Imagine you need to hire someone to guard a big red button. The best that can happen is nothing; but the worst that can happen is that they themselves decide to push the button.
The Executive branch effectively only has the purpose of destroying, stopping, blocking, canceling, and annulling things. The president vetos bills; stops foreign invasions with military power; commutes federal prison sentences created by the judicial branch; stops legislation from applying by signing trade agreements or granting amnesties; etc. And every department within the Executive, like the FDA or the SEC, exists solely for the purpose of blocking people from doing things.
So the President is effectively just sitting there in front of a control panel consisting entirely of big red buttons. Sometimes, rarely, situationally, it helps to press one of them. Pressing one at random, though, would almost certainly do damage and serve no purpose.
Obama's status quo was done by just avoiding pressing the big red buttons. That's bad in one way. But it's an entirely different kind of bad to start pressing lots and lots of the big red buttons. That's what George W. was actually hated for—what he did, not what he didn't do.
Trump couldn't accomplish much good, certainly. But he would have full access to a panel of big red buttons. Do you trust Trump there?
The Executive branch effectively only has the purpose of destroying, stopping, blocking, canceling, and annulling things. The president vetos bills; stops foreign invasions with military power; commutes federal prison sentences created by the judicial branch; stops legislation from applying by signing trade agreements or granting amnesties; etc. And every department within the Executive, like the FDA or the SEC, exists solely for the purpose of blocking people from doing things.
So the President is effectively just sitting there in front of a control panel consisting entirely of big red buttons. Sometimes, rarely, situationally, it helps to press one of them. Pressing one at random, though, would almost certainly do damage and serve no purpose.
Obama's status quo was done by just avoiding pressing the big red buttons. That's bad in one way. But it's an entirely different kind of bad to start pressing lots and lots of the big red buttons. That's what George W. was actually hated for—what he did, not what he didn't do.
Trump couldn't accomplish much good, certainly. But he would have full access to a panel of big red buttons. Do you trust Trump there?