The Left - and the center-left, academia and the media - all warned that Trump would be Hitler ("literally Hitler") the FIRST time he was elected. This is not an artifact of the far-left, but mainstream Democrat dogma. Just look at Pelosi's behavior throughout Trump's term - Pelosi was third in line to the presidency and the most powerful Democrat in the nation. For all the reasons you cite THIS TIME, the same was true the FIRST time: Trump is constrained by the bureaucracy itself (the legions of civilians and contractors) as well as the oath-constrained military AND the courts AND civilian industry AND the states. That's quite a vaccine against dictatorship, I would think.
Trump will, of course, on day one, as he says he will, look a LOT like a dictator. He will have a large stack of EOs ready to sign, ripping out the Biden unconstitutional and unlawful transgressions root and all. He will dismiss pretty much the entirety of the appointed workforce - and why not? He will have a standing list of TRUSTED and VETTED appointees ready on day one this time. And following Vivek Ramaswamy's lead, he can re-organize the federal bureaucracy without consulting Congress. Consider all the "misinformation boards" and panels and committees, the executive branch staff dedicated to finding "end runs" around constitutional balance. This is the plan. So yeah, Democrats and Washington as usual are right to be terrified. They should be.
Government-by-EO has become the norm, sadly. EOs that cancel other EOs please me, but it's not how the country should run (typing a post about that right now). I worry about who Trump will be able to get to work for him, given his mistreatment of past appointees.
Trump's abuse of his military personnel makes me extremely wary of who might possibly agree to work with him. Those who would quickly say yes and hop on board are not the ones we would want. Hopefully some steel spined, Constitution obsessed GOs will step up, but we shall see. The way Mattis and Kelly were treated during and after their tenures is still reverberating.
There's a group out there, well-funded and diligently working the appointment candidate lists. The goal is to not repeat the staffing disaster of Trump's first term, wherein he relied on advice of Washington insiders and "his gut" to pick, what turned out to be, a pretty awful lineup.
The ascension of the presidential EO is a result of gridlock, first in the Clinton administration, when the Gingrich House wouldn't "play ball". GWB (aka, "Chimpy W McHitler") was not a fan and chose to "play ball" with Democrats. Obama took the practice to an art form after 2010 when he lost the House and then in 2012 when he lost the Senate. Obama was getting "nothing done" (because his political capital was spent after the egregious ACA was rammed through on a party-line vote using budget reconciliation)...so he resorted to using EOs to advance "the Agenda". What Biden has done puts Obama to shame, but truth be told, Biden has a LOT of help within the bureaucracy.
That you for this great piece! My hope is, indeed, that the next two, three months will allow some principled discussion about some core projects of the Democratic Party, particularly on (anti-) racism and the nuclear family (destruction). If conservatives can demonstrate to moderates that the (far-left) progressive part of the Democratic Party has left the real Overton Window of morally acceptable policy proposals (not the window of what the media offers, but the window of what, in a reasoned debate, is actually justifiable!), then I believe the Democrats will have only two options left: losing utterly to whoever is the Republican nominee (Trump or anyone else for that matter), or completely disavowing these totally ridiculous policy proposals... Having watched this documentary (from a year ago!) about how Claudine Gay butchered the career of a black scholar at Harvard, who dared to go against the DEI dogma (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8xWOlk3WIw), followed by a long conversation with Richard Fryer on how to measure input variables (independent contributors) of racial disparities (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MPJ91zlOn8), I think it is clear that the real discussion on race has not yet been had in any meaningful way. Instead, we focus on tokenism (equity), by which already wealthy but hardly talented people of color are elevated, which does not solve any real problem, and demolishes merit-based economic success of this great nation. If this can be demonstrated by genuinely intelligent and smart people, I believe voters will abandon the chimera that is the current dogma of progressive-extremist thinkers...
