Subject: Re: Replace FDR with Trump
I mean how do you hem this in?

You don't. I mean, any more than it already is hemmed in.

Congress has spent the last eighty years building up power in the Executive branch, under the assumption that it would be wielded a certain way. They assumed it would be wielded a certain way because Congress holds the power of the pen and the purse. Since any President would want to have Congress do things in order to cement their legacy (new legislation, new programs), they would always have a seat at the table.

Trump doesn't want any legislation from Congress. Sure, he'd probably love a crime bill or some changes to the immigration and naturalization acts - but they're not important to his agenda. His major policy goals are in areas where he doesn't need legislation: immigration enforcement, law and order, international trade, and changing the federal government. He's not out here trying to get changes to Social Security or health care reform or making changes to environmental statutes or anything.

In that respect, he is hemmed in. He's only really able to advance an agenda within the Executive. If he wanted to pursue anything in Congress, he'd be thwarted pretty quickly. But he's come to realize (I think) that the Executive power of the Presidency has been broadened so immensely by decades of Congressional expansion that it's more than enough for him.

If you have a President that's almost exclusively interested in the exercise of Executive power, and doesn't care much at all about legislation, there's almost nothing that can be done to rein him in. I mean, if the Democrats controlled a chamber of Congress, they could harry him a bit through the exercise of oversight authority and whatnot - but since he's a lame duck and largely unconcerned with what his opponents say about him anymore, that won't do anything.

Elections have consequences. He got elected President, so he gets to run the Executive branch. Every power that's vested in the President is his to wield. Unless and until he needs to get something through Congress, he can completely ignore Congress.