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throw0101a

Executive order (EO) count over the last few presidents:

* Bush (41): 166

* Clinton (two terms): 364

* Bush (43; two terms): 291

* Obama (two terms): 276

* Trump (45): 220

* Biden: 162

* Trump (47; <1 year): 218

Source:

* https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/data/executive-or...

Someone commented that (one of?) the reason that Trump is using EOs so much is probably because is not willing (or able) to actually get deals on in the legislature to pass his policies (or what passes for policy with him).

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EOs also aren't laws, they're instructions on how to execute policy. This administration treats them as the former.

Everything they do, however, is petty, cruel and nakedly corrupt while also being marred by a total lack of competence.

I think the Administration is likely to get its toys taken away soon.

the Major Questions Doctrine, the end of Chevron deference, the mandate for Article III courts from Jarkesy, have been building towards this for a while. the capstone in this program of weakening the administrative state, overturning Humphrey's Executor when Trump v. Slaughter is decided, will likely revive the Intelligible Principle Doctrine, as Justice Gorsuch has hinted. the same trend is apparent in the IEEPA tariffs case, where non-delegation got a lot of airtime.

EOs lose a lot of their punch when the Executive's delegated rulemaking and adjudication powers are returned back to their rightful owners in the other two branches.

I fear by reducing control over executive power to one, squishy standard like the Intelligible Principle Doctrine will let SCOTUS pick and choose which laws have intelligible principles. When conservatives are in power, suddenly all laws will have them. And swing back when liberals are in control.

I don't know where you get the confidence that any of that matters to SCOTUS. They know their role, and they are playing.

SCOTUS has ruled against Trump numerous times.

But they rule in his favor more often than not. They gave him freaking immunity for any crimes he may commit. This alone enables him to disregard the law without any fear of repercussions.

> This alone enables him to disregard the law without any fear of repercussions.

That does not apply to his lackeys though (unless there's a preemptive pardon).

If (!) there's a change in the President eventually, there needs to be a reckoning for everyone that didn't push back on instructions/orders (including all the folks down the line who are blowing up (alleged) drug boats).

Everyone will have preemptive pardons. That has already been guaranteed to them or we wouldn't see so much open lawlessness.

That the president can pardon any criminal providing no justification is preposterous nonsense. Much reform is needed.

> I think the Administration is likely to get its toys taken away soon.

Perhaps worth reading "The umpire who picked a side: John Roberts and the death of rule of law in America":

* https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/aug/...

Also "John Roberts and the Cynical Cult of Federalist No. 70":

* https://newrepublic.com/article/204334/john-roberts-federali...

And "This Is All John Roberts’ Fault":

* https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/11/john-roberts-do...

And perhaps "Trump Allies Sue John Roberts To Give White House Control Of Court System":

* https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trump-allies-sue-john-rob...

Or why bother when no one will stop you from ruling by fiat?

Yes, why would you bother not exercising power you possess?

Yep. I punch literally everyone I meet in the face.

I have the power to do it. Why would I not?

Is assaulting people going further your goals?

Presumably EOs further the President’s goals.

Many of those goals are to simply hurt the "wrong" type of people.

“And then the leopards ate my face”

If it does further my goals then it's fine to punch people in the face?

You don't have that power, you'll either be beaten by your adversaries unless you only target weak people. And then you'll be arrested. You don't have the power you claim to have. You can't punch people.

Do you mean “restraint”?

> Yes, why would you bother not exercising power you possess?

By that logic, I suppose well-funded police should respond to every call with a SWAT team, or at the least guns drawn?

(I guess Uncle Ben's quote in Spiderman actually wasn't redundant!)

Yes, and..

Each EO tests the waters a bit more with what the public and other branches will tolerate. As we’ve seen with numerous orders already, Congress and business will comply early because they think it will benefit them.

Trump thinks himself a king. He acts like it. He’s attempting to normalize his behavior. He can’t deal with the legislature because it turns out white supremacy isn’t that popular. Who knew?

Apparently popular enough to get him elected. It's not like his supporters were under any pretense who or what they were voting for

I think the GOP, the right, etc. do propaganda very well. And they’re good at spinning scandals into things their voter base wants to hear. Or just burying them in a way that makes it hard for their base to find.

Even the centrist TV networks are still treating Trump like a normal president. News like the NYTimes does the same, while platforming horrible people in their op ed section.

