With Trump’s endless executive orders, It’s safe to say that a lot of people are wondering this questionL Is the Presidency too powerful for democracy?
From his executive orders that bypass Congress to unchecked control over nuclear weapons and national emergencies, the U.S. presidency we have today holds an immense amount of power; some would argue more power than the Founders ever intended.
Let’s look at a few examples.
During his first term, Trump signed 220 executive orders, and since the start of his second term, he has signed 157. Many of these orders have been controversial, to say the least, and others just seem pointless, like changing the “Gulf of Mexico” to the “Gulf of America.”
There have been a few executive orders, though, that bypassed legislative approval and sparked debate about their legality and the extent of presidential authority in America. For example, Trump’s Executive Order, “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship,” orders the federal government to deny federal documents recognizing the citizenship of children born in the United States after February 18, 2025, if the mother is undocumented or here with temporary permission, and if the father was not a U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident at the time of the child’s birth. This executive order would’ve disqualified millions of children from citizenship.
A separate executive order, “Clarifying the Military’s Role in Protecting the Territorial Integrity of the United States,” assigns military planning duties to the United States Northern Command (NORTHCOM) “to seal the borders and maintain the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and security of the United States by repelling forms of invasion including unlawful mass migration, narcotics trafficking, human smuggling and trafficking, and other criminal activities.”
It seems like these unconstitutional and illegal executive orders are just Trump’s way of inciting fear and panic. No president should have that much power.
