The End of the Imperial Presidency
Democrats have long feared that in a national crisis, President Donald Trump would seize the chance to stretch his powers and sweep aside constitutional restraints. Yet as the pandemic rages, Trump may be creating an unanticipated legacy: By ceding some control to the states, he’s allowing the nation’s governors to reacquire executive muscle that has withered in the age of the imperial presidency.
However inadvertent, Trump may have set in motion a durable shift that positions states as more of a counterweight to the chief executive. Trump blustered at one point that Democratic governors who opposed him were committing “mutiny.” If so, the mutineers faced no reprisal—an incentive to act on their own again.
Trump’s posture has forced governors to confront a worldwide crisis they wouldn’t have imagined would be theirs to solve. They’ve had to venture into a chaotic global marketplace to
