President-elect Donald Trump will sweep into office in January with few formal checks to his power. Republicans control the House and Senate, while a conservative majority sits on the Supreme Court. For his critics, it’s a dispiriting time.
But as other presidents have learned, there are some checks and balances that aren’t described in your AP Gov textbook.
An unlikely one surfaced recently as veteran Wall Street strategist Ed Yardeni cautioned that investors in U.S. bonds could play a critical role in forcing the incoming Trump administration to back down from its plans for an all-out trade war with everyone from China to Mexico and Canada.
Reviving a term he first coined in the 1980s, Yardeni warned that “bond vigilantes” could take action if Trump’s plans go too far.
Like Batman, these vigilantes only swing into action when the system isn’t working. Instead of putting on a costume and roughing up street punks, though, they simply…
