Has Trump changed the Presidency?

In the first three months after taking the oath of office, in 2024, the 47th president has deployed his power in a way that compares to few predecessors. In stacks of bound documents signed off with a presidential pen and policy announcements made in all caps on social media, his blizzard of executive actions has reached into every corner of American life.

Executive Orders 

The Remaking of a Nation 

To his supporters, the shock-and-awe approach has been a tangible demonstration of an all-action president, delivering on his promises and enacting long-awaited reforms.

But his critics fear he is doing irreparable harm to the country and overstepping his powers - crippling important government functions and perhaps permanently reshaping the presidency in the process.

Case study President Trump 

And now a new debate- What impact has Trump had on the Republican Party?

In 2016 Donald J Trump became the Republican candidate for the presidency. Was Trump leading an ideological battle within the Republican Party? Trump had been a supporter of the Clintons and a New York Democrat and in the campaign, Trump seemed an almost post-ideological candidate in many ways. He was not a conservative in the mould of Senator Ted Cruz or former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. He did not call for  limited, instead he promised investment in infrastructure- such as a wall between the |USA and Mexico. He actually opposed key Republican ideals such as  free trade, Wall Street financiers and corporate executives who moved jobs abroad. He even wanted to protect entitlement programmes from budget cuts. In his last days in office he vetoed defence spending - which was overridden with Republican votes and called for $2000 handouts in the Covid relief bill- supported by Democrats and opposed by Republicans.  

But then neither was Trump a moderate or liberal Republican in the mould of Mitt Romney or John McCain, the party’s two previous presidential nominees. He promised to appoint conservative judges to the Supreme Court and did so-he courted leading evangelical leaders and constantly extolled his admiration for President Ronald Reagan.  In the 2020 campaign, he promised to oppose socialism and defend America form crime and anarchy. Trump’s attraction to those who supported him had more to do with what he was not — a politician.  Trump’s brand of ‘America First’ economic nationalism came to dominate the agenda and take over the republican party, so much so that leading Republicans feared to tell him he had lost the election. Trump is the first post modern president.

Does the Trump presidency mean that persuasion and compromise are things of the past? As George C. Edwards (2009) has suggested, might presidents in the context of polarised politics conclude that they can no longer govern by adopting an inclusive approach to policy making, that there is little potential for persuasion, and the only way to govern is on the basis of a ‘50% plus 1’ majority?

'Congress has become the least powerful branch of government' Discuss 

Rather than seeking compromise with their opponents by bringing them into an inclusive coalition and supporting legislation broadly acceptable to the electorate, they sought, as Edwards put it, ‘to defeat the opposition, creating winners and losers in a zero-sum game’. If so, then presidential elections will be no more than an effort to mobilise one’s own party base rather than convince undecided and swing voters of the merits of one’s vision for the country. In the 2020 election Trump appealed to his base with little attempt to reach out to those who did not vote for him in 2016 and he increased his vote by 6 million. he also succeed in mobilising his opponents. Trump hay be the first presidential candidate who campaigned for and against himself.

But is Trump a one off or has something changed?

Mr Trump used the presidency as a perpetual campaign, filing with the Federal Election Commission for the 2020 election on the day of his inauguration, January 20, 2017.  “He’s dynamited the institution of the presidency,” said Douglas Brinkley, presidential historian at Rice University. “He doesn’t see himself as being part of a long litany of presidents who will hand a baton to a successor. Instead, he uses the presidency as an extension of his own personality.”

Is this a one-president aberration? Or has the White House forever changed? Whether the trends will outlast  Trump’s presidency is a question that won’t be answered until there is a new occupant in the Oval Office, but Brinkley predicts “no future president will model themselves on him.”

There was a time, many accelerated news cycles ago, when there was speculation, stoked by the candidate himself, that Trump would abandon the bluster of his campaign and become “more presidential” once he took office.

No one says that anymore.

Trump himself believes his unpredictability is what holds Americans’ attention and fuels his success.

“I have these stupid teleprompters. You don’t mind that I haven’t used them all night, do you?” Trump asked the crowd at a June rally in South Carolina. “Every once in a while I look at it, I mean, it’s so boring, we don’t want it. America’s back, bigger, and better, and stronger than ever.”