The Left - and the center-left, academia and the media - all warned that Trump would be Hitler ("literally Hitler") the FIRST time he was elected. This is not an artifact of the far-left, but mainstream Democrat dogma. Just look at Pelosi's behavior throughout Trump's term - Pelosi was third in line to the presidency and the most powerful Democrat in the nation. For all the reasons you cite THIS TIME, the same was true the FIRST time: Trump is constrained by the bureaucracy itself (the legions of civilians and contractors) as well as the oath-constrained military AND the courts AND civilian industry AND the states. That's quite a vaccine against dictatorship, I would think.
Trump will, of course, on day one, as he says he will, look a LOT like a dictator. He will have a large stack of EOs ready to sign, ripping out the Biden unconstitutional and unlawful transgressions root and all. He will dismiss pretty much the entirety of the appointed workforce - and why not? He will have a standing list of TRUSTED and VETTED appointees ready on day one this time. And following Vivek Ramaswamy's lead, he can re-organize the federal bureaucracy without consulting Congress. Consider all the "misinformation boards" and panels and committees, the executive branch staff dedicated to finding "end runs" around constitutional balance. This is the plan. So yeah, Democrats and Washington as usual are right to be terrified. They should be.
Government-by-EO has become the norm, sadly. EOs that cancel other EOs please me, but it's not how the country should run (typing a post about that right now). I worry about who Trump will be able to get to work for him, given his mistreatment of past appointees.
Trump's abuse of his military personnel makes me extremely wary of who might possibly agree to work with him. Those who would quickly say yes and hop on board are not the ones we would want. Hopefully some steel spined, Constitution obsessed GOs will step up, but we shall see. The way Mattis and Kelly were treated during and after their tenures is still reverberating.
I extend that across the board. All we can hope for, if Trump does manage to win the WH, is that people step up for the good of the nation.
There's a group out there, well-funded and diligently working the appointment candidate lists. The goal is to not repeat the staffing disaster of Trump's first term, wherein he relied on advice of Washington insiders and "his gut" to pick, what turned out to be, a pretty awful lineup.
The ascension of the presidential EO is a result of gridlock, first in the Clinton administration, when the Gingrich House wouldn't "play ball". GWB (aka, "Chimpy W McHitler") was not a fan and chose to "play ball" with Democrats. Obama took the practice to an art form after 2010 when he lost the House and then in 2012 when he lost the Senate. Obama was getting "nothing done" (because his political capital was spent after the egregious ACA was rammed through on a party-line vote using budget reconciliation)...so he resorted to using EOs to advance "the Agenda". What Biden has done puts Obama to shame, but truth be told, Biden has a LOT of help within the bureaucracy.
That you for this great piece! My hope is, indeed, that the next two, three months will allow some principled discussion about some core projects of the Democratic Party, particularly on (anti-) racism and the nuclear family (destruction). If conservatives can demonstrate to moderates that the (far-left) progressive part of the Democratic Party has left the real Overton Window of morally acceptable policy proposals (not the window of what the media offers, but the window of what, in a reasoned debate, is actually justifiable!), then I believe the Democrats will have only two options left: losing utterly to whoever is the Republican nominee (Trump or anyone else for that matter), or completely disavowing these totally ridiculous policy proposals... Having watched this documentary (from a year ago!) about how Claudine Gay butchered the career of a black scholar at Harvard, who dared to go against the DEI dogma (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8xWOlk3WIw), followed by a long conversation with Richard Fryer on how to measure input variables (independent contributors) of racial disparities (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MPJ91zlOn8), I think it is clear that the real discussion on race has not yet been had in any meaningful way. Instead, we focus on tokenism (equity), by which already wealthy but hardly talented people of color are elevated, which does not solve any real problem, and demolishes merit-based economic success of this great nation. If this can be demonstrated by genuinely intelligent and smart people, I believe voters will abandon the chimera that is the current dogma of progressive-extremist thinkers...
Thank you and thanks for the comment. I recently wrote this bit about how merit has become a Bad Thing, ICYMI.
https://therootsofliberty.substack.com/p/the-systemic-cancer
"I believe voters will abandon the chimera that is the current dogma of progressive-extremist thinkers..."
There's a reason why the left blocks the exits and operates through shame, intimidation, and peer-facing media. Otherwise, they'd leave in DROVES.
Agreed 100% and well put on all counts.