Jack Stocker:

As the 2020 presidential primaries continue trudging on, Michael Bloomberg has entered the fray. Mr. Bloomberg has long been a participant in American society. His history as a software entrepreneur brought him to the forefront of wealth and fame as the Bloomberg name became synonymous with finance and he became the world’s 12th richest man. In 2002, he became a member of the political discourse, becoming Mayor of New York for the next 11 years. Now he’s come back wanting to be president, but the truth is there’s just too much riding against Mike. Although an excellent businessman, he has little going for him in the way of being the Presidential beacon this country will need… and here’s why.

#1: He has no followers, no fans, no support, his base is as tiny as he is.

Let’s face it, who is Michael Bloomberg representing? The man has poll ratings of only 14.2% (at the time of writing for the pedantry practitioners among you), and with the hype around Buttigieg it’s hardly likely to let up as the younger “moderate” appeals to Bloomberg’s more mainstream Democratic base. He also needs to post up against Bernie Sander’s “revolution”, a very serious threat compared to Bloomberg’s meager following, and even President Trump knows it. And his actual reach is abysmal too. The man might have the money but he certainly doesn’t have the movement like Trump or Bernie. The man is hardly representative of America for Republicans or Democrats. To Republicans, he is just another political elite buying off elections just to snuff out their rights. And in the eyes of Democrats the man is an old, prejudiced billionaire white guy, which is even worse than Bernie’s million-dollar conundrum. The former mayor is going to have a hard time appealing to an ever-younger American public, disillusioned by the rich and the powerful like himself.

Non-tall readers may think that cracks at Bloomberg’s height are cheap shots. But history says that the average height of presidents is 5–11, and we haven’t had a president shorter than 6 feet tall since Richard Nixon.

#2: His policies are abysmal, and won’t work for Democrats either.

For starters, the man wants to ban e-cigarettes and vapes, and I don’t know how many college-aged leftists you know that vape near constantly, but I for one know that he has just lost a large percentage of that pie. He’s also historically been an opponent to marijuana legalization, limiting his ability to drive votes home on that civil liberty, given the desire nationally for legalization. On economics, while he may be less egregious than some Democrats, his taxes are too rich for any liberty warrior’s blood, and too little for your typical progressive alphabet warriors. His college education plan is along the same lines of big government opportunity distribution programs that Democrats see as pandering and the rest of America see as “wasted tax dollars”. Furthermore, the man has a history of being tough on crime to many Democrats’ dismay, and you can bet that his policy outline uses his ability to reduce crime through this as a “positive” to behold rather than a shameful part of his past, that being said-

#3: He can’t ever hope to escape stop and frisk, and he knows that.

Michael Bloomberg has worked very hard to try and escape his past decision of stop and frisk, but it seems to never escape him. Although some will argue back and forth on the effectiveness of this policy, ultimately it was a privacy ignorant invasive search policy, one which saw unparalleled use under his years as the Mayor of New York. And it’s probably occurred to him now that this was too big of a mistake to just simply undo, and is likely fearing how it will inevitably compare to Trump’s softer approach to crime. Not only is this something the communities most affected by his decision to engage in predatory policing also happen to be groups that are now essential to securing his victory. This was not a good call back in the day, and he seems to have admitted to that now, but although he may try to say he’s moved on, evidence only 5 years old has come forward on him supporting the method and the actions he took. There is evidence in this that his claims of change and growth could simply be political pandering, after all I’d hardly be one to change my ways at his age.

#4: While you can definitely buy elections, this one’s going to go a little differently.

As much as Bloomberg’s money may win elections, curb civil liberties, and supposedly buy his way into heaven, this time he’s going to have to do a lot more to get ahead in the race. While even presidencies have generally been decided by the largest pocketbooks, Trump has largely been an exception to this rule. As it stands, he was largely outperformed by Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party in 2016, with the Clinton campaign raising 1.2 billion dollars, roughly double that of Trump’s. This is quite an atypical outcome, and even though Hillary Clinton may have won by popular vote, the fact remains that Trump was voted by this country’s law as President of the United States. Yes, the political topography may have changed as well, but as Trump has allowed all of us to find out, anything can happen on the presidential race track. Can someone just trying to swing around their pocketbook really make a dent against a case like that, and can that really be the person who unifies America?

#5: Late entry candidates don’t win, he won’t even make it past the primary.