Indeed, Trump brought to the White House the same fact-challenged, convention-defying style that got him elected. From his first days in office, Trump pushed falsehoods about the size of the inaugural crowd and unfounded allegations about millions of illegal voters. He has not let up since.

Is Trump's legacy his impact on the Republican Party?

Donald Trump’s 2016 electoral success has, among other things, been attributed to “… intensified political partisanship in the presence of well‐institutionalized racially coded campaign strategies and rhetoric…” (Bobo, 2017, S85). Does this explain his successes?

Case Study: Why did Trump win in 2024? 

How did Trump garner over 70 million votes while overseeing the highest unemployment rate in 80 years (Amadeo, 2020) and the worst epidemic in 100 years (Betz, 2020)? Hamblin (2020) notes that one exit poll showed coronavirus “was the most important issue guiding more than 40 percent of voters. But… 80 percent of Republican voters said they believe that

the virus is at least‘ some what under control’ in the same week that cases reached record numbers” . Here is a critical issue for voters, a government failing to address it, and 80 percent of the members of a major political party supporting what appears to be failed efforts.

Are they all stupid? Something else must be going on here. As Hamblin(2020) opined,“Much of what he [Trump] said and did as president was thinly veiled white supremacy, misogyny, race-baiting, and class warfare” .

This is not to say all voters selected Trump for reasons relating to race. Actually, non- college-educated minority voters increased support for Trump from 20 to 25 percent driven by a strong anti-socialist message to the Cuban community (Zhang & Burn-Murdoch, 2020).

Trump legitimately earned increased support among upper income voters (Zhang & Burn- Murdoch, 2020) – likely due to his tax policies

Potempkin Stupidity

Jerry Sheppard

Jesse Young

Not since America's founding 250 years ago has a U.S. president expanded power — and punished critics — in more unprecedented ways than Donald J. Trump.

Why it matters: Yes, most presidents stretch the power of the White House and, on rare occasions, blatantly target U.S. critics on U.S. soil. But Trump has veered, often suddenly, proudly and loudly, into unprecedented territory in at least 15 different areas.

• No president in peacetime has done this much in one year of one term.

Trump has done this in eight short months, often with the loyal backing of a compliant Republican-led Congress and validated by the conservative majority of the Supreme Court.

• Trump has 40 more months — four-fifths of his term — left to stretch it further. White House officials tell us they're just getting going. They see chaos as their brand and "consequence culture" taking root.

The big picture: Trump vs. Democrats — and the media, Congress, the courts, law firms, colleges and critics — seems likely to escalate, pushing America deeper into unprecedented territory.

• Trump advisers know there are few brakes left, particularly if Trump precedents prevail at the Supreme Court, or if Republicans keep control of Congress 14 months from now.

• The two of us have written extensively in these "Behind the Curtain" columns about the new rules being set, both for this administration and future ones. We've been careful to differentiate threats and hyperbole from actual actions. And we've been clear in reminding Republicans that all these powers could one day soon be used against them just as aggressively.

Truth is, we've been writing for 25 years about the ever-expanding imperial presidency. Trump officials tell us they're simply doing or expanding upon what's been before. But that's the point: The founders never envisioned a federal government this big and this powerful, or a president this unchecked.

• Here are 15 big ways Trump is shattering precedents, synthesized and narrated by Axios' Zachary Basu:

1. Executive power: Trump has declared nine national emergencies in his first eight months in office, stretching the definition of "emergency" in creative and aggressive ways.

• Historical analogy: Since 1980, presidents have declared an average of seven in a four-year term. Trump's 200+ executive orders fall far short of the thousands issued by FDR (a wartime president elected to four terms), but Trump's pace — 142 in his first 100 days — is the highest on record.

• New precedent: Future presidents can use loosely defined "emergencies" as a routine tool to bypass Congress and unlock extraordinary powers governing trade, immigration, mineral extraction and foreign disputes.

2. Free-press crackdown: Trump has waged the most aggressive government campaign against mainstream media in modern U.S. history — stripping funding from public outlets, pushing the FCC to revoke broadcast licenses over negative coverage, and personally suing CBS/Paramount, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times while in office.

• Historical analogy: No modern president has deployed such a mix of lawsuits and regulatory muscle. Even Richard Nixon, who targeted the Washington Post and CBS through the IRS and FCC, never sued multiple networks directly.

• New precedent: Future presidents can use lawsuits, regulatory threats, and funding pressure to bring independent media to heel.

