Dick Cheney's Wet Dream
MAGA is dialing the "unitary executive" to 11.
There are many ways in which Trump represents a sharp break from his Republican predecessors: his embrace of tariffs and enforcement of serious immigration control; his loathing of democracy-building abroad; his aversion to war; his contempt for the rule of law (if ever applied to him); his “America First” treatment of allies.
But there is one area where he actually represents real continuity with the past: his administration’s belief in executive power largely untrammeled by the legislative. The term of art for this is the “unitary executive theory,” which has gripped the imagination of Republicans since, well, Watergate, if we’re being candid, but it’s been knocking around since Wilson. In its most recent incarnation in office, it was Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld who pushed the theory furthest: claiming, for example, that a president could launch an invasion of Iraq without Senate authorization; or that a president can overrule the rule law and enable a president to torture even an American citizen if he wanted to. And they did just that — with Jose Padilla.
You can see this in Bush’s record; in signing statements attached to laws between 2001 and 2005, Bush used the phrase “unitary executive” over a hundred times, compared with Reagan (one), HW Bush (six), and Clinton (zero). (That’s why when you see Bill Kristol declaring a constitutional crisis because of Trump’s recent executive power grabs — well, the only response is to laugh. It’s of a piece with his lamenting the end of Roe.) The conservative ambition to return the presidency to its pre-Watergate parameters — or more — can be seen from Iran-Contra through the illegal torture and rendition policies of Bush-Cheney to the deputizing of a deranged ketamine-addicted billionaire to shut down government agencies with no Congressional authorization in 2025.
Unlike Bill Kristol, and like George Will, I have long held, in fact, that Article 1 is first for a reason. The branch of government with the most democratic legitimacy is the Congress, representing all of us, in our varied, complicated ways. The role of the president is merely to enforce the laws made by Congress in institutions created and funded by the legislature. If Congress has funded a government agency for certain reasons, for example, only the Congress can defund it. So a huge amount of Elon Musk’s manic destruction of the administrative state is thereby illegal on its face. Which means it almost certainly cannot last.
This is not to say that Musk hasn’t exposed predictable waste. Why are we surprised that our enlightened elites would use USAID for their pet ideological projects: $3.9 million to promote critical gender and queer theory in — checks notes — the western Balkans; $2.1 million to help the BBC “value the diversity of Libyan society” (is the British government funding insufficient?); $8.3 million for “USAID Education: Equity and Inclusion,” and $7.9 million to teach Sri Lankan journalists how to avoid “binary-gendered language.” Exposing this is fantastic — and could lead to real reform; but instantly shutting down whole agencies, freezing funding for others, laying off thousands and thousands, without any congressional approval, is the path to nowhere.
Part of me attributes this to the usual Trump shit-show. But part is also quite obviously an attempt to get these issues before the courts. The goal is to dramatically enhance even further the executive branch’s power, and to cede to it effective control of the federal purse. This would fundamentally alter the shape of American governance — and turn us into a fully illiberal democracy. Richard Hanania suggests an interesting analogy between what conservatives are currently trying to do with the executive branch and what liberals, beginning with the Warren court, tried to do with the judiciary: take one branch of government to overrule the rest on key policy matters, like abortion.
It’s worth noting, however, that, over time, both attempts failed. Roe eventually fell. Cheney’s grotesque power-grabs for the purpose of wiretapping, torture, and rendition were struck down; so too was Clinton’s claim of executive privilege during the Lewinsky affair. So beneath the chaotic theater this week, there is very little legal foundation. If I were a Trump enthusiast, I’d see this as a path to failure.
We’ll get a better grip on how the new administration is going to continue this lawless strategy when the new OMB director settles in. And he is what one might safely call a spittle-flecked fanatic. Russell Vought believes that the Constitution is “a revered document that is no longer in effect.” He views himself as a “dissident of the current regime.” My italics. Vought believes that “the Right needs to throw off the precedents and legal paradigms that have wrongly developed over the last two hundred years.” My italics again. This isn’t just taking the executive to pre-Watergate, or even pre-Wilson days. It’s pointing us to pre-Marbury days.
This is not entirely new. Obama decided he could ignore Congress’ immigration laws, for example, and few of those now hyperventilating about Trump objected. And it’s not yet a Constitutional crisis. That would come if SCOTUS strikes down Trump’s executive overreach and he refuses to obey. But it is a huge Constitutional challenge.
Donald Trump has always viewed his office as an elected monarch, and he has a mass movement that has explicitly declared and supported him as such. Musk sees himself as the monarch’s aide, and has no understanding of the Constitution at all, as far as I can tell. The role of the legislature, in this worldview, is to do whatever the president wants; and the role of the Court is to buttress presidential power. This has, alas, been the trend now for decades, with Democratic and Republican presidents, facilitated by the Congress’s sad abdication of so many of its inherent powers. But Trump and his Claremonsters want to take this to a whole new level of an elected dictatorship. There is nothing that would make Trump and Vance happier.
