Yuval Levin is the director of social, cultural, and constitutional studies at the American Enterprise Institute and the editor of National Affairs.Source
Saturday, President Trump put his name to four executive actions — three presidential memoranda and one executive order — intended to offer some relief to Americans dealing with the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. The premise of these actions, made explicit in the text of each, was that Congress had failed to act and now the chief executive has to step in. It is a premise fundamentally at odds with the logic of our constitutional order, and it points to a number of dangerous dysfunctions in the American system of government that are now thoroughly bipartisan. As a matter of...…Saturday, President Trump put his name to four executive actions — three presidential memoranda and one executive order — intended to offer some relief to Americans dealing with the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. The premise of these actions, made explicit in the text of each, was that Congress had failed to act and now the chief executive has to step in. It is a premise fundamentally at odds with the logic of our constitutional order, and it points to a number of dangerous dysfunctions in the American system of government that are now thoroughly bipartisan. As a matter of...WW…