3. Seizing congressional purse strings: Trump has tried to freeze or redirect billions in congressionally appropriated funds, from public health to foreign aid to university research.

• Historical analogy: The closest precedent is Nixon, who tried to "impound" funds in the early 1970s. Congress responded by passing the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 — which the Trump White House claims is unconstitutional — to stop presidents from unilaterally withholding money. No president since has attempted impoundments at this scale, or with such open defiance of Congress and the courts.

• New precedent: Future presidents can treat Congress's "power of the purse" as optional, withholding or redirecting funds to pressure states, institutions or foreign governments.

4. Tariffs: Trump has effectively seized the authority over tariffs that the Constitution gives to Congress, wielding tariffs to reshape global trade and punish countries for political or economic disputes.

• Historical analogy: The last sweeping tariff shock was Smoot–Hawley, which President Hoover signed in 1930 and wound up worsening the Great Depression. Since then, presidents have used delegated powers narrowly — including President Reagan's selective tariffs on Japanese motorcycles and semiconductors in the 1980s to try to protect American manufacturing. Trump is the first to use emergency authorities to impose broad tariffs without new congressional legislation.

• New precedent: Future presidents can bypass Congress to unilaterally set tariff policy, erasing one of the legislature's core constitutional powers.

5. Overriding the Constitution: Trump issued an executive order seeking to eliminate birthright citizenship — a right guaranteed in the 14th Amendment — for the children of unauthorized immigrants.

• Historical analogy: Past constitutional showdowns have come during war or insurrection: Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus in the Civil War. FDR interned Japanese Americans during World War II. In each case, presidents acted under extraordinary wartime claims of necessity. No president has ever tried to nullify a core constitutional guarantee by executive order in peacetime — not even Nixon at his most imperial.

• New precedent: Future presidents can attempt to nullify core constitutional rights through executive orders rather than constitutional amendments or legislation.

6. Purging watchdogs and civil servants: Trump has fired inspectors general en masse, dismantled independent agencies, and ordered loyalty-driven purges across the federal workforce.

• Historical analogy: The closest echoes are the spoils system under Andrew Jackson in the 1830s, when partisan loyalty determined federal jobs, and Nixon's "enemies list." But both were constrained — the Pendleton Act of 1883 ended mass patronage hiring, and inspectors general were introduced after Nixon. Trump has revived the spoils system at a scale unseen since the 19th century.

• New precedent: Future presidents can eliminate internal checks and turn civil servants into political operatives who serve the president rather than the public.

7. Eroding DOJ independence: Trump has declared himself the country's "chief law enforcement officer" — a title typically reserved for the attorney general — claiming the right to personally dictate prosecutions and order investigations of his political opponents.

• Historical analogy: Other presidents have leaned on the Justice Department — Nixon schemed to use the FBI and Justice Department against enemies until Watergate exposed it. George W. Bush's administration was accused of firing seven U.S. attorneys for political reasons, leading to the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and other top officials. The difference: Those efforts were usually concealed or denied. Trump has largely made his claims explicit, publicly asserting direct authority over prosecutors in a way no modern president has dared.

• New precedent: Future presidents can claim direct authority to launch or block investigations, erasing the long-standing norms separating the White House from the Justice Department.

8. Eroding Fed independence: Trump tried to fire Fed governor Lisa Cook as part of an extraordinary campaign to pressure the central bank to cut interest rates.

• Historical analogy: Presidents have leaned on the Fed before — LBJ hauled chair William McChesney Martin to his Texas ranch to berate him over rates, and Nixon privately pressed chair Arthur Burns to juice the economy before the 1972 election. But neither tried to remove Fed governors mid-term.

• New precedent: Future presidents can treat the Fed as an arm of the White House, undermining the principle of central bank independence that has anchored U.S. economic stability for decades.

9. Wartime powers in peacetime: Trump invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged gang members without hearings, ordered maritime strikes on alleged drug traffickers without congressional authorization, and deployed the National Guard to D.C. and Los Angeles without the consent of local authorities.

• Historical analogy: Presidents occasionally have stretched security powers in peacetime, but narrowly. Dwight D. Eisenhower sent federal troops to Little Rock, Ark., in 1957, but to enforce court-ordered desegregation, not to override state authority for political aims. Presidents George W. Bush and Obama both justified expansive national-security actions after 9/11, but under explicit congressional authorizations. Trump is the first to wield war powers domestically and abroad in peacetime, without legislative cover.

