged loyalists into key jobs — but rarely made that the prerequisite. To run the powerful presidential personnel office, Trump last week tapped John McEntee, 29, who has no experience in staffing governments, and was fired by his former chief of staff John Kelly — but is a favorite of the family.
• Other presidents pardoned criminals — but never in a big batch in the middle of a re-election race, after getting lobbied on TV. Trump's 11 pardons and commutations this week included Rod Blagojevich, a Democrat and former Illinois governor whose wife, Patti, had appealed to Trump on Fox News. Blagojevich told cameras that he's now a "Trumpocrat."
• Other presidents pressured their Justice Department, but never so nakedly and publicly. Trump, asked this week if he agreed with Attorney General Bill Barr that White House tweets made it impossible to do the job, said: "I do agree with that. I think that’s true. ... I'm allowed to be totally involved. I'm actually, I guess, the chief law enforcement officer of the country."

In New Delhi, an exchange with Jim Acosta of CNN:

Q    I just wanted to follow up on my colleague’s question about Russian interference.  Can you pledge to the American people that you will not accept any foreign assistance in the upcoming election?
And on this idea of a purge in your administration, there was recently the departure of your Acting DNI, Joseph Maguire.  You replaced him with your Ambassador to Germany, Rick Grenell.  Some of your critics have pointed out that Ambassador Grenell has no intelligence experience.  How can you justify to the American people having an Acting DNI with no intelligence experience?
THE PRESIDENT:  Okay, first of all, I want no help from any country.  And I haven’t been given help from any country.
And if you see what CNN, your wonderful network, said — (laughter) — I guess they apologized, in a way, for — didn’t they apologize for the fact that they said certain things that weren’t true?  Tell me, what was their apology yesterday?  What did they say?
Q    Mr. President, I think our record on delivering the truth is a lot better than yours sometimes, if you don’t mind me saying.
THE PRESIDENT:  Your record is — let me tell you about your record.  Your record is so bad you ought to be ashamed of yourself.
Q    I’m not ashamed of anything, and our —
THE PRESIDENT:  You have probably the worst record —
Q    — organization is not ashamed, sir.
THE PRESIDENT:  — in the history of broadcasting.

Impeachment Documents

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's character and record of bigotry. The update includes a chapter on the 2018 midterms.  Impeachment is becoming likely.

• House Intelligence Committee report on the facts
• House Judiciary staff report on grounds for impeachment.
• The draft articles of impeachment:

Article I: Abuse of power

The Constitution provides that the House of Representatives "shall have the sole Power of Impeachment and that the President shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors". In his conduct of the office of President of the United States—and in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed—Donald J. Trump has abused the powers of the Presidency, in that:

Using the powers of his high office, President Trump solicited the interference of a foreign government, Ukraine, in the 2020 United States Presidential election. He did so through a scheme or course of conduct that included soliciting the Government of Ukraine to publicly announce investigations that would benefit his reelection, harm the election prospects of a political opponent, and influence the 2020 United States Presidential election to his advantage. President Trump also sought to pressure the Government of Ukraine to take these steps by conditioning official United States Government acts of significant value to Ukraine on its public announcement of the investigations. President Trump engaged in this scheme or course of conduct for corrupt purposes in pursuit of personal political benefit. In so doing, President Trump used the powers of the Presidency in a manner that compromised the national security of the United States and undermined the integrity of the United States democratic process. He thus ignored and injured the interests of the Nation.

President Trump engaged in this scheme or course of conduct through the following means:
(1) President Trump—acting both directly and through his agents Within and Outside the United States Government—corruptly solicited the Government of Ukraine to publicly announce investigations into—
(A) a political opponent, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden, Jr.; and
(B) a discredited theory promoted by Russia alleging that Ukraine—rather than Russia—interfered in the 2016 United States Presidential election.
(2) With the same corrupt motives, President Trump—acting both directly and through his agents within and outside the United States Government–conditioned two official acts on the public announcements that he had requested—
(A) the release of $391 million of United 5 States taxpayer funds that Congress had appropriated on a bipartisan basis for the purpose of providing vital military and security assistance to Ukraine to oppose Russian aggression and which President Trump had ordered suspended; and
(B) a head of state meeting at the White House, which the President of Ukraine sought to demonstrate continued United States support for the Government of Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression.
(3) Faced with the public revelation of his actions, President Trump ultimately released the military and security assistance to the Government of Ukraine, but has persisted in openly and corruptly urging and soliciting Ukraine to undertake investigations for his personal political benefit.

