Bloomberg Declares Trump's 'Imperial Presidency' while Ignoring Decades of Executive Overreach
📰 THE STORY: Bloomberg Politics warns of the "enduring legacy" of Donald Trump’s "imperial presidency," focusing on his expansion of executive power, trade war tactics, and geopolitical shifts that will supposedly "outlast him" and potentially be embraced by future Democratic administrations. 🔍 WHAT THEY'RE NOT TELLING YOU: Historical Context: The concept of an "imperial presidency" gained
traction after Arthur Schlesinger Jr.'s 1973 book detailing the dramatic expansion of executive power under presidents like Nixon, but its roots stretch back to FDR's New Deal and Truman's actions in Korea. The US maintained hundreds of military bases globally throughout the Cold War and post-9/11 era, establishing a global American empire through executive actions, covert operations, and
undeclared wars, long before Trump. For example, President Obama expanded drone warfare significantly, conducting 563 strikes that killed an estimated 3,797 people, including 324 civilians, between 2009 and 2016 – all under executive authority. Double Standard: When President Obama used executive orders to normalize relations with Cuba (2014) or implement climate policies, major media often framed
it as decisive leadership. When Trump used similar mechanisms, including tariffs on China or withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal (2018), it's labeled as "imperial" or "unilateral." The application of the term 'imperial' appears to be less about the exercise of power itself and more about who is wielding it and for what ends. Sanctions, a weapon of imperial power regularly employed by the US,