U.S. President Donald Trump speaks as he meets with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz (not pictured) in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 3, 2026. REUTERS Jonathan Ernst
Amherst College political science professor Austin Sarat tells the Fulcrum that President Donald Trump has amassed a devastating amount of power in the White House thanks to Congress and a conservative Supreme Court determined to make the White House a monarchy.
All that power, however, is going to feel like a hammer in the hand of the next president — the kind that just makes somebody look for a target.
“As Arizona Senator Mark Kelly puts it, ‘(W)hen leaders of countries start to get more power and more influence, as it comes time for election-time they start to get worried. Is the next guy going to turn these new powers against me? So, we need whoever winds up in the White House next time to hit the reset button.’”
It would be quick sugar high, and probably poetic, to watch the next president use the DOJ — like Trump — to run the last president over a log ripper. And thanks to all the power Trump has amassed, and the newfound expectation of Americans for the next president to similarly politicize the DOJ, this is now an expected consequence.
But Sarat said a post-MAGA president will have to make decisions quickly on a range of appointments, institutional arrangements, and issues to keep the office from converting to malignant gravity well threatening to topple democracy.
“They will have to decide if they want to harness the enormous power accumulated by President Trump and blessed by the Supreme Court’s embrace of the so-called ‘unitary executive theory,” said Sarat.
Sarat said a post-MAGA president will need to decide how to use the vast new power to fire officials in administration agencies recently recognized and created by the Roberts Court’s incessant kowtowing to the White House.
“They will have to use that power to rid the federal government of MAGA operatives,” Sarat said. “It won’t be pretty, but it is necessary. Only then can they use expertise in ways that are vital to a well-functioning democracy.”
Second, the next post-MAGA president will have to decide very quickly what to do with a Department of Justice that currently functions as the president’s personal squad of defense attorneys.
“Should they appoint a political ally as Attorney General and charge them with carrying out a pro-democracy agenda in areas like civil rights, voting rights, and anti-corruption? Should they ask the department to investigate and prosecute any members of the Trump Administration who have violated the law, anyone the president does not pre-emptively pardon before he leaves office?” asked Sarat.
The answer, he said, is “both.”
“There is no going back to a hands-off relationship between the president and the attorney general. And, as we have learned from the transitions to democracy undertaken in numerous other countries, you can’t really revitalize democracy without holding those who were its enemies to account,” said Sarat.
Sarat said the third important thing that needs to happen in a post-MAGA world is returning the security sector to democratic civilian control, so individuals can participate in civic and political life without fear or retribution.
Fourth — and just as important — a post-MAGA president will have to restore the election infrastructure that the Trump Administration has worked so hard to discredit and dismantle.
“And, finally, the world after Trump will need to have a national debate about what elements of the previous order enabled the misuse of power and what constitutional changes will be necessary” to put democracy back on track, Sarat concluded.