These actions were consistent with President Trump's previous invitations of foreign interference in United States elections.

In all this, President Trump abused the powers of the Presidency by ignoring and injuring national security and other vital national interests to obtain an improper personal political benefit. He has also betrayed the Nation by abusing his high office to enlist a foreign power in corrupting democratic elections.

Wherefore President Trump, by such conduct, has demonstrated that he will remain a threat to national security and the Constitution if allowed to remain in office, and has acted in a manner grossly incompatible with self- governance and the rule of law.

President Trump thus warrants impeachment and trial, removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States.

Article II: Obstruction of Congress

The Constitution provides that the House of Representatives "shall have the sole Power of Impeachment" and that the President "shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors". In his conduct of the office of President of the United States—and in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed—

Donald J. Trump has directed the unprecedented, categorical, and indiscriminate defiance of subpoenas issued by the House of Representatives pursuant to its sole Power of Impeachment. President Trump has abused the powers of the Presidency in a manner offensive to, and subversive of, the Constitution, in that:

The House of Representatives has engaged in an impeachment inquiry focused on President Trump's corrupt solicitation of the Government of Ukraine to interfere in the 2020 United States Presidential election. As part of this impeachment inquiry, the Committees undertaking the investigation served subpoenas seeking documents and testimony deemed vital to the inquiry from various Executive Branch agencies and offices, and current and former officials.

In response, without lawful cause or excuse, President Trump directed Executive Branch agencies, offices, and officials not to comply with those subpoenas. President Trump thus interposed the powers of the Presidency against the lawful subpoenas of the House of Representatives, and assumed to himself functions and judgments necessary to the exercise of the "sole Power of Impeachment" vested by the Constitution in the House of Representatives.

President Trump abused the powers of his high office through the following means:
(1) Directing the White House to defy a lawful subpoena by withholding the production of documents sought therein by the Committees.
(2) Directing other Executive Branch agencies and offices to defy lawful subpoenas and withhold the production of documents and records from the Committees—in response to which the Department of State, Office of Management and Budget, Department of Energy, and Department of Defense refused to produce a single document or record.
(3) Directing current and former Executive Branch officials not to cooperate with the Committees—in response to which nine Administration officials defied subpoenas for testimony, namely John Michael "Mick" Mulvaney, Robert B. Blair, John A. Eisenberg, Michael Ellis, Preston Wells Griffith, Russell T. Vought, Michael Duffey, Brian McCormack, and T. Ulrich Brechbuhl.
These actions were consistent with President Trump's previous efforts to undermine United States Government investigations into foreign interference in United States elections.

Through these actions, President Trump sought to arrogate to himself the right to determine the propriety, scope, and nature of an impeachment inquiry into his own conduct, as well as the unilateral prerogative to deny any and all information to the House of Representatives in the exercise of its "sole Power of Impeachment". In the history of the Republic, no President has ever ordered the complete defiance of an impeachment inquiry or sought to obstruct and impede so comprehensively the ability of the House of Representatives to investigate "high Crimes and Misdemeanors". This abuse of office served to cover up the President's own repeated misconduct and to seize and control the power of impeachment and thus to nullify a vital constitutional safeguard vested solely in the House of Representatives.

In all of this, President Trump has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice, and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.

Wherefore, President Trump, by such conduct, has demonstrated that he will remain a threat to the Constitution if allowed to remain in office, and has acted in a manner grossly incompatible with self-governance and the rule of law. President Trump thus warrants impeachment and trial, removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States.