Subversal-Reversal of Institutions in the United States: Presidential Leadership Matters

Abstract

This paper uses theoretical analysis to provide a new perspective that the President of the United States (POTUS) in coordinated obsequiousness and complicity with the leaders of the Republican Party and other co-equal branches of government can subvert the rule of law and reverse the economic, political, and social (EPS) institutions. Studies have not examined the POTUS and the EPS institutions nexus because of the questionable and controversial perspective that the EPS institutions are strong enough to rein in any POTUS with autocratic aspirations. The assertion is that presidential leadership matters because the 45th POTUS's autocratic aspirations are instrumental in subverting the rule of law and reversing the EPS institutions. This paper further asserts that the adherence to democratic norms by all POTUS prior to 2017 mattered in building and strengthening the EPS institutions. In support of these assertions, this study uses theoretical institutional functions for periods before and after 2017 to provide a new perspective based on real evidence from the intentions-revealing, self-projections and self-deceptions statements of the 45th POTUS. This study derives the built and strengthened EPS institutions coefficients for pre-2017 periods in comparison to the post-2017 subvert and reverse EPS institutions coefficients to demonstrate that presidential leadership matters. The contention is that the future of the rule of law and the EPS institutions in the United States depends on the extent to which Congress is willing and able to exert its oversight powers in curtailing the 45th POTUS's autocratic aspirations and the abuses of executive powers; and that when these institutions cannot curtail the autocratic aspirations of the 45th POTUS, only the uncompromising and courageous voters can.