Tomorrow is Election Day, and even though President Donald Trump is not on the ballot, his presidency looms large over the outcome. Most Americans have consistently expressed their disapproval of him over the last 18 months, which stands to hurt Republicans tomorrow. Just how badly the GOP will suffer remains unclear for now.
We take for granted that midterm elections are largely influenced by opinions about the president. It is how our system works. In practice, this is true, but the way things function in 2018 is quite different from the regime implied by the Constitution.
The Founding Fathers inherited a tradition of radical Whiggishness from the English. Early-18th-century thinkers such as Lord Bolingbroke, John Trenchard, and Thomas Gordon were extremely worried about the extent to which the crown was able to interfere in the affairs of Parliament, undermining the extent to which that branch represented the voters, and by extension the republican quality of the whole government. Following the French and Indian War, fears of executive interference with legislative functions became a crucial component of revolutionary sentiment in America — colonists looked on with growing disgust as George III ignored or outright rejected what they believed were the rights of their legislatures.
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