Corporate vs. Government Organization

Today’s U.S. government leaders under Trump have treated government like a private business, with Mr. Trump as the sole owner exercising ultimate control and facing little oversight. The secretaries of the various departments report to him and appear accountable to no one else.

This is clearly not the form of government the founders designed. A government run like a sole proprietorship becomes, in effect, a dictatorship, leaving citizens with little or no rights and no meaningful influence. The only initial check is the Electoral College, which helps determine who holds executive power—unless that leader eliminates such constraints, including Congress, the Supreme Court, and other institutions, to consolidate control. This is one reason Mr. Trump appears to admire systems such as those in China, Russia, and North Korea, where national leaders exercise broad control over what happens within their spheres of power.

In practice, the U.S. government more closely resembles a corporation than a sole proprietorship. The stockholders are “we the people,” the CEO is the President, the Board of Directors is Congress—elected by the shareholders—and the legal department is the Supreme Court. Congress has the power to remove the President through impeachment. Its members can also be replaced by voters every two or six years. Like a board, Congress sets broad policy and strategy and controls the budget through its “power of the purse.”

Still, the analogy should not be taken too far because governing is fundamentally different from running a corporation. The point is that Mr. Trump’s attempt to run the United States as though it were one of his private companies cannot continue. Our government is meant to be of the people, by the people, and for the people; anything less falls short of the vision on which it was founded.