In a column for The Atlantic, two editors from Lawfare pointed out that Donald Trump is increasingly having problems getting officials in his administration to cater to his whims as the president looks like he might not be re-elected.
According to Benjamin Wittes and Quinta Jurecic, the president has never been in a weaker position.
Writing, "Last week began with one of the ugliest—and potentially most dangerous—spectacles of Donald Trump’s presidency: the nation’s leader, having declared himself 'your president of law and order,' striding across a park violently cleared of peaceful protesters by police firing chemical irritants," the two legal observers claimed that Trump is trying to act like an authoritarian -- but the crowds weren't taking his bait and provide him with the opportunity to build up his law and order credentials.
"The protests had grown. They had become increasingly peaceful. And Trump’s insistence that the authorities should “dominate the streets” had been rendered idle bombast by the crowds that in fact dominated them," the authors wrote, adding, "A moment that could have generated authoritarian consolidation instead quickly revealed the would-be autocrat as weak—in more ways than one."
"Trump has never been shy about his authoritarian impulses. He regularly voices admiration for dictators and has expressed his belief that Article II of the Constitution allows him to do 'whatever I want.' Yet that authoritarianism has not manifested with as much force as some might have feared (or desired)," the column asserted. "Trump has exerted power aggressively within the spaces in which he is least restrained, most notably in immigration enforcement, but he has not pushed far beyond that: There have been no jackboots deployed against dissidents, no shipping off of presidential enemies to Guantánamo Bay. And in some instances, such as the ongoing pandemic, Trump has largely declined to exert federal power at all—instead shrugging his shoulders and leaving the work of actually governing to the states."
In part, as they note, there is a history of presidential aides ignoring his demands until he forgets about them, having moved on to another topic that caught his attention.
"The country has seen this feckless command over the executive branch before, in a different context," Wittes and Jurecic wrote. "The Mueller report is stuffed full of examples of Trump ordering aides and officials to take actions that range from corrosive to downright illegal and those people either refusing or simply not bothering to carry out his orders. Trump couldn’t get his people to drum up a baseless investigation of Hillary Clinton, fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller, or falsify evidence to cover up Trump’s own wrongdoing. The result was a portrait of a president both menacing in intent and buffoonishly ineffective at accomplishing the menace."
Now with reports coming out that military officials argued with the president about flooding Washington D.C. with troops to quell anti-police brutality protesters, the authors maintain that Trump has become "ineffectively authoritarian."
"Trump wanted to bring down the hammer, but he couldn’t get his people to actually do it. To put it in terms the president would understand: Weak!" they wrote.
"Today another kind of weakness is at work too: An election is coming up, and it’s one that Trump seems more and more fearful he will not win. He’s not wrong to be worried," they suggested. "Much of this electoral weakness stems from the reality that, as we argued back in March, Trump’s playbook is deeply ill-suited to the current crises: a virus that can’t be intimidated, economic fallout that won’t correct itself in response to Trump’s personality or bullying, and now protesters who don’t go away when he plays the strongman."
"So," they concluded, "in addition to being a weak leader who can’t get his people to break the law or crack down on protesters, and in addition to being electorally weak, Trump now looks ineffectual, even ridiculous, in the face of circumstances that just aren’t cooperating and can’t be ordered around."
You can tread the whole piece here.
