Cheney's Monster

Cheney’s experiment in unchecked executive power has escaped the lab

Dick Cheney died today. That may already be old news by the time you read this, but what deserves reflection is how the political machinery he built continues to shape the American presidency. The path Cheney helped pave — a road toward an unrestrained executive — became an express lane for Donald Trump.

In the aftermath of Watergate, a young Dick Cheney, then serving under President Gerald Ford, came to believe that the scandal’s greatest casualty wasn’t the president’s criminal behavior but the power of the presidency itself. He saw the congressional reforms in the wake of Watergate, such as the War Powers Resolution, the Freedom of Information Act, and intelligence oversight committees, as shackles on the executive branch, and he dedicated his career to destroying them.

As Vice President under George W. Bush, he finally had the opportunity to implement his vision. With methodical precision, Cheney and his legal allies, including David Addington and John Yoo, expanded presidential authority under the doctrine known as the “Unitary Executive Theory.” In their view, the president’s role as Commander in Chief should be virtually unchecked during times of war. Simultaneously, they framed the “War on Terror” as both perpetual and borderless, thereby ensuring that emergency powers would become a permanent fixture of American government.

Under Cheney’s influence, the administration redefined torture through secret Justice Department memos, authorizing practices such as waterboarding and sleep deprivation — acts that violated the Geneva Conventions but were justified as lawful executive discretion. He oversaw a warrantless domestic surveillance program that bypassed the courts and allowed the government to monitor American citizens without judicial approval.

Cheney also championed the use of presidential signing statements — hundreds of them — asserting the right to ignore portions of laws the president deemed “unconstitutional,” including congressional bans on torture. He fought to restrict congressional and judicial oversight, arguing that senior White House officials possessed “absolute immunity.” He refused to disclose details of executive operations, from the names of corporate energy advisers to the rationales for secret detentions. And when it came to those detentions, he was central in establishing Guantánamo Bay and a network of “black sites” overseas, where the law was treated as optional.

In short, Cheney envisioned an executive branch above oversight and restraint — one that could act unilaterally in the name of national security. The Constitution, in this model, became advisory rather than binding.

When Donald Trump assumed office, the institutional precedents Cheney set were waiting for him. Trump didn’t have to invent authoritarianism; he simply inherited it. In Trump v. United States (2024), the Supreme Court officially extended near-absolute immunity to presidents for “official acts,” validating the very kind of unchecked power Cheney once argued for. Trump empowered Immigration and Customs Enforcement to operate like his own private army, authorizing raids, indefinite detentions, and family separations under policies that many consider human rights violations.

Meanwhile, private technology firms such as Palantir Technologies, founded by Trump ally Peter Thiel, expanded government data-mining and surveillance capabilities, erasing the boundary between private enterprise and state control. The DOGE team, headed by another Trump ally, Elon Musk, collected and consolidated private information on every American. Trump wielded executive orders and emergency declarations as weapons, firing inspectors general, diverting federal funds, and imposing tariffs without congressional oversight. Many of these actions took effect long before courts could intervene.

His administration repeatedly revoked press credentials and, by issuing threats to media companies, sidelined journalists unwilling to echo official narratives, mirroring the secrecy and message discipline Cheney once established. Trump also continued and expanded practices of indefinite detention, often outsourcing prisoners to foreign facilities where due process vanished entirely.

In each case, Trump amplified a precedent Cheney had helped legitimize. What Cheney engineered through theory and bureaucracy, Trump implemented through spectacle and shameless defiance.

It is tragically fitting that Cheney, late in life, expressed alarm at Trump’s autocratic tendencies. Perhaps in a meager attempt to mitigate the damage, he endorsed Kamala Harris for President, but it was too little, too late. Metaphorically speaking, Dick Cheney built Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory, giving the instruments of surveillance, secrecy, and unchecked power to a megalomaniac who could not be controlled.

Like Dr. Frankenstein, Cheney lived to see his creation run loose and do enormous damage. The monster of executive supremacy that he created no longer answers to law, party, or conscience; it only answers to power itself. In short, Cheney’s experiment was a disastrous failure.

If Americans want to preserve their Constitution and their freedoms, they must do more than complain about the monster; they must find the courage to stand up to it and dismantle it. This is a historic moment that can only be met with historic action. There is no room for nuance. There is no tolerance for inaction. There is no margin for error. Because once unchecked power establishes itself, it never surrenders without a bloody fight.

Originally published in the Frontline Progressive, November 4, 2025