Source: Foreign Policy
by Julian E Zelizer
“[F]or decades, both parties have relied on expansive executive power to achieve their goals. In that sense, all Americans are imperial presidentialists. Is Trump really so different from the presidents before him? The expansion of presidential power has undoubtedly been one of the central developments of the United States’ 249 years of nationhood. Though the Constitution attempted to constrain the executive branch, President George Washington nonetheless issued a stern warning in his farewell address …. ‘the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those entrusted with its administration, to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism.'” (06/30/25)