Until, of course, a Democrat is elected president.
(Note to readers: This is an excerpt of The Weekly Dish. If you’re already a paid subscriber, click here to read the full version. This week’s issue also includes: my take on Trump’s despicable rhetoric on trans people; a discussion with Ross Douthat on religion and the supernatural; reader dissents over DOGE; seven notable quotes from the week in news; 20 pieces on Substack we recommend on a variety of topics; a Mental Health Break from the ever-creative OK Go; a placid window from Idaho; and, of course, the results of the View From Your Window contest — with a new challenge. Subscribe for the full Dish experience!)
From a new subscriber: “You piss me off so much that it forces me to think more critically than if I agreed with you all the time.” From a renewing subscriber:
I was going to completely cancel all political feeds, including yours, to rid myself of the Trump demon — but I have kept the Dish, since you have so often been a voice of reason, wrong or right. Thanks for keeping it real.
The Trans Lash And Backlash
There is a lot to digest on the transgender front this week — some of it welcome, in my view, and some of it vile. And this discomfiting admixture is something we have to get used to on a variety of fronts. One of the features of an illiberal democracy is that the extremes dictate everything because obvious compromises are continuously ruled out by negative polarization.
So here we are. Among obvious steps forward: a return to fairness in athletics; and an end in sight to irreversible medical experiments on gay, lesbian, autistic, and trans children. Among the lamentable: a pointless reversal of the successful integration of many trans servicemembers in the US military; and a revival of the bathroom controversies.
Take athletics as a symptom of our dysfunction. There are ways to craft a policy of fair competition in sports, while re-emphasizing this is only about fairness, not about transgender equality and dignity. Transmen, for example, should be welcomed in sports at all levels (unless it’s unsafe for them), and participation of transwomen in non-competitive sports encouraged.
Or take sex reassignment for children. There was a way to test new and experimental medical procedures: strict safeguards and lengthy mental health assessments in a clinical trial over a period of time. If the treatments were shown to be effective, they could be carefully rolled out. Instead, we got the removal of all safeguards, very low-quality studies, countless mistakes, a removal of all lower-age limits, a cascade of lies (the suicide claim, for example), and a campaign to bully journalists not to investigate one of the biggest medical scandals in decades.
That’s why these crude bans happened. Not just because the right wanted them, but because the left refused to offer any moderate alternative, or even engage good-faith critics. Children now caught in the middle are once again the victims. It’s an urgent task to make sure they have much more expansive mental health care and attention.
I also need to say this as clearly as I can: Trump’s executive orders contained a tone about trans people that was despicable. A president should represent every American, and in a public document respect every American. Yet the White House official statement describes the failure of basic due diligence in medicine as “maiming and sterilizing a growing number of impressionable children.” Strictly speaking, that’s true. On Twitter, fine. But it is hell of an ugly way for a president to say it.
Much worse is how the commander-in-chief described some trans people who have served their country with distinction. He says their gender identity
conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life. A man’s assertion that he is a woman, and his requirement that others honor this falsehood, is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member.
What an ugly, deplorable, and untrue thing to say. People who have come to terms with their gender identity — and I don’t mean the gender woo-woo babies and po-mo nutters who have done so much to muddy the waters, but actual grownup trans men and women — are telling the truth of their lives. How dare anyone — let alone a president — call that selfish or dishonorable?
This needless sneer is a reminder, if we needed one, that there has never been anyone as depraved or dishonorable as Donald Trump in the White House. I may agree with him on a few issues, and I’m not afraid to say so. That doesn’t mean he isn’t still every bit the monster he always has been.
Back On The Dishcast: Ross Douthat
Ross is a writer and a dear old colleague, back when we were both bloggers at The Atlantic. Since then he’s been a columnist at the New York Times — and, in my mind, he’s the best columnist in the country. The author of many books, including Grand New Party and The Decadent Society, his new one is Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious (which you can pre-order now). So in this podcast, I play — literally — Devil’s advocate. Forgive me for getting stuck on the meaning of the universe in the first 20 minutes or so. It picks up after that.
Listen to the episode here. There you can find two clips of our convo — on the difference between proselytizing and evangelizing, and the “hallucinations of the sane.” That link also takes you to commentary on our episodes with Sebastian Junger on near-death experiences and John Gray on the state of liberalism. We also air more of your dissents over DOGE and a variety of other emails. Plus, a personal vent over CVS.
Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Jon Rauch on the tribalism of white evangelicals; Evan Wolfson on the history of marriage equality, Yoni Appelbaum on how America stopped building things, Chris Caldwell on the political shifts in Europe, Nick Denton on the evolution of new media, Francis Collins on faith and science, and Mike White of White Lotus fame.
Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other emails to dish@andrewsullivan.com. From a subscriber who’s “happy to renew”:
Yours is one of the few podcasts I pay for — maybe the only one now. I suspect it’s because you are actually a journalist. I don’t always agree, of course, but thanks for asking questions, thanks for pushing back, and thanks for not always taking yourself so seriously.
Dissents Of The Week: You Want Calm?!?
A reader responds to my latest column, “Keep Calm, Carry On ... And Wait”:
You indicated you are no better than the ultra-right-wing echo chamber when you cited Madonna (!!!) as representative of anti-Trump America. What a straw-woman! It’s like bringing in Hannity’s foil Combs to represent a caricatured “left” through poor, shrill arguments. It’s like Bill O’Reilly bringing in someone from NAMBLA to represent the “gay perspective.”
You’re deliberately glossing over Trump’s outrages and selecting opposing views from idiots to give off the sense that there is no rational, reasonable horror felt by intelligent, well-informed, even conservative-minded people about the onslaught of horrors coming out of the Trump White House. A friend at the NIH is being warned that his HIV research is going to be re-evaluated to ensure it conforms to this administration’s “ideology” — shades of Galileo and the Inquisition, no? Scientific research that is only funded if it conforms to a government’s ideology?
Read my response here, along with three other dissents. More on the pod page.
Follow further debate on the Notes site here (or the “Notes” tab in the Substack app). As always, please keep the dissents coming: dish@andrewsullivan.com.
In The ‘Stacks
This is a feature in the paid version of the Dish spotlighting about 20 of our favorite pieces from other Substackers every week. This week’s selection covers subjects such as foreign aid, the tariff tiff, and Dems in disarray. Below is one example, followed by a few new substacks:
Magatte Wade, a Senegalese entrepreneur, asks, “Why is Africa poor?”
Benny Morris, the Israeli historian, launches a ‘stack — and dismantles Coates. Brian Riedl, the deficit hawk, comes out as Jessica Riedl. Subscribe to both! Their principles and moderation are needed more than ever.
Here’s a list of the substacks we recommend in general — call it a blogroll. If you have any suggestions for “In the ‘Stacks,” especially ones from emerging writers, please let us know: dish@andrewsullivan.com. From a substacker we just started following:
Many, many thanks for the paid Substack subscription — it means a great deal to me. Keep up the good work; your podcast has become my #1 listen.
The View From Your Window Contest
Where do you think it’s located? Email your guess to contest@andrewsullivan.com. Please put the location — city and/or state first, then country — in the subject line. Proximity counts if no one gets the exact spot. Bonus points for fun facts and stories. The deadline for entries is Wednesday night at midnight (PST). The winner gets the choice of a VFYW book or two annual Dish subscriptions. If you are not a subscriber, please indicate that status in your entry and we will give you a free month subscription if we select your entry for the contest results (example here if you’re new to the VFYW). Contest archive is here. Happy sleuthing!
The results for this week’s window are coming in a separate email to paid subscribers later today. It’s a nice escape from politics and the culture wars. This week, the super-sleuth in Augusta combines her two biggest passions for the VFYW — videogames and cults:
No time to do much digging this week, but it’s worth mentioning that this View is only about 30 miles north of the homebase of one of the most publicized cults of the past decade: NXIVM.
Founded in 1998 by Keith Raniere and Nancy Salzman, NXIVM (pronounced the same way as the heartburn drug) offered a series of high-priced “Executive Success Programs” and soon established branches throughout upstate New York, as well as Canada and Mexico. While at first glance it appeared little different than other “self-improvement” organizations, there were early rumblings of trouble about the group’s controlling structure and power over the lives of its members. A 2017 exposé about a secret order of branded “slave women” run by Raniere and actress Allison Mack signaled the beginning of the end. By 2020, Raniere had been sentenced to 120 years in prison for a litany of crimes, including racketeering and sex trafficking, with lessor sentences going to other prominent members.
The story proved irresistible to filmmakers (a sex cult run by this guy?!), and there are multiple documentaries about the group, including HBO’s The Vow, which contains a whopping 15 episodes spread over two seasons! Here’s the season 1 trailer:
On a side note, several articles I read mentioned that Raniere adopted his title “Vanguard” from the 1981 arcade game of the same name. He was definitely a gamer nerd — here he is in the ‘80s making a brief appearance in a news story on Pac-Man:
He really should have just stuck to scoring in video games.
See you next Friday.