Edit: anec-data - I have an embarrassing number of family members that voted for him. I asked why and the surprising common thing among all of them was they just didn’t know. The felonies, convictions, scandals, the racism and transphobia. They were just surprised. And they’re not very good at thinking critically about much of it.

Instead they’re voting for some nostalgia and the idea that they felt safer and more secure in their country when they were younger.

Ross Douthat makes me (figuratively) vomit every time I read his nonsensical garbage.

I once heard it said that Trump governs like a dictator because he is too weak to govern like a president. He is extremely unpopular and his party holds one of the smallest house majorities ever.

There is a very vocal opposition to Trump. However, by almost any way you can present "popularity" of a president - be it approval ratings, polling figures, popular vote, electoral vote, etc. - he is one of the more popular presidents in US history.

It's easy to get caught in an echo chamber of like-minded individuals and assume everyone disagrees with his policies - but that is far from reality.

> However, by almost any way you can present "popularity" of a president - be it approval ratings, polling figures, popular vote, electoral vote, etc. - he is one of the more popular presidents in US history.

You might want to look up those data yourself because uh he's actually unpopular in those metrics.

Approval - 42.5% [1]. Much better than Trump's love interest Biden's 37.1% [2] but being below 50% is unpopular.

Popular Vote / Electoral Vote - 49.8%, 312. I may need to tell you this so I will. 50% is greater than 49.8%; a majority of voters (nevermind the country) did not want Trump. As before, this is better than Biden's 306 and Trump1's 304 but worse than Obama2 (332), Obama1 (365) and in general 312 (57%) is nothing to write home about.

[1]: https://www.natesilver.net/p/trump-approval-ratings-nate-sil...

[2]: https://www.natesilver.net/p/why-biden-failed

> he is one of the more popular presidents in US history.

Published today: "Trump's approval rating on the economy hits record low 31%"[1]

> President Trump's approval rating on his longtime political calling card — the economy — has sunk to 31%, the lowest it has been across both of his terms as president, according to a new survey from The Associated Press-NORC.

"Trump's Approval Rating Drops to 36%, New Second-Term Low" [2]

> his all-time low was 34% in 2021, at the end of his first term after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

The man is only two points above where he was when every reputable institution on the planet was running away from him as fast as possible, and he was nearly convicted in the senate. Less than a year into the term.

[1] https://www.axios.com/2025/12/12/trump-economy-inflation-aff...

[2] https://news.gallup.com/poll/699221/trump-approval-rating-dr...

Yeah it'd be a wild view to call him among the most popular. But he is actually [0] pretty standard for a modern president - probably the least popular [1] but he doesn't stand out that much among the Bush/Biden/Obama polling except that it appears people understood what he was going to do before he entered office instead of discovering it on the way through.

And there is an interesting argument that most modern presidential approvals have more to do with the media environment and better visibility on just how bad their policies are.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_app...

[1] I'd argue better than that loser Bush who was probably the worst president in modern US history and who's polling showed it, but for the sake of keeping things simple.

> And there is an interesting argument that most modern presidential approvals have more to do with the media environment and better visibility on just how bad their policies are.

I think you can go further, the ratings are also heavily tied to things like gasoline prices and the overall economy, and generally things the president has little control over. So actually not much to do with their policies at all. I think Trump knows this and it's why he's done some strategically stupid things to the US fossil fuel industry in order to tactically bring down gasoline prices to juice his ratings.

This likely also explains the 2024 election, because it happened in the context of vast sums of money being sucked out of the economy as the fed tried to fight inflation. Incumbents globally got an absolute thrashing that year regardless of what their actual policies were.

So it’s only downhill from here?

Dude, I'm a swing voter and even I can see his popularity ratings are historically low.

> It's easy to get caught in an echo chamber

No shit?

*Extremely unpopular in DC, fwiw

Also a 31% approval rating, unpopular with a large majority of people in the US, fwiw

31% on the economy specifically. Unbelievably (to me), a full 41% of the country still believes he’s doing a good job in general.

GOP is a party captured by the very wealthy. It’s minority rule because of certain elites’ trillion dollar plans to control all three branches of government and the courts have come to fruition after decades in the works.

After Nixon a lot of lessons were learned, on how to handle scandals and how to ram unpopular policy down America’s throat.

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