Donald Trump and his allies are planning to centralize more power in the Oval Office if he is elected as president in 2024. Their scheme indicates Trump’s goals to annihilate his political enemies and exert more control over federal agencies.
Trump’s objective is simple: he hopes to increase presidential authority by stripping government bureaus of their independence from the White House. He wants to bring agencies like the Federal Communications Commission, which enforces laws for television and internet companies, under the control of the executive branch.
He will also re-introduce the practice of “impounding” funds, which allows the president to refuse to spend Congressional money on programs that he does not favor. He will deny employment protections from civil servants, making it easier to replace them if they stand in the way of the president’s agenda.
Trump’s desires to restructure the government are not new. He has been the subject of multiple criminal investigations — some dating back to his first stint in the White House — and has claimed that the Justice Department is conducting a “witch hunt” against conservatives.
His motives to protect himself from prosecution are the driving forces behind his campaign.
The former president is making no effort to conceal his “paradigm-shifting ideas,” proclaiming them in fundraising events and on his website. Some of his plans were initially floated during Trump’s first term in office but were promptly shut down by concerns that they were too controversial and unworkable.
At a rally in Michigan in June, Trump explained his intentions.
“We will demolish the deep state,” he said. “We will expel the warmongers from our government. We will drive out the globalists. We will cast out the communists, Marxists and fascists. And we will throw off the sick political class that hates our country.”