Let’s face it, as it stands the man isn’t going to even make it past the primary. There’s the bevy of aforementioned issued mounting against him, which will prove difficult to overcome given the reliance on Democrats to pull minority voting blocs within their party. There’s Bloomberg’s toxic past (and present) policies towards them and his inability to identify. Most fatal of all, he also decided to join the primaries late, on top of announcing his candidacy late. This decision will ultimately prove to be his gravest error of the entire electoral cycle, as late-entry candidates rarely (if ever) manage to achieve victory in the primaries. As it stands, there’s just too much setting Bloomberg back from breaking Bernie and Buttigieg’s ballot bonanza.

Matt Welch:

Now that Democrats have failed in their attempt to remove the president from power, it’s worth asking why they haven’t seriously considered the reverse: removing power from the president.

We have seen, over the 33 months since Donald Trump took the unusual step of firing FBI Director James B. Comey, any number of behavior-specific explanations for why the 45th president must go: For coordinating with the Kremlin, obstructing the Russia investigation, making “racist comments” about four congresswomen, saying he would accept “dirt” from foreign governments about his domestic political opponents and finally the House’s two impeachment articles: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

But what we have not seen is anything like a structural critique of ever-accumulating executive branch power itself. Democrats don’t like the way Trump uses his authority, but that doesn’t mean they want any less of the stuff in the White House, particularly when they get back the keys. To the contrary.

In his response to Trump’s State of the Union address Tuesday night, leading presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.) lamented that the tariff-happy president wasn’t being punitive enough toward American companies. “The NAFTA 2.0 deal that he recently signed,” Sanders said, “will not prevent a single corporation from shutting down factories in the United States and moving them to Mexico.”

In her official Democratic Party response, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer focused not on Trump’s monarchical gestures during the speech — granting a scholarship, promoting a veteran, presenting a Medal of Freedom on the spot, theatrically reuniting a military family — but rather, on all the things Democratic governors are accomplishing by executive fiat in defiance of their legislatures.

“Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers unilaterally increased school funding by $65 million last year,” Whitmer bragged.

A lawsuit is in the works over Evers’ illegal veto.

The Democratic presidential field, with the notable exception of faltering front-runner Joe Biden, has been engaging in a race to see who can make the most elaborate promises of immediate executive action. Forget 100 days; we’re now talking 100 hours to see what that magical Oval Office pen and phone can do.

On Day One, President Elizabeth Warren would wipe out student loans for 42 million people, ban fracking “everywhere” and block any future fossil fuel leases on public lands and offshore. We are still awaiting the full Day One list from a future President Sanders, but we know it includes an executive order to “legalize marijuana in every state in this country.”

Legalizing marijuana is a wonderful and long-overdue idea, but Sanders’ way of getting there is not. Federal law, including the odious Controlled Substances Act, is constitutionally required to originate from or be struck down by either Congress or constitutional amendment. A presidency with enough power to legalize Activity X irrespective of Congress or the desires of states is a presidency with enough power to criminalize that same activity when the other team wins. It’s a seesaw of authoritarianism, and we should all want to get off.

What’s remarkable about the personal response to Trump’s imperial actions is how completely different it is compared with the structural reaction against President Nixon’s. Democrats (and some Republicans) in the wake of Watergate went on a spree of pruning back the runaway executive branch.

The 1973 War Powers Resolution reasserted the legislative branch’s authority to declare war and approve emergency military actions. The 1974 Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act — which, fun fact, is the law Trump violated by withholding appropriated aid to Ukraine — sought to reestablish congressional power of the purse. The 1974 upgrade of the Freedom of Information Act was designed to prevent governments from hiding their activities. The 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was supposed to block warrantless snooping of U.S. citizens.

Even reciting the names of those reforms helps explain why anti-Trump animus has not translated into renewed skepticism of executive power. Presidents of both major parties, particularly during this century, have fought doggedly to break free from their institutional shackles. George W. Bush, with his high-ranking veterans from the Nixon administration, made rolling back the Watergate reforms a key philosophical aim. Barack Obama, after campaigning as a constitutionalist, made a mockery of war powers in Libya.

And the more tribal Congress has become, the more willing it has been to forfeit anything like the consistent application of constitutional prerogatives, particularly concerning the wielding of life-and-death military power.

For anyone who would like to once again see an independent legislature, the 99% partisan impeachment process in both chambers of Congress is cause for despair. As is the Democratic presidential field’s will to executive power. If ever America is to get off the populist seesaw, we’re going to need to root less for politicians, and more for the rules and mores than can restrain them.

The problem with Walsh’s point is: Would you rather, now, see Donald Trump with more power or Nancy Pelosi? Would you rather have, in the 1980s, seen Ronald Reagan with more power or Tip O’Neill?  There is, however, an obvious flip side: Would you rather have, in the 1990s, seen Bill Clinton with more power or Newt Gingrich? Would you rather have, in the late 2010s, seen Barack Obama with more power or Paul Ryan?