David Warsh: Trump’s second-term chaos may give foes a break; secular time and political time

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SOMERVILLE, MASS.

Aside from Donald Trump, the biggest winner in the Republican blowout may be a Yale University political theorist by the name of Stephen Skowronek.  Little known beyond circles of political science and legal scholarship, Skowronek is better able than anyone else I know to explain what just happened.

In 1982, Skowronek published  Political Leadership in Political Time, soon after the presidency of Ronald Reagan began. Ever since, he has argued the significance of “political time,” by which he means cyclical time, as opposed to “secular time,” time measured by the calendar. The durability of his essay is underscored by the appearance of a third edition in 2011.

Skowronek identified five major systems that unfolded in the years since the American Civil War, each driven by the ambitions of a strong political leader at their beginning: the presidencies of Abraham Lincoln to Grover Cleveland, 1861-1897; William McKinley to Herbert Hoover, 1897-1933; Franklin Roosevelt to Lyndon Johnson 1933-1968, Richard Nixon to George H. W. Bush 1969-93; and Bill Clinton to Joe Biden 1993-2025.  Each may be described by their ideological commitments and coalition support.

“Political time” time is different from calendar time that measures the term of each president because it is, by its nature, both dynastic and progressive, meaning nothing more than that it moves steadily toward an end-state quite different from what the Founders who wrote the Constitution intended.  The election of a strong leader who promises sweeping change in the way things are done marks the beginning of each new cycle.

Succeeding presidents seek to follow his (or her) lead, but are increasingly constrained by emerging coalitional issues, until finally each episode ends with a whimper, a president deemed weak who is unable to sell the program of the original strong president to the voters. Another strong leader emerges. A new cycle begins.

In less democratic nations than ours, we call this “regime change.” In democratic America, we call  it “realignment.” In fact, President-elect Trump already has called it just that.

In Skowronek’s reading, each new cycle has revolved around ever-more expansive interpretations of the U.S. Constitution, tending inexorably towards what he calls a “unitary executive.” Unconstrained by a lap-dog Congress and a Supreme Court of his choosing, the president has all the power.

In current circumstances, then, Skowronek’s scheme might predict administrations of populist presidents, backed by “the base,” stretching well into the future. These administrations might begin with J.D. Vance, giving way gradually to ever-more constrained presidents until at last the pale imitation takes the helm, is defeated, and the promised renewal begins.  In this view, 2044 may be the time to begin to look for the next chance to re-set the political clock.

For those with a taste for such things, Skowronek elaborated the intricate theory underlying his analysis in an essay in the Harvard Law Review that I can’t link normally but you can  find it easily enough via Google. (or try this https://harvardlawreview.org/print/vol-122/the-conservative-insurgency-and-presidential-power-a-developmental-perspective-on-the-unitary-executive/ It took me  30 minutes yesterday to read it. Something like the same point was  made recently by the superb columnist of the Financial Times Janan Ganesh.

Sounds pretty bleak, doesn’t it? There is, as always, a hitch. Donald Trump probably isn’t a strong leader. He seems more like a unstable man with a good political intuition now coming apart. The likely chaos of his second term may give the Democratic Party an opportunity. 

If the Dems come up with new leadership, and strong candidates, who swiftly learn the lessons Trump taught about appealing to voters of wide-ranging identities, they just might be able to defeat J.D. Vance in the next presidential election, after the mid-term congressional elections return them to power in the Senate.

Who knows?  Today it is just a comforting thought.  But today is the time to start.

David Warsh is proprietor of Somerville-based economicprincipals.com.