There Are No ‘Mandates,’ There Is Only Constitutional Authority

One of the arguments I am seeing thrown at anyone who, like me, does not think that, say, Matt Gaetz or Robert F. Kennedy Jr. should be given jobs in the Cabinet — and who certainly does not think that they should be given jobs in the cabinet absent a vote in the Senate — is that, having won the election convincingly, President Trump now has a “mandate” that ought to be reflexively deferred to by the other branches of government. I dislike this argument, and I’ll explain why.

It can be easy to forget this amid all the noise, but the members of the other branches of government also won their elections, and, within our arrangement of government, those victories have precisely the same implications today as they did before November 5. Back in 2016, when Obama was trying to put Merrick Garland on the Supreme Court, I was told incessantly that, if the Republicans wanted to choose who served in the judiciary, they should have “won the election.” But they did “win the election.” It was just a different series of elections than the one that Barack Obama had won decisively in 2012. Having won control of the executive branch, Obama did, indeed, enjoy the power to nominate whomever he liked to the Supreme Court. And, having won control of the Senate — over a number of different years — the Republicans had the power to agree or disagree with his choice. That arrangement was not new; it was how our system has worked since 1789. The same principle had applied to the debates over DACA in 2012 and the budget in 2013 (when the House was the “obstructionist,” even “terroristic,” villain), to the fracas over Syria in 2013 and 2014 (when Barack Obama wished to use military force, and both parties said no), and to Joe Biden’s unilateral attempt in 2022 to transfer student-loan debt from the people who took it out to the U.S. Treasury. Then, as now, our federal government boasts different branches, staffed by different people, each exercising different powers. As such, there’s not a “mandate” in effect at any given point, there are several.

About the Author

Charles C. W. Cooke

Charles C. W. Cooke is a senior editor at National Review and the host of The Charles C. W. Cooke Podcast.

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One of the arguments I am seeing thrown at anyone who, like me, does not think that, say, Matt Gaetz or Robert F. Kennedy Jr. should be given jobs in the Cabinet — and who certainly does not think that they should be given jobs in the cabinet absent a vote in the Senate — is that, having won the election convincingly, President Trump now has a “mandate” that ought to be reflexively deferred to by the other branches of government. I dislike this argument, and I’ll explain why.

It can be easy to forget this amid all the noise, but the members of the other branches of government also won their elections, and, within our arrangement of government, those victories have precisely the same implications today as they did before November 5. Back in 2016, when Obama was trying to put Merrick Garland on the Supreme Court, I was told incessantly that, if the Republicans wanted to choose who served in the judiciary, they should have “won the election.” But they did “win the election.” It was just a different series of elections than the one that Barack Obama had won decisively in 2012. Having won control of the executive branch, Obama did, indeed, enjoy the power to nominate whomever he liked to the Supreme Court. And, having won control of the Senate — over a number of different years — the Republicans had the power to agree or disagree with his choice. That arrangement was not new; it was how our system has worked since 1789. The same principle had applied to the debates over DACA in 2012 and the budget in 2013 (when the House was the “obstructionist,” even “terroristic,” villain), to the fracas over Syria in 2013 and 2014 (when Barack Obama wished to use military force, and both parties said no), and to Joe Biden’s unilateral attempt in 2022 to transfer student-loan debt from the people who took it out to the U.S. Treasury. Then, as now, our federal government boasts different branches, staffed by different people, each exercising different powers. As such, there’s not a “mandate” in effect at any given point, there are several.