Psychological manipulation as domestic executive authority

Unilateral presidential power has typically be overt an focused on foreign events, but the current president has found a way to exert executive authority like no other president before him.

My masters thesis was on the nature and bounds of executive authority (presidential power) and how the Supreme Court has ruled in such cases.

Most unilateral acts of executive authority over America’s history have had a direct or related tie to war. They have also been overt acts and largely foreign in nature, not domestic.

Our current president is refusing to commit to a peaceful transfer of power should he lose the election. Simultaneously, he’s undermining the integrity of the election, which is run by bipartisan election officials in every state and county in the nation.

What we are seeing happen in real-time is an act of executive authority through psychological manipulation. There is no proof that our elections are fraught with fraud or rigged in any way. But the president says it over and over with conviction and from behind the seal of the office. A segment of the population joins that belief and now we have a new contagion on our hands.

As The Atlantic reports, the president’s campaign team is working with state officials to bypass the will of the people and seat electors who will vote for the president. This is a glaring gap in the Constitution, which no president or candidate has ever considered manipulating since 1792.