The right may rue expanding presidential powers

Do President Donald Trump’s policies have staying power? Conventional Beltway wisdom would suggest no. But we are not in conventional times.

It’s long been assumed that legislative actions have more sticking power than executive ones. That’s by design. The legislative process is cumbersome and messy, but ultimately it is shaped by 535 lawmakers’ opinions from districts and states across the nation. In contrast, executive orders are the whims of single person. To overturn them, the next President need only rub the same genie’s lamp.

No recent president has demonstrated this better than Barack Obama. I say this as a conservative. In his first two years in office, he passed a series of landmark laws — a historic stimulus package, the Affordable Care Act and the Dodd-Frank Act. At the time, I was at a center-right think tank that was cranking out daily reports and op-eds about why these laws were wrongheaded.

But nearly 20 years later, despite the concerted efforts of Republicans, these laws largely remain in effect. In fact, Obama’s legislative accomplishments have been so sticky that Republicans’ new health care idea is to create a parallel, MAHA version of the ACA.

In contrast, Trump has signed far fewer laws than any president in the 21st century. It’s estimated that Trump signed just 38 bills into law in 2025, including the sweeping One Big Beautiful Bill Act, whereas other modern presidents have signed between 80 and 120 laws in their first year in office.

Trump has instead relied on executive orders. Last year, Trump signed 225 of them — the highest single-year total since Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933 — and quadruple the average of modern presidents. (Even President Obama with his infamous "pen and phone" never edged above 42 a year.)

Trump’s predilection for executive action over legislative deal making should concern supporters and bring some measure of comfort to his detractors. A Republican president of a different ilk — and certainly a Democratic one — could undo much of what’s been done, and if it’s unpopular, with gusto.

But. And an important "but." There’s also more to the legacy of a presidency than policy. That’s the top of the pyramid, but beneath it are norms and institutions, many forged over a long time. Think of George Washington’s refusal of a third term. Or Abraham Lincoln’s mercy toward his Confederate opponents. Norms become a kind of bedrock that supports everything else, letting us build new laws and rules atop that foundation.

Not so in Trump 2.0. Over the last twelve months, that bedrock has been fractured. For century-old allies, whom we are tariffing (at times more so than our enemies) and threatening. For immigrants, even those here legally, who fear leaving the house for church and school. For civil servants, who have been unfairly vilified, erratically fired and criminally prosecuted. For journalists who’ve been critical of the administration, who have ended up on administration blacklists and faced lawsuits. For researchers in universities or the federal government, whose funding has been cut for crossing a partisan lines. For city residents whose lives have been disrupted by sweeping immigration raids and all their deadly fallout. Even for felons, who’ve received a huge number of pardons over the past year.

Little of this has been through "official policy channels" as we’ve come to expect them. But the impact might be even more lasting. Consider that even if the Democrats flip the House in the fall, or a Democratic president takes the helm in 2028, someone might think twice before crossing the border, even legally. A college grad might think twice before joining the Civil Service. Journalists and academics might think twice about confronting power. And our allies might think twice about trusting us to have their back. Canada is reportedly war gaming a U.S. invasion.

Some Republicans are no doubt happy to see the foundation shifting. Put the undocumented immigrants and lifelong bureaucrats and NATO and blue cities on watch.

But set aside, for a moment, the identity of the current president. The shifts in the bedrock are also about who the next president could be. For example, what happens if a left-wing version of Trump comes to the fore, stretching the power of the presidency in similar ways? Might there be a flip of Trump’s attacks on blue cities by denying funding to states with abortion bans? Statehood for Puerto Rico and Mexico? The end of tax advantages for religious institutions?

Historically, when a president has stepped into the White House, it has shaped him. Trump has shaped the White House. He’s pushed the edges out, expanded what seemed possible, and power abhors a vacuum. This is, of course, the whole point of conservatism, to go slowly, tread softly, because everything has unintended consequences. Trust, once lost, is hard to rebuild.

The deep and lasting effects of the Trump second term won’t be from legislation or the specifics of executive orders, but because the American way of governing has changed.

Some skeptics may doubt this, and point to how quickly the spirits of the time can change; see the rise and fall of the woke movement from 2020 to 2025.

But I’m inclined to think the spirits of these times will linger for a spell — they will seep out into things we’d prefer they didn’t, and be used in ways we have yet to know.

This column reflects the personal views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners. Abby McCloskey is a columnist, podcast host, and consultant. She directed domestic policy on two presidential campaigns and was director of economic policy at the American Enterprise Institute.