What a recent flurry of executive orders shows about the drawbacks of executive fiat
United StatesJan 30th 2021 edition
Jan 30th 2021
WASHINGTON, DC
Building a presidential legacy out of executive actions can be like building castles out of sand—both risk being wiped out by the changing tides. Donald Trump spent much of his presidency playing in the sand. His lasting legislative accomplishments—a conventionally Republican tax cut, chiefly, and a worthwhile, albeit modest, sentencing-reform law—are few in number and hardly embody his hard-nosed populism. The most sensational bouts of Trumpism came instead through executive fiat: the order to build a border wall with Mexico, a ban on transgender Americans serving in the military, and the steady campaign to loosen pollution controls. A new administration means new rules. President Joe Biden has already rescinded many of those actions. Given his current pace and the vigour of his appointees, he may even achieve something like total de-Trumpification of federal policy.
The executive orders have been coming at an extraordinary clip. The first tranche were breezy values-signalling measures on high-profile controversies. On his first day on the job, Mr Biden posed behind the Resolute desk of the Oval Office beside a stack of 17 immediate actions—undoing his predecessor’s decisions on immigration (like banning entry from several Muslim-majority countries), climate change (by leaving the Paris climate agreement) and covid-19 knownothingism (by not mandating mask-wearing on federal property). The deeper-cleaning orders, on matters that provoke comparatively little public interest and much litigation, come later.
Jan 30th 2021
WASHINGTON, DC
Building a presidential legacy out of executive actions can be like building castles out of sand—both risk being wiped out by the changing tides. Donald Trump spent much of his presidency playing in the sand. His lasting legislative accomplishments—a conventionally Republican tax cut, chiefly, and a worthwhile, albeit modest, sentencing-reform law—are few in number and hardly embody his hard-nosed populism. The most sensational bouts of Trumpism came instead through executive fiat: the order to build a border wall with Mexico, a ban on transgender Americans serving in the military, and the steady campaign to loosen pollution controls. A new administration means new rules. President Joe Biden has already rescinded many of those actions. Given his current pace and the vigour of his appointees, he may even achieve something like total de-Trumpification of federal policy.
The executive orders have been coming at an extraordinary clip. The first tranche were breezy values-signalling measures on high-profile controversies. On his first day on the job, Mr Biden posed behind the Resolute desk of the Oval Office beside a stack of 17 immediate actions—undoing his predecessor’s decisions on immigration (like banning entry from several Muslim-majority countries), climate change (by leaving the Paris climate agreement) and covid-19 knownothingism (by not mandating mask-wearing on federal property). The deeper-cleaning orders, on matters that provoke comparatively little public interest and much litigation, come later.
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