Shrike
6mo ago
You shouldn't need to pass a law to get rid of USAID; USAID was established by an executive order pursuant to the Foreign Assistance Act. I don't see any reason why executive orders cannot eliminate USAID and replace it with, let's say, USHELP as long as the Foreign Assistance Act was being carried out.
I agree about the US Department of Education (which was established by law) but I do think it's within the purview of the President to reorganize it.
If they want to pass a law to rename The United States Digital Service
The US Digital Service is part of the Executive Office of the President it seems very silly to suggest Congress needs an act to rename it. I don't think they have any real authority or say over what the EOP structures itself.
I think the United States seems to be heading for a form of democratic tyranny, with few checks and balances. I don't know if there has actually been an "autocoup", but I do think there are shades of it in what has been happening the last few weeks, and I think any lover of American liberty and prosperity should be a little bit worried as well, even if they like the effects of a lot of these unilateral actions by the Executive.
Well, yes – I agree with this. Now, I don't think, from what I can tell, anything that's happened is atypically illegal or tyrannical, and the GOP majority is so thin that I don't think a danger of democratic tyranny will emerge unless he governs so well that he gains a supermandate (in which case will he really need tyranny?) In fact, some of the things that have been done, such as the temporary funding freeze, I honestly think perhaps every administration should consider. But with all that being said I think there is always danger of a backlash going too far. On the preference of "my rules, enforced fairly, my rules, enforced unfairly, your rules enforced fairly, your rules, enforced unfairly" people often prefer them in that order, but under a representative government with a rule of law the idea that the rules are enforced fairly is explicitly more important than whose rules are at play.
However, if your rivals have been enforcing their rules without regards for fairness, good things can actually come of returning the favor and enforcing your rules with no regard for fairness. This can remind people why fairness is important. But it is hard to tell when a retaliatory defection is returning everyone to a default cooperate mode or setting off another round of tit-for-tat.
I think there are also some interesting higher-level considerations about whether it is possible to prefer "fairness of enforcement" over "whose rules" when a society is not morally and culturally homogenous enough to actually agree on most rules. The Civil War happened in part precisely because the extremes on both sides explicitly decided that ensuring their rules were enforced was more important than the fairness of enforcement, because following the rules of the other side was a travesty. And most people today agree with them: slavery was so grievous that it was worth bending or breaking the rules to be rid of it. If this is true, it is worth considering whether it is possible to put fairness of enforcement over outcome in a sufficiently divided society. (In fact interestingly DEI is explicit about prioritizing outcomes over the process but that's a whole other can of worms...)
TLDR: yes, people should (always, and not just under this administration) be vigilant about their liberty and concerned about the powers of the state. But people should also consider, if they want those powers to shrink, how to best engage with a potential tit-for-tat spiral to ensure that it resolves into cooperation instead of an open-ended tit-for-tat. Finally, people should perhaps be honest with themselves about whether or not they want to cooperate (as opposed to be willing to win or lose a tit-for-tat spiral) and under what conditions.
Shrike
6mo ago
I think democratic government scales poorly. There's a reason that large countries tend to take on imperial tendencies. Humans have innate psychological difficulty scaling that I think comes into play here - people can only know around 200 - 400 people. As it grows, representative democracy can either be extremely unwieldy due to tremendous amounts of representatives in the government or its representatives can slowly become isolated from their constituents due to their sheer numbers.
Shrike
6mo ago
Yeah, I think this is basically correct. I think most people actually make pretty sensible decisions for themselves. But it is very hard to make sensible decisions for other people, and at the end of the day due to the complexity of our modern political system people are often at least in theory asked to do this.
Shrike
6mo ago
I agree with this, with a caveat: Congress has been pushing more and more off on to the executive. If Trump simply destroys much of the administrative state and streamlines the rest, it's possible he will have a lasting legacy simply because Congress may not sign off on future expansions of the executive and because even if they do, it might take decades for the bloat to return.
However, I you're correct that a consolidation phase is probably necessary to really cement a legacy, particularly when looking ahead towards future electoral dynamics.
Shrike
6mo ago
And if one of the four resigned it's now the Three Muskateers so even better!
Shrike
6mo ago
Stays and injunctions will start pouring in as district court judges stop fearing that their orders will be simply ignored.
