Trump: “Making the Presidency great again”

“The accumulation of all power, legislative, executive, and judiciary in the same hands…may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” – James Madison, Federalist 46

“When the President does it, that means that it is not illegal.” – Richard Nixon

Hi res infographic

In the first 14 days of his Presidency, The Donald has become one of the most controversial Presidents to assume power since Richard Nixon. Sure, he’s not made waves at the same scale as Watergate, he’s (yet) to be impeached, but he certainly has been divisive thanks to his twitter diplomacy, and his out of hand dismissiveness of criticism as ‘fake news’, prompting people across the world to take to the streets and protest against his appointment.

Two things that have made the headlines over the last two weeks have been President Trump’s lack of diversity in his cabinet, and the number of executive orders that have been flying out of his office (especially if you’ve been following the memes online – @TrumpDraws for those of you that have missed out).

“The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.”–U.S. Constitution, Art. II, § 1, cl. 1

Famously, Trump hasn’t been a fan of executive orders. Back in 2012 he took to twitter to bemoan what he believed was executive overreach being displayed by President Obama, in his use of ‘the pen and the phone’ rather than deferring to Congress.

However, The Donald has dealt out an impressive 8 Executive Orders, and 12 Presidential Memoranda since taking office. That puts him on a run-rate of 1,040 this year, if he keeps up the pace. He has only signed one more bill than Obama since he assumed power, which puts him firmly in first place when it comes to signing orders to get his way.

The content of the Executive Orders has been the more worrying aspect of the President’s action for most observers. While Obama enacted legislation such as the Freedom of Information Act, or reviewed interrogation techniques and inmates at Guantanamo, Trump has been more focussed on Pipeline building, and preventing “foreign terrorist entry”, an order that has been branded a ‘Muslim ban’.

Enough has been said about this elsewhere, but it is important to point out that not everything can be explained with numbers. Including this narrative, even if there had been fewer executive orders made by Trump than his predecessors. This would have provided a worrying picture for many readers. However, the headlines haven’t been about the numbers, but the content.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. – Martin Luther King Jnr

Recently, on Theresa May’s visit to the US, a comparison was drawn between the current President and Prime Minister and Reagan and Thatcher. It seems that Ronald and Donald may have more in common with each other than just having a female equivalent in Downing Street (and having names that sound like the beginning of a nursery rhyme). Trump also has the least diverse Cabinet since Reagan.

The now famous photo of him signing the revocation of the Mexico City act, surrounded by men, is an accurate representation of his cabinet as a whole. Taking only his Cabinet members, and not ‘Cabinet level’ members, the Cabinet is 87.5% white, and 88% male, bucking the downward trend in initial cabinet appointments seen over the past decades. In addition, incredibly, his is the first cabinet since George H. W. Bush in 1989 to not include any Hispanic members.

Not only that, but he also has the richest cabinet created since Reagan, and the oldest average age since George W. Bush (prior to this the oldest cabinet was that of Franklin Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower at 56.2 and 56.3 years respectively). With an average age of 63.6 and a total net worth of $8.1bn, his cabinet are circa $7.7 billion richer than Obama’s was in 2009. I did attempt to reach further back beyond Reagan for detail of the wealth of cabinets, but was unable to find enough information.

Sometimes the numbers say it all, and sometimes like here, they only tell a tiny party of the story. A story that for many is becoming a terrifying reality. I’ve tried to be objective in this article. Pointing out the facts. However, there are two indisputable things about Trump and his cabinet. Unless the challenge to his immigration ban succeeds he will continue to be less accountable than ever before, and more worrying for the leader of the free world in the 21^st century, less diverse than the 1980s. Not exactly the ‘man of the people’ he purports to be, and potentially a giant leap backward for feminism in the U.S.

Appendix

Trump and Obama’s Executive Orders and Presidential Memoranda for their first 14 days

References