Photograph Source: The Trump White House – Public Domain

In the wake of Donald Trump’s first week as President, the Democrats opposing him are reported to be stunned, paralyzed, and intimidated. According to Peter Baker of the New York Times (Jan. 26, 2025), they have been shocked and rendered passive by “norm-shattering, democracy-defying assertions of personal power that defy the courts, the Congress, and the ethical lines that constrained past presidents.”

Well . . . yes and no. Yes, many of Trump’s executive orders stretch or overturn existing political norms. Yes, they are meant to augment his power. They are certainly impulsive, vindictive, and cruel. But no, these activities do not “defy democracy.” They are what often happens when a strongly led political movement attempts to alter the way an existing system operates.

Establishment liberals like Baker portray the President as a megalomaniac narcissist who wants to be King. Even though there is truth in this depiction, it oversimplifies a far more complex reality. Focusing exclusively on Trump’s personal failings distracts attention from the systemic sources of his power and the need to change that system.

Consider Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose New Deal changed or overthrew a host of established norms, including limited federal power over the economy, state supremacy in matters of labor relations, health, and welfare, weak executive agencies with little discretion, presidential deference to Congress and the courts, the sanctity of individual labor contracts, and more. His opponents called him a norm-breaker and an authoritarian, and comparing his actions with those of earlier presidents, they had a point. But they missed a more important point: significant changes in an existing system almost always involve altering old norms and augmenting the power of new leaders. Although called an authoritarian and a socialist, F.D.R. redefined democracy rather than ending it and (for better and for worse) saved American capitalism.

What about Trump? Obviously, the greedy, impulsive, narrow-minded president is no Roosevelt. Peter Baker accuses him of wanting to increase his personal power, and he certainly does. But this characterization ignores the fact that every “imperial” president from F.D.R. to Joe Biden has increased the Chief Executive’s discretionary power, augmenting an authority that is simultaneously personal and official If you don’t understand that the CEO of an empire is an emperor, you will attribute his actions purely to power-lust. But for the most part, the man who currently occupies the White House is simply doing nakedly what previous presidents have done with more protective coverage. Moralizing about his personal failings does nothing to close any of America’s 700 foreign military bases or to reduce the super-profits of the military-industrial fat cats. It is system-analysis and system-change that we need, not liberal posturing.

System-change and mass movements

Anti-Trumpers need to learn to think less in terms of the President’s cartoon villainy and more in terms of broken systems and the mass movements that challenge them. The American system, I’m sorry to say, IS broken and has been for some time. Its failure to satisfy........

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