• New precedent: Future presidents can stretch wartime authorities to bypass Congress and due process for military operations on both domestic and foreign territory.

10. Pay-me capitalism: The Trump administration has secured a "golden share" in U.S. Steel, taken a cut of chipmakers' foreign sales and a stake in Intel, and scored companies on their loyalty to Trump's agenda.

• Historical analogy: Past presidents intervened in industry only during crises — FDR's War Production Board in WWII, or the TARP bailouts in 2008. In those cases, government stakes were temporary and statutory. Trump's approach is different: during peacetime, permanent and without legal authorization. The Wall Street Journal's Greg Ip describes it as "state capitalism with American characteristics" — closer to China's party-industry nexus or Russia's oligarchy than to traditional U.S. capitalism.

• New precedent: Future presidents can use the power of the state to extract equity, revenue and political concessions from private companies as the price of doing business.

11. Targeting Big Law: Trump punished firms that represented political adversaries by stripping contracts and security clearances, extracting multimillion-dollar pro bono deals.

• Historical analogy: No president before Trump used federal power to directly coerce private firms into financial penalties for representing political clients.

• New precedent: Future presidents can weaponize government power to intimidate lawyers, deterring them from representing clients who challenge the administration.

12. Punishing universities: Trump withheld billions in federal funding from schools such as Harvard and Columbia — citing their handling of pro-Palestinian protests, campus antisemitism, and DEI policies — and used the leverage to force changes in curricula and leadership.

• Historical analogy: In the McCarthy era, professors were ousted over alleged communist sympathies. In the Vietnam era, Nixon railed against universities as hotbeds of unrest. But those campaigns relied mainly on rhetoric and blacklists. Trump is the first president to tie federally appropriated money directly to how universities handle political speech and protest on campus.

• New precedent: Future presidents can use federal dollars to police academic speech and independence, reshaping universities to align with partisan agendas.

13. Rewriting health and vaccine policy: Trump fired career health officials, slashed funding for public health research, and gave political allies broad control over FDA and CDC decisions.

• Historical analogy: Presidents have had major impacts on health policy before — Reagan downplayed the AIDS crisis, George W. Bush launched PEPFAR, Obama built pandemic playbooks after H1N1. But their interventions largely worked within expert systems. Trump is the first to dismantle those systems in peacetime, sidelining scientific expertise to give political appointees direct control over vaccines and public health guidance.

• New precedent: Future presidents can subordinate public health to partisan agendas, treating life-or-death scientific guidance as another lever of political control.

14. Profiteering: The Trump family is believed to already have made billions of dollars during his second term, including through massive foreign crypto deals, real estate ventures and brazen access plays.

• Historical analogy: Presidential profiteering has a long shadow — Ulysses S. Grant's administration was mired in scandals involving cronies cashing in. Warren Harding's Teapot Dome involved Cabinet officials taking bribes from oil companies. But in most cases, the enrichment was indirect or hidden. Trump has intertwined policy with family business at a scale and transparency unseen in U.S. history.

• New precedent: Future presidents can treat the White House as a platform for personal enrichment, including in nascent industries for which the U.S. government is writing the rules.

15. Jan. 6 pardons: Trump issued blanket clemency to more than 1,500 people charged in the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, including violent offenders and far-right extremists.

• Historical analogy: Andrew Johnson pardoned ex-Confederates after the Civil War. Jimmy Carter pardoned Vietnam draft evaders in 1977. But those were framed as acts of reconciliation to heal national wounds. Trump pardoned his own supporters for crimes committed on his behalf, in an attempt to erase accountability for an attack on Congress itself.

• New precedent: Future presidents can use the pardon power to shield their political movements from the rule of law, granting impunity for crimes against the state.

The bottom line: This can seem improvisational, and sometimes is. But step back and you see a very clear, often methodical, march to greater executive power. It often starts with one Truth Social post here or an executive order there. But then the pattern repeats itself. And new precedent is slowly — then suddenly — set.

• Now it's commonplace to see Trump use U.S. military on U.S. soil, a move once reserved for clear emergencies. Or sue a media company for criticism, or target individual critics, or pressure universities to fire leaders or shift policies, or demand law firms or businesses to pay the government or face its wrath.