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CAN US INSTITUTIONS WITHSTAND TRUMP 2.0?  
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Daron Acemoglu, Bruce Ackerman, Aziz Huq, Alison L. LaCroix, and
Richard K. Sherwin
January 16, 2025
Project Syndicate
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_ From pursuing “enemies” to cementing plutocracy, Trump’s
second term will test the resilience of the constitutional order. This
time, he has control of Congress and a Supreme Court ruling
guaranteeing immunity. Five authors share their views. _

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On the eve of Trump’s inauguration, we asked DARON ACEMOGLU, BRUCE
ACKERMAN, AZIZ HUQ, ALISON L. LACROIX, and RICHARD K.
SHERWIN whether there are any institutional checks that can restrain
Donald Trump's worst impulses – and if they can survive the next
four years. -- Project Syndicate

DARON ACEMOGLU

As Trump begins his second term, it’s really hard to see any silver
lining in the dark clouds.

A convicted felon who effectively attempted a coup on January 6, 2021,
is America’s next president, and his Republican Party, which has
never failed to bow to him, controls both chambers of Congress.
Meanwhile, the opposition is in disarray. Few Democrats recognize that
the November election was as much their failure as it was Trump’s
success. But the fact is that they are not currently equipped to build
a coalition to oppose Trump that extends much beyond their most
mobilized base.

Making matters worse, Trump’s erratic, uninformed, and dangerous
rhetoric and behavior have been normalized. This is true in the media,
with many publications fearing the “all-powerful” Trump’s wrath.
It is also true in the business community, which is chomping at the
bit for tax cuts and deregulation. And it is true for much of the
population, a significant share of which appears to be more
disillusioned with the Democrats than afraid of Trump.

It is starkly apparent that Trump is a danger to US institutions. In
fact, it is safe to say that, after four more years of Trump, US
democracy will not be the same. At the very least, he will have
demolished several more democratic norms, such as by eroding the
autonomy of the Department of Justice and, most likely, by using state
institutions to target adversaries. (Outgoing President Joe Biden
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wrecked a longstanding norm, when he granted a presidential pardon to
his son.) At worst, Trump will leave behind a US democracy that has
been permanently maimed.

Trump’s second administration will be no boon for the economy,
either. As it stands, the US is doing quite well relative to Europe,
owing to a combination of European weaknesses and policy failures,
positive Biden-administration policies, and a dynamic US tech sector.
But I fear that four more years of Trump will significantly damage the
US economy’s medium-term growth potential, possibly even threatening
US global economic leadership.

The main problem is that America’s comparative advantage depends on
the constant introduction of innovative technologies and products, and
innovation depends on vigorous competition and a level playing field,
created and maintained by robust institutions. But Trump’s support
for artificial intelligence and crypto will strengthen America’s
tech giants – the economy’s biggest monopolies – implying even
less competitive pressure and a weaker incentive to innovate.

Moreover, Trump’s proclivity for threatening businesses that don’t
toe his line and giving breaks to “friendly” tycoons (Elon Musk is
at the front of the line) will damage any remaining semblance of a
fair and impartial competitive environment in the US. His
transactional approach to business – and, perhaps more audacious,
moves by his family to maximize financial gains from his presidency
– will damage both competition and institutions.

Globally, Trump-induced destabilization is all but guaranteed. The
risks on this front are wide-ranging and often too terrifying to
contemplate.

The irony is that the US president who promised voters that he would
“Make America Great Again” may well be the one who sows the seeds
of the post-American order.

BRUCE ACKERMAN

The question you pose contains a mistake – or, rather, a
misrepresentation. Trump does not have full control of Congress, even
though the Republican Party holds majorities in both chambers.
Trump’s command over the House of Representatives is
particularly uncertain
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Only 31 House Republicans are members of the Freedom Caucus, and
slightly over 100 more self-identify as “MAGA Republicans.” That
adds up to only about 135 seats in the 436-member House. Although
House Speaker Mike Johnson is a Trump ally, he will be able to get
presidential initiatives passed only with the support of a majority
coalition comprising pragmatic centrists from both parties, no matter
how much pressure Trump applies.

Trump’s associates – from Musk to Vice President J.D. Vance, to
the Heritage Foundation (the think tank behind the ultra-conservative
Project 2025) – have divergent, even conflicting, agendas. But even
if one or another of these actors convinces Trump to back their
“revolutionary” horse, extremist initiatives will never get the
219 votes needed to pass the House. Johnson is well aware of this. So,
rather than allow, say, Project 2025 to lose decisively on the floor
of the House, he will try to convince his fellow Republicans to bury
it in committee.

In any case, the Republicans might not maintain their congressional
majorities for long. When the 2026 mid-term elections come around,
many will face serious challenges from Democrats, and the Trump
loyalists who helped them get where they are today might not show up
to back Republicans who, in their view, have “betrayed” the
president.

To be clear, there is plenty of reason to worry. Notably, Trump has
repeatedly suggested
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he would seek a third term, even though the 22nd Amendment
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the US Constitution explicitly states that “No person shall be
elected to the office of the President more than twice.” What if he
did decide to run again in 2028 – say, because a centrist took the
lead in the Republican primaries? Would the self-declared
“textualists” who now dominate the Supreme Court declare such a
power play unconstitutional? Would he back down? If he didn’t, who
would take decisive measures to preserve the foundations of US
democracy?

At this point, my crystal ball clouds over. I leave it to readers to
consider the grim scenarios that may well lie ahead.

