Trump explains deployment of the National Guard to Los Angeles under the pretext of fighting crime. Given that crime has actually been decreasing across the US since the pandemic, Trump’s actions are clearly intended as exhibitions that will appeal to his voters
"The empire… gradually destroyed the distinctive structures of government that had brought it into existence in the first place, paving the way for one-man rule [1]."
The United States, despite its aggressive foreign policy rhetoric and occasional predatory war, always felt conflicted about becoming an imperial power. As late as the 1930s, most American citizens had little desire to be involved in the world's problems and used "empire" as a derogatory epithet to label the British. Until Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, domestic political sentiment forced President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) into various subterfuges while aiding the British against Nazi Germany.
Probably only the WWII generation of US political leaders had a true understanding of what US global leadership entailed. Since the US President Eisenhower administration, the scene has been one of slow decline. US economic productivity and military prowess maintained America's global dominance, but the deterioration of America's leadership ability has been evident for many decades.
Concurrently, the power and wealth stemming from America’s status as the world’s premier economic, military, and political actor eventually exerted distorting influences on U.S. society and its political system. The "Reagan Revolution" of the 1980s ended FDR’s New Deal, which had redistributed wealth in US society. US elections became contests of money and image manipulation.
- Trump 1.0
In early 2017, I penned a commentary for Anadolu in which I explained that, no matter how bad Donald Trump’s presidency turned out to be, in the short term, he would most likely not be the cause for the US economic and political system’s disintegration [2].
During Trump's first presidency, the US witnessed "increased cronyism and nepotism, along with four years of poorly informed domestic and foreign policy" [3], but the US political system not only weathered the storm; Joe Biden's administration even retained many policies instituted by Trump. Among federal institutions, the State Department, which Trump defunded and left to wither, suffered the most. But the State Department’s profile had already declined significantly over the previous 60 years [4].
- Trump 2.0
The second time around, Trump returned to US federal institutions like Arnold Schwarzenegger returned to the police station in "Terminator." Every week has featured multiple instances of Trump either pushing or completely ignoring the traditional and legal limits on the president's (the executive branch's) powers. Some of those actions have been stopped or delayed through court decisions, but precedents are being established nonetheless [5].
Trump and his supporters see the president’s powers as largely unlimited, even though this is clearly not what the creators of America’s constitutional system envisioned [6]. Fundamentally, "checks and balances" means that each governmental branch wields some powers, but is limited by the powers of the other branches. The executive branch’s powers were purposefully limited in order to ensure that kings or emperors would not result.
On the other hand, talk of the "Imperial Presidency" has featured in US political debates since Arthur Schlesinger wrote a study bearing that title in 1973. The US Presidency’s powers have been expanding for many decades, and opposition to that expansion has seen little success [7].
As an illustration, Congress has helped presidents avoid the Constitution’s mandate of Congressional approval for sending US forces to war. The last time the US formally declared war was in 1942. Since that point, instead of guarding its control over such an important power, Congress used resolutions to authorize the president to use the military abroad, and then passed the War Powers Resolution of 1973 [8] after controversies stemming from the Korean and Vietnam conflicts.
That legislation, however, actually delineated how the president could utilize the armed forces without Congressional approval, and Congress has never found a president to be in violation of that resolution.
From that perspective, it seemed only a matter of time until a president arrived who decided that the armed forces could also be used domestically [9] since they, as the Commander-in-Chief (a title granted by the Constitution), already enjoyed expansive powers to utilize the armed forces.
- US federal institutional order
At the moment, it is not possible to foresee what will happen to US governmental structures in the coming years. Trump has already destroyed one institution (the Education Department), neutralized the State Department, and dismantled the US Agency for International Development [10]. He has also politicized many others in an unprecedented fashion, including the Justice Department, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, the intelligence agencies, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Federal Reserve Board. All of those actions are geared toward implementing what Trump’s advisors refer to as the "unitary executive." [11]
Is the American public disturbed enough by Trump’s decisions to penalize him in the November 2026 midterm elections? Polls currently indicate that Trump’s public support has declined [12], so Trump’s response has been to push issues that he believes will solidify his voting base. Consider Trump’s deployment of the National Guard and the Marines to Los Angeles, and the FBI to Washington, DC, under the pretext of fighting crime. Since crime has actually been decreasing across the US since the pandemic, Trump’s actions are clearly intended as exhibitions that will appeal to his voters.
