The answer to abuse of power
The less power the federal government has, the less likely it will be abused by corrupt or authoritarian leaders.
It is a common theme on the populist Right that Republicans must “use their power” and govern with that power. They were elected to use their power, and not doing so would be a failure and even a betrayal. A common rebuttal to concerns about abuse of power is summed up here:
We cannot be afraid to do something because the left might do it in the future. The left is already going to do it, regardless of whether we do it. That is the takeaway of the last 40 years.
Yes, the Left has abused political power. But the answer to abuse of power is not to abuse power because “they did it first” or because “they will do it anyway.” The answer is to strictly limit government power so that no one can abuse it.
Contrast this to the “1994 Republican revolution,” when Republicans took control of Congress for the first time in 40 years. The Republican Congress, led by Speaker Newt Gingrich, balanced the federal budget, passed significant welfare reform and worked to move authority over policy back to the states. It would have been unthinkable for a prominent national Republican to advocate for expanding government power at that point.
One solution is for Congress to take back its lawmaking authority from the bureaucracy. Far too often, Congress passes a vague law and leaves it to the bureaucracy to write regulations implementing the law and directing enforcement of it. Every regulation proposed by the bureaucracy should require a majority vote in the House and Senate and a Presidential signature to become law.
President Trump signed an executive order mandating that federal agencies eliminate ten regulations for each new one passed. This is an excellent policy, but he will not be President after January 2029. We should not pin our hopes on deregulation on the President. That should be handled by Congress. This is especially important when the bureaucracy passes regulations that have the force of criminal law.
But the primary reason our federal elections (especially Presidential elections) are seen by so many people as a national crisis is because the federal government has too much power. If the federal government was confined to its constitutional limits, it would matter very little who sits in the White House. Policy-making authority would properly reside in the states. The Tenth Amendment has been dead letter for over a century. We should restore the position it holds, and this will require action by the President, Congress and the states. It will be a long battle, and it will never be truly won as long as authoritarians who seek to expand federal power keep getting elected, but we can make progress little by little.