AZIZ HUQ

For those searching for guardrails for Trump’s second
administration, it is well worth remembering how we got here. Among
the many reasons for America’s rightward swing in the November 2024
election is the fact that neither of the serious federal criminal
cases filed against Trump for grave abuse of power came to a hearing,
let alone judgment. Both cases were derailed by federal judges – a
district court judge in one case, and six Supreme Court justices in
the other – who dragged their feet to delay the case, and then
issued rulings shielding Trump from liability.

Those rulings – which were founded in novel, extravagantly creative
legal theories – will end up shielding high-level officials from
accountability, even if they carry out flagrantly criminal acts, such
as to keep themselves or their allies in power. Thanks to this new
promise of impunity, such behavior is about to become a lot more
common. With “guardrails” like these, does American democracy need
enemies?

But it gets worse. American voters chose Trump in a free and fair
election. So, not only do US presidents now know that they will face
no legal consequences for criminal efforts to thwart democracy; their
fears of an electoral penalty are waning. Put another way, US voters
have both decimated the implicit threat that a political leader will
be removed from office for criminal self-dealing, and hollowed out the
threat that voters will oust them in the next election. In this sense,
US voters have sacrificed the guardrails that might have ensured a
democratic future for their children on the altar of their (perceived)
short-term well-being.

ALISON L. LACROIX

With the Republican Party effectively controlling all three branches
of the federal government, our best hope for an institutional check on
Trump’s lawless impulses may well lie with 50 unruly actors: the
states. America’s unique version of federalism – sometimes decried
as dysfunctional or outmoded – now may serve a valuable purpose:
adding necessary friction to the federal machine. In fact, slowing
down the federal government – especially when it is dominated by one
party – may well be the point of American federalism.

We know that decentralized power benefits the opposition. But this
familiar argument is only part of the story. We might also need to
embrace the notion that, in an imperfect world, it is better to have
more and different jurisdictions – each with its own set of rules
– and thus more and different local political communities. Such
“jurisdictional redundancy,” as the legal scholar Robert M. Cover
called it, may well be American federalism’s greatest asset.

When there is a “unitary source for norm articulation over a given
domain,” Cover wrote
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costs of error or lack of wisdom in any norm articulation” will be
“suffered throughout the domain.” This insight, combined with the
well-established legal principle that the federal government may not
“commandeer
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local officials by forcing them to carry out its mandates, can help
keep the American republic anchored to its founding principles in the
coming four years.

RICHARD K. SHERWIN

Can existing institutions protect America’s democratic republic from
autocracy?

The framers of the US Constitution, many of whom were steeped in
ancient history, were acutely aware of the risk of authoritarianism.
That is why they separated the federal government into three separate
branches, and established a set of checks and balances that – in
conjunction with a free and credible press (the “Fourth Estate”)
– were supposed to safeguard against popular passions and wily
tyrants. But as illiberal leaders like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor
Orbán have shown, liberal democracies can be dismantled from within
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and the press, to the extent that it eludes state control
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can be discredited as an “enemy of the people
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Ultimately, the survival of the rule of law depends upon character and
good faith. In his recent eulogy
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President Jimmy Carter, Biden repeated a well-known quote from the
ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus: “Character is destiny.”
Carter’s character, Biden said, embodied love, mercy, and respect.
Trump, by contrast, channels rage, resentment, and retribution. When
loyalty to the leader, rather than to the Constitution, becomes
the chief qualification for public service
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the country’s fate becomes even more entangled with that
individual’s character.

The US Supreme Court sharply escalated the risk that “personalized
power
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will take hold in the US when it granted presidents immunity
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criminal prosecution, thereby elevating them above the law. Agents of
this personalized power – like the insurrectionists who attempted to
disrupt the peaceful transfer of power on January 6, 2021 – may be
similarly shielded, whether by presidential pardons
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through an inappropriate application of the Insurrection Act
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permits the use of armed forces to quell domestic unrest.

Those who truly value freedom, including Trump supporters who
belatedly grasp the political costs of their actions, may seek to
reassert their sovereign power in future elections. When that moment
comes, they must hope that free and fair elections are still an
option. There is an important corollary
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Heraclitus’s maxim: collective character – the ethos embodied in
the stories and images we share – is also destiny.

_Daron Acemoglu, a 2024 Nobel laureate in economics and Institute
Professor of Economics at MIT, is a co-author (with James A.
Robinson) of Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and
Poverty
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2019) and a co-author (with Simon Johnson) of Power and Progress:
Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity
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2023)._

_Bruce Ackerman, Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale
University, is the author, most recently, of The Postmodern
Predicament: Existential Challenges of the 21st Century
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University Press, 2024)._

_Aziz Huq, Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, is
the author of The Collapse of Constitutional Remedies
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University Press, 2021)._

_Alison L. LaCroix, a former member of the Presidential Commission on
the Supreme Court of the United States, is Professor of Law and an
associate member of the History Department at the University of
Chicago and the author of The Interbellum Constitution: Union,
Commerce, and Slavery in the Age of Federalisms
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University Press, May 2024)._

_Richard K. Sherwin, Professor Emeritus of Law at New York Law School,
is the author of When Law Goes Pop: The Vanishing Line between Law
and Popular Culture
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of Chicago Press, 2000)._

_Project Syndicate [[link removed]] produces
and delivers original, high-quality commentaries to a global audience.
Featuring exclusive contributions by prominent political leaders,
policymakers, scholars, business leaders, and civic activists from
around the world, we provide news media and their readers with
cutting-edge analysis and insight, regardless of ability to pay.
Our membership includes over 500 media outlets – more than half of
which receive our commentaries for free or at subsidized rates – in
156 countries._

* Donald Trump
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* Oligarchy
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* Oligarchy
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* rule of law
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