As the US midterm elections deliver a landslide defeat to the Republicans, handing control of both chambers of Congress to the Democrats, Donald Trump can now be branded a lame-duck president.
The president may be lame, but he still has his crutches: the so-called executive orders!
Trump is entering the final two years of his presidency under divided government, a political arrangement that will considerably constrain his legislative ambitions.
With Democrats controlling both the House of Representatives and the Senate, his once-comfortable grip on Congress is gone. His legislative agenda will face resistance, scrutiny and, quite possibly, outright rejection.
But Trump is far from powerless. He still retains substantial executive authority, and we can expect him to use it liberally.
After all, Trump has developed quite an appetite for executive orders. We witnessed that from day one of his presidency, when he began signing them with remarkable enthusiasm.
Now, with Congress no longer under Republican control, executive orders may become his preferred political crutch to push his agenda and bypass legislative resistance wherever legally possible.
And then there is his veto power.
No matter what Congress passes, Trump can use his presidential veto to block legislation. Overriding that veto, however, requires a two-thirds majority in both the House and the Senate, a threshold Democrats do not possess, despite their sweeping electoral victory.
So, Trump may have lost his congressional muscle, but he has not lost his presidential powers.
The next two years could therefore become an exhausting political tug-of-war: a Democratic Congress determined to challenge him and a president determined not to be restrained.
A lame duck, perhaps, but one still carrying a formidable set of executive crutches!
-Promod Puri
promodpuri.com
