Ford School faculty have been among the experts helping the public make sense of some of the key questions about political developments in DC: What actions are the new Administration taking? What do these actions mean for various stakeholders? What steps might come next among the complex set of players in our political system? How can we put the Administration's actions in historical and international context?
Four faculty members share their expertise with State & Hill readers on four pressing topics, as of March 2025: tariffs, executive action, state capacity, and populist far-right expansions in established democracies.
By Kenneth Lowande, associate professor of political science
Excerpted from remarks at a February 12, 2025 faculty-organized teach-in.
I am grateful for the chance to address three questions I hope will help people think about their government.
First, what is executive action? An executive action is simply an order to a bureaucrat. Sometimes the president signs a document, and sometimes it’s a verbal directive; either way, the president is just ordering the bureaucracy to do stuff.
Making policy this way has an upside; executive actions allow the president to move first. When the president goes first, it is up to someone to stop him. That “someone” might be slow—like the courts, or have trouble overcoming its own disagreements—like Congress.
But there is also a downside. Executive actions do not create new law, which has an important strategic implication. When Congress passes a law, it often obligates the government to do something.
If bureaucrats violate or fail to carry out the law, they can be sued. But if the president gives an order to a bureaucrat, the president has to spend time and energy making sure the orders are followed."
Kenneth Lowande
Second question: What is different about the way the second Trump administration uses executive action?
Note that it is not new for presidents to use ambiguous laws to change policy. Over the last 10 years, DEI has become an important part of how the government works, for example. But there is no law enacted by Congress that says the executive branch needs to adopt DEI as a core mission; these changes originated in the executive branch, and there, they can be destroyed. I think a fair reading of history shows Democrats have taken advantage of the ambiguous laws more than Republicans.
So, what is new? Difference #1: Political wins are the Trump administration’s first and most important objective.
They have hastily expanded a costly detention center in Guantanamo Bay, released reservoir water in California for no conceivable purpose, [and] attempted to freeze massive pockets of federal spending without warning or preparation.
Making political waves is the point. The volume and pace are designed to give you the impression that this is a president who is in charge and can do anything. Behind these actions, you will find carelessness and a disregard for process.
Difference #2: Many of the Trump administration’s actions are designed to overstep the law. For example, President Trump has always believed that birthright citizenship is bad. The difference today is that he has lawyers around him who will write and sign off on an executive order that almost any other lawyer would call illegal.
No other president in history has cared more about political appearances and cared less about legal risk.
Last question: What will make this strategy successful?
Imagine you’re in the Trump administration. Your strategy is to move first, over and over again, with speed. Almost all of your orders pose significant legal risk. You have a couple thousand people you can really trust, and you have taken executive action across the board, sparing no area of policy.
If you had to enforce all of those orders, you would quickly run out of bandwidth. So, what are you hoping for? You hope that people will follow your orders without being forced to.
President Trump’s executive actions depend on courts, everyday people, businesses, state governments, news organizations, and others acting as if the president actually has the powers he claims he does.
Under what conditions would the executive actions fail? It would start with people having more accurate knowledge about the actions’ limited power and forcing the administration to use its energy to make people comply with their directives.
Presidents who try to rule by decree love risk aversion. Their true enemy is bravery.
Lowande is the author of False Front: The Failed Promise of Presidential Power in a Polarized Age (University of Chicago Press, October 2024).
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