What if Donald Trump was Prime Minister?
Would his agenda be advancing any faster?
Happy June, everyone! If it’s Sunday, it’s time to answer your questions.
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With that, let’s get to this week’s questions:
Would Donald Trump have an easier time of implementing his agenda if the U.S. was a parliamentary democracy?
How were all these different provisions added to the One Big Beautiful Bill?
Is there any recourse if the Senate overrules its parliamentarian and adds in a non-budgetary provision?
Will the U.S. ever limit the president’s pardon powers?
How can you find out how your member of Congress voted on a piece of legislation?
And more!
A thought experiment
Q: I’ve got a thought experiment for you: How would Trump’s theory of presidency play out if we were in a (say, British) parliamentary system where he’d control both the legislative and executive powers? Would that solve his institutional problems, or do you think his approach is failing due to personality and/or other constraints regardless of the system?
I love this question, which is in response to my Thursday piece arguing that Donald Trump’s theory of the presidency — ignore Congress and do everything by executive action — has mostly backfired, now that his most sweeping efforts have been hobbled by the courts.
In a parliamentary system, as the questioner notes, the legislative and executive powers are fused under one roof, which makes it a lot easier for a governing party to accomplish what Trump (in my argument) has mostly been failing at: executing a policy agenda. If a majority of parliament members want to do something, there are a lot fewer roadblocks in their way.
In that way, you might think that Prime Minister Trump would have an easier time doing the sorts of things that, as I wrote on Thursday, courts have been preventing him from doing: imposing tariffs, changing the definition of citizenship, dismantling Cabinet departments, etc.
But I’m not so sure things would be that different, at least as it relates to those especially ambitious actions.