The Imperial Presidency has been a fully bipartisan initiative. “Over the past century, moreover, as America’s global clout has grown exponentially, and as the challenges of governing a vast and complicated country have spawned a massive administrative state under the president’s ultimate control, what was once designed as an office merely to enforce the laws made by the Congress has changed beyond recognition,” writes Andrew Sullivan. The Founders understood how volatile centralized authority in one person could be, so they created a system of “checks and balances” to control this risk. The Founders could not have imagined the President being able to unilaterally withdraw the military or imposing tariffs on a foreign adversary unless in times of war, let alone via a tweet.

In 1973, the historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. wrote “The Imperial Presidency.” Schlesinger largely discussed “the all-purpose invocation of ‘national security’, the insistence on executive secrecy, the withholding of information from Congress, the refusal to spend funds appropriated by Congress, the attempted intimidation of the press, the use of the White House as a base for espionage and sabotage directed against the political opposition.” Does this sound familiar? Nearly 50 years ago, we were having a very similar dialogue. The difference? About 50 years of precedent for presidents to build on.

2020 Candidates Vow to Push Executive Authority

Our current political debate features candidates willing to shift more and more power to the Executive Branch and away from the democratically-accountable Congress. The Founders did not foresee a Congress so willing to allow the Executive to craft public policy through executive fiat. Progressives running in the 2020 presidential election are running on a platform of not only overturning the current administration’s Executive actions, but also building on them. The bipartisan consensus? If you can’t beat them, join them.

As Michael Tanner writes at the National Review, Democrats have rhetorically criticized “this latest iteration of the imperial presidency.” Even though former Vice President Joe Biden has criticized executive orders, his website states, “On day one, Biden will sign a series of new executive orders with unprecedented reach that go well beyond the Obama-Biden Administration platform and put us on the right track.” Senator Elizabeth Warren has also promised primary voters “specific executive orders on issues ranging from immigration to worker non-compete clauses,”and banning fracking.

Senator Kamala Harris has also declared to bypass Congress on “gun control” and issue an executive order granting citizenship to migrants illegally brought to the U.S. by their parents; her agenda spans a whole host of contentious topics. At Mises, Tyler Curtis writes, “for Harris, Congress is at best merely an advisory body. As a kindly gesture, the President may ask Congress for permission to do something, but he or she does not really require their assent.” Presidents Obama and Trump have been rightfully disgruntled with divided governments, especially with partisans unwilling to budge on any issue.

President Obama once said, “I refuse to take no for an answer . . . When Congress refuses to act . . . I have an obligation as president to do what I can without them.” After all, constituencies are demanding aggressive actions to counter the opposition. President Trump has engaged in similar behavior by strategically hiring, “a quieter way to advance a presidential policy agenda and a practice employed by all White Houses to varying degrees.” Even where overlapping interests exist, both parties remain keen on keeping their opposition from “winning” on any given issue.

Congress Has Been Complicit in the Growth of the Executive Branch

With a “Do Nothing” Congress, the Executive has crafted elaborate schemes via executive orders, presidential signing statements, and policies intended to fill the gap in Congress’ governance. The most notable example being President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA). In DACA, the Secretary of Homeland Security issued policies that “allow certain aliens who arrived in the United States on or before January 1, 2010 to apply for deferred action, a form of prosecutorial discretion.” President Obama declared that this policy would be temporary, but as Milton Friedman said, “nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.”

The administration’s justification: “if Congress has laws on the books that says that people who are here who are not documented have to be deported, then I can exercise some flexibility in terms of where we deploy our resources, to focus on people who are really causing problems as opposed to families who are just trying to work and support themselves.”

At the time, the Republican Congress frustrated President Obama because of its unwillingness to pass immigration reform, namely amnesty, so he directed the Department of Homeland Security to act. The administration’s justification: “if Congress has laws on the books that says that people who are here who are not documented have to be deported, then I can exercise some flexibility in terms of where we deploy our resources, to focus on people who are really causing problems as opposed to families who are just trying to work and support themselves.” However, since Congress did not codify this policy via statute, the next Executive could revoke this policy. In fact, President Trump did revoke DACA, an action that was immediately subject to litigation. The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments on this matter, in Dept. of Homeland Security v. Regents of Univ. of CA, later this year. Remarkably, President Trump has taken to Twitter to discuss the “extraordinary powers” implicated in this case.

With the constant jousting between this administration and various interest groups in court, one would expect future politicians to anticipate more from Congress and less from the Executive. Instead, every public policy failure or societal problem is attributed in some way to the presidency. Each pop-up press conference in the Rose Garden becomes a spectacle, immediately subject to countless op-eds and news columns. After meetings with foreign leaders, the president’s brief presser with the foreign leader largely becomes overridden with questions about political turmoil rather than the relevant diplomatic efforts. Every uptick in the stock market is accredited to the president’s de-regulatory initiatives, while each downturn is attributed to tariffs and trade policy. Surely, government policy intertwines with the market at some level, but each and every adjustment correlates with a whole host of factors, foreign and domestic.

The Executive was not intended to be a priestly figure leading the national dialogue on issues of relevance to different communities. Any such attempt to attribute grand meaning to the presidency is wrong and in contrast to the Founders’ intent. In fact, the Founders of the United States empowered Congress to be the principal source of governance in the federal government, as Congress is far more democratically accountable albeit less expedient. The Executive may choose to ask Congress to legislate certain policies, but society functions regardless of the president’s rhetoric.

While such attributions to the Executive may bode well for cable news ratings, these instances are feeding into “the cult of the presidency.” As former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy notes about the recent impeachment inquiry, “What is portrayed as an ‘impeachment inquiry’ is actually just a made-for-cable-TV political soap opera. The House of Representatives is not conducting a formal impeachment inquiry. To the contrary, congressional Democrats are conducting the 2020 political campaign.” This is all part and parcel of our “cult of the presidency.”

As society places more emphasis on the role of the Executive and as Congress cedes authority, the real loser is the Constitution of the United States. Our founding values are enshrined in it, but society is slowly losing the value we place on it. Ironically, as the United States announces determination to withdraw from critical international commitments and nation-building, the Executive office shows no sign of easing up. “Any world order that depends for its survival on the whims of a single person in a single branch of government in a single country is simply untenable,” writes Christopher A. Preble at Cato.

Accountability begins with voters seeking a reinstatement of our founding principles. If and only if society comes to the realization that centralized authority in one Executive is too toxic, can we overcome much of the hyper-partisan squabbling dominating national discourse. Remember that “freedom has no master at the top who knows what’s best for everyone.”