It seems like every time you turn around there is news about the current President and his embattled administration. This is nothing new, however, and one suspects that had former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton been elected her administration would have received its fair share of abuse, although perhaps not as much as President Trump. For some folks, this might be a cause for being downcast, either because your man (or someday probably woman) is embattled, or if you are in the opposition they are not embattled enough. As for me, I am a “glass is half full” kind of guy. Although it might seem counterintuitive that a troubled presidency is healthy for our nation, it is a welcome development.
Here’s why. The American Presidency has for too long now exercised far more power than is safe for American democracy and national interests. Our government is based on the principal of separation of powers between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. However, the 20th Century has seen a steady and unhealthy increase in the power of Presidents, especially since 1933 when Franklin Roosevelt (FDR) dealt with two of the most pressing crises of the last 100 years—the Great Depression and World War II. It is understandable that power of necessity became concentrated in his hands because of these existential events. However, power once gained is not so easily relinquished, and Presidents after FDR accreted more power as time went on, until the twin specters of Vietnam and then Watergate brought about a situation where the other two branches scaled back the power of the Presidency, principally through the now toothless War Powers Act (WPA) of 1973.
It did not take long for the spell of the WPA to wear off. Before long, Presidents were again arbitrarily committing U.S. forces anywhere, anyplace, anytime (to borrow a Navy bumper sticker from the 1990s) to do their will—which was not always the will of the American people. When power was used sparingly, it was used best. The end of the Cold War removed many of these restraints and American policy makers—mostly concentrated in the executive branch, and thus working for the President—found that the new post-Cold War dynamic was ironically better suited to expand Presidential power. Before long, Presidents were again throwing more weight around than a reading of the Constitution might suggest. They could arbitrarily start wars (although for some reason not end them, except perhaps President Clinton in Somalia), issue executive orders, and make recess judicial appointments, all without the consent or cooperation of Congress. More recently, Congress is divesting itself of restraint in a similar manner—witness the “nuclear option” vis-à-vis the Supreme Court nominee, although it has a long way to go before it will truly counterbalance the President as much as it can and should.
All this said, the system is not broken. It still works, but it is heavily weighted on focusing on the President as the beginning and end of most U.S. governance—as a brief perusal of news digests convey. It is not so bad when the Presidency as an institution is embattled and frustrated in its designs—especially when a President is overreaching. Presidential abuse, misuse, or just ham-handed exercise of power is the primary mechanism for whittling that same power down to size. I would much prefer that it was the Judiciary and Congress married with executive self-restraint, but I am a realist in these matters. So why worry? Be happy, or at least not so sad.
Dr. Kuehn is a former naval aviator, retiring as a Commander from the U.S. Navy in 2004. He is professor of military history at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. Dr. Kuehn was awarded the Society of Military History Moncado Prize in 2010 and is the author of Agents of Innovation (2008) Eyewitness Pacific Theater (2008) with D.M. Giangreco, A Military History of Japan (2014), and Napoleonic Warfare (2015).