Thus, Trump is engaged in a political cost-benefit analysis: his policies are causing problems for the Republican Party [13], so he incites a public uproar that will result in intense media coverage of issues his voters care about. He purposefully targets states or cities run by prominent Democrats or Democrats from minority groups.
- Replaced by one-man rule?
If the Republicans, despite the new, gerrymandered districts in several states, suffer serious losses next year, would Trump change his behavior? If the Democrats succeed in retaking the White House in 2028, can US institutional strength and/or respectability be reconstituted?
It seems difficult to answer both questions in the affirmative. Trump, when faced with opposition to his instincts or evidence that contradicts his preconceived notions, tends to lash out and double down. Federal institutions that would normally be expected to curb such tendencies, like Congress or the Supreme Court, have consented to nearly everything that Trump has done. And Trump attacks courts that rule against him [14]. The damage done to the functionality and credibility of federal institutions is already severe, and Trump has three years left in his term.
Consequently, Trump is centralizing powers that had once been diffuse across various federal institutions, while those institutions are being politicized and, in many cases, rendered ineffective. For many historians, that is a familiar scenario. When Octavian (soon to be Augustus Caesar) settled into his role as princeps, he left Roman republican institutions mostly untouched because precedents for one-man rule had already been established over the previous 50 years [15]. When Cosimo de’ Medici returned to Florence in 1434, he established himself as its de facto ruler; the Florentine political system continued to function as it had previously. But Medici opponents were not allowed to hold office or make decisions at important junctures [16].
Despite Roman and Florentine republican institutions not being fully democratic in the modern sense, they featured limited, democratic mechanisms to administer the society and solve political problems. Power and wealth then created socio-political conflicts that resulted in those republican systems being superseded by one-man rule.
Will the same happen to the United States?
*Opinions expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Anadolu's editorial policy.
[1] Mary Beard, “Emperor of Rome,” p. 32.
[2] https://www.aa.com.tr/en/americas/american-democracy-s-achilles-heel/725914
[3] See Footnote 2.
[4] https://www.aa.com.tr/en/analysis/opinion-kissinger-and-the-tragedy-of-american-diplomacy/3077338
[5] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/04/30/upshot/presidential-history-survey.html
[6] https://edition.cnn.com/2024/11/07/politics/trump-total-power-second-term-analysis; https://www.politico.com/newsletters/west-wing-playbook-remaking-government/2025/06/13/the-scale-of-trumps-power-claims-00405650.
[7] https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/06/30/us-constitution-executive-order-president-power-trump/
[8] https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/llglrd/2019670446/2019670446.pdf
[9] https://www.npr.org/2025/06/09/g-s1-71640/trump-mobilizes-marines-for-duty-in-los-angeles; https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/trial-shows-fragility-limits-us-militarys-domestic-role-2025-08-15/.
[10] Claims that the State Department’s functions are being revitalized have emerged, but only time will show whether that is a realistic assessment or not: https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/08/08/trump-state-department-reforms.
[11] https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-unitary-executive-presidential-power-theory-driving-2nd/story?id=118481290
[12] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2025/08/18/donald-trump-approval-ratings-pew-poll-august-2025-latest-surveys/85672357007/
[13] https://edition.cnn.com/2025/08/27/politics/iowa-democrat-flips-state-senate-seat; https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/06/briefing/republican-town-halls.html.
[14] https://www.npr.org/2025/09/02/nx-s1-5525647/a-california-judge-rules-that-trumps-deployment-of-the-guard-to-la-was-illegal
[15] Mary Beard, “Emperor of Rome,” pp. 32-37.
[16] Christopher Hibbert, "The Rise and Fall of the House of Medici," pp. 58-63.
