unilateral

Trump in recent days has suggested that the Senate should give him unilateral power to appoint all of his nominees through recess appointments, which do not need Senate approval.

Although he served as legal adviser to the Department of State in the Obama administration, in his warnings about the perils posed by the slide towards unilateral presidential powers, Harold Hongju Kou concedes that the president could have done more to curtail the Bush-era enhancement of the powers of the president.

While Obama adhered more closely to restraints on presidential power than his predecessor, his administration did not make the kinds of structural and procedural changes necessary to deter future presidents from following in the footsteps of the Bush administration, as we were soon to learn, since, as Koh points out, enhanced unilateral presidential and executive powers would be “sharply re-intensified” under Donald Trump.

A second Trump presidency will undoubtedly take unilateral presidential powers to a new level.

The growing power of the presidency has been taking place in plain view, as unilateral powers have accumulated decade after decade in the Oval Office, while the recent choice of president has also become a grim choice about the nature and powers of the presidency itself.