Donald Trump’s blizzard of executive orders is like a GOP sugar high before a crash | Opinion

President Donald Trump has been issuing executive orders at a breakneck pace, keeping campaign promises to the delight of supporters.

But be careful what you wish for. Trump won’t be in office forever.

His successor could sign a flurry of executive orders that undo all of Trump’s actions. Indeed, an inherent danger of executive orders is that the next president could be at the opposite end of the political spectrum as the last.

The bigger problem, however, is that abuse of executive orders violates the spirit of the Constitution — if not the law.

Trump’s flurry of executive orders is strategic in several ways: it creates policy and gives supporters victories. Strategically speaking, the chaos caused by so many executive orders makes it hard for opponents to mount a formidable defense. By the time they figure out how to respond, five more orders come out and the public moves on.

In the short term, it’s brilliant. That’s a different story. Trump’s tally of approximately 60 executive orders in his first month in office exceeds President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s first month, in March of 1933, and sets a precedent for incoming administrations, similar to FDR’s First 100 Days.

But in the long run, it’s a different story. Executive orders don’t usually create lasting change. After all, Trump is basically just undoing many of his predecessor’s orders.

Back when the late Democratic Senator Harry Reid was majority leader, he eliminated the filibuster on most presidential nominees. That might sound minor, but it caused a seismic shift in the Senate, both in terms of culture and power. Mitch McConnell, then the Republican Senate Minority Leader, warned “You’ll regret this, and you may regret this a lot sooner than you think.” A decade later, McConnell had won a majority and entirely remade the judiciary with originalist judges.

Originalist judges are great, but this is a cautionary tale. Who knows? A future president could defund the Navy, denuclearize America’s weapons arsenal and impose billions of dollars in new fees (don’t you dare call them taxes!) on Americans.

Of course, those ideas vary in scope, rationality and constitutionality. But so do Trump’s.

Trump has sought to identify ways to support school choice, reinstate military service members discharged under COVID vaccine requirements, upend birthright citizenship and possibly dismantle the federal Department of Education.

Any merit of these executive orders is irrelevant. By presidential decree, they seize power within the executive branch, which alone should concern everyone.

Presidents of both parties have abused this power. Roosevelt threw 120,000 Americans of Japanese descent into internment camps and President Dwight D. Eisenhower blocked gay people from working in the government.

It’s not enough to dismiss an executive order as unconstitutional because it’s likely the president’s legal team has considered that question and has a solid — though possibly unsuccessful — argument. Even a narrowly tailored ruling from a court on an executive order could be a victory for a president.

There are plenty of entirely valid reasons why any president could use an executive order. Congress often leaves implementation details to the executive branch.

It all goes awry when the order addresses an issue that Congress would not likely have delegated to the president. This has led to a developing test in Supreme Court rulings that gives advocates of limited government reason for “hope,” said former Republican Congressman Tom Campbell. Former President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness executive order failed this test.

In Trump’s defense, Congress has not been answering a lot of major questions recently. Too many lawmakers of both parties would rather be intoxicated by the sound of their own voice in the media than do hard work. Instead of rewarding policymakers for building coalitions and legislating, supporters demand they hate each other.

The path forward requires strong courts to push back on the excesses of the Executive Branch (a benefit of originalist judges), a Congress that is willing to do its job and executives who exercise restraint.

This story was originally published February 13, 2025 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Donald Trump’s blizzard of executive orders is like a GOP sugar high before a crash | Opinion."