A powerful dissection of one of the fundamental problems in American governance today: the clash between presidents determined to redirect the nation through ever-tighter control of administration and an executive branch still organized to promote shared interests in steady hands, due deliberation, and expertise. President Trump pitted himself repeatedly against the institutions and personnel of the executive branch. In the process, two once-obscure concepts came center stage in an eerie faceoff. On one side was the specter of a "Deep State" conspiracyadministrators threatening to thwart the will of the people and undercut the constitutional authority of the president they elected to lead them. On the other side was a raw personalization of presidential power, one that a theory of "the unitary executive" gussied up and allowed to run roughshod over reason and the rule of law. The Deep State and the unitary executive framed every major contest of the Trump presidency. Like phantom twins, they drew each other out. These conflicts are not new. Stephen Skowronek, John A. Dearborn, and Desmond King trace the tensions between presidential power and the depth of the American state back through the decades and forward through the various settlements arrived at in previous eras. Phantoms of a Beleaguered Republic is about the breakdown of settlements and the abiding vulnerabilities of a Constitution that gave scant attention to administrative power. Rather than simply dump on Trump, the authors provide a richly historical perspective on the conflicts that rocked his presidency, and they explain why, if left untamed, the phantom twins will continue to pull the American government apart.

"The American people have been enlisted in an eerie face-off, one all the more nightmarish for the way the competing specters play off one another. On one side is a Deep State conspiracy that threatens to thwart the will of the people and undercut the constitutional authority of the leader they elected. On the other side is a raw personalization of power, one that a theory of the unitary executive has gussied up and allowed to run roughshod over reason and the rule of law. These, we submit, are the phantom twins of a beleaguered republic. Each threat implicates the other in every central controversy of the Trump era. Phantoms of a Beleaguered Republic argues that the Deep State and the unitary executive are two sides of the same syndrome, that the contest they frame speaks to basic issues of governance long suppressed, and that two distinct conceptions of authority are now drawing each other out to no good effect. The worry is that, left untamed, these phantom twins will continue to pull American government apart"--