Did you know that you can appeal stays and injunctions on an emergency basis all the way up to the Supreme Court? This isn't a slam dunk to way to a hearing, let alone a win, particularly since you now need to clear emergency hurdles as well as prevail on the questions on the merits - but the court system can move surprisingly quickly when it wants to. And recently, on balance, I would say that it is likely to be deferential to the executive, particularly on these sorts of questions. Trump v. Hawaii is a relevant case here, both in terms of SCOTUS' deference to the executive and in terms of the fact that the case was heard by SCOTUS within a year of the Presidential action in question.
...which brings me to my next question: did you know that people sometimes attempt to provoke lawsuits on purpose?
I have no idea if Team Trump is that smart, but one potential strategy is to draw litigation on an area that you know is favorable (in this case - executive branch's management of its own employees!) and get a ruling from SCOTUS that is in your favor and maybe just a bit broader than absolutely necessary. Now you use that ruling to cover your next round of broader, slightly less precedented actions - and this time your enemies are thinking twice about suing you because they don't want to lose before SCOTUS again and give you cover for whatever your next move is. Really, if you can be confident that the courts are on your side (and they might not be, this stuff is a bit arcane to me so idk) you're in a win-win scenario at this point - either you get away with doing what you want, or you get to do what you want after a short break and you set precedent that lets you do more in the future.
TLDR; I don't think a single lawsuit means DOGE is dead.
Maybe Congress can tap in…
I do think this will be necessary for Continued Trump Winning. I might try to flesh this out more as a top-level post, but basically while DOGE is whipping up the true believers into a feeding frenzy, setting a right-wing narrative about, say, USAID, and perhaps getting solid reform, letting Elon run the narrative has a serious problem: unless you're following along with every Tweet (and most Americans are not) you're sort of vaguely getting splattered by a firehose of information. Now, you'll recall how well that approach worked during the Stop Trump push. Instead of focusing on one clearly bad thing, Team Anti-Trump hit him from 40 different angles and ultimately none of the attacks stuck narratively even if they stuck legally.
Letting Elon Tweet this stuff out in bits and pieces is great for Team Trump morale, but to get a win that sticks in the mind of America Team Trump needs to find a clear-cut case of (ideally criminal) malfeasance by an ideological enemy and then either make hay out of the criminal prosecution or have Congress make a big stink about it. (Ideally don't have Elon tweet about it before it hits the newspapers, that can have an inoculatory effect in some cases.) The narrative needs to be something extremely simple, no more complex than "Under our political opponents, $400 million in fraud was facilitated at USAID," and then they need to get their allies in Congress to do nothing except talk about that exact message until USAID and their political opponents are discredited - and then move on to the next target.
I'm not saying the discombobulating series of actions are bad - it's actually a very good strategy, I think - but for it to have lasting effect, there also needs to be a very simple narrative that everyone can grasp and that everyone can hear. Think Watergate, or even better the Lewinsky scandal.
At least, that's my sense. I'm not trying to argue that it's good or bad for America, I leave that up to you, but in terms of what works, I think America needs to hear something simpler and louder than Elon tweeting for four years. Congressional hearings might just do it.
Shrike
6mo ago
This is more or less where I stand. I think sometimes using it as evidence (particularly in arguments about AI!) is potentially helpful in small doses.
If the preponderance of your response is not human generated, you probably are doing something wrong.
Shrike
6mo ago
"Mr. President sir, we can't solve this problem with tariffs,"
"Well then, time for my other universal solution!"
"Tweeting at them, sir?"
"Please, have a little respect for Elon - it's just posting, now. And no, annexation!"
Shrike
6mo ago
Musk is running around shutting down agencies with no accountability to the bureaucracy or the courts.
Musk is acting on behalf of the executive branch as a government employee, and DOGE is an executive branch agency. If the executive branch doesn't have oversight and control - up to and including the ability to shut down - its own agencies (again, USAID was created by an executive order!) then we don't have a representative constitutional government with checks and balances.
Shrike
6mo ago
It's independent in the sense that it's not part of the Executive Branch.
And yet hilariously was established by an executive order. Which I think means that the executive branch can delete it by simply issuing another Executive Order, although POTUS would presumably have to replace it with another agency (three guys in a basement?) to comply with the law.
One thing that is going to be interesting from the fallout of gestures all this will be the lawsuits over the powers of the executive. If I had to guess SCOTUS will ultimately support very broad powers for POTUS. Not sure how that would look different in the cases of agencies such as USAID that are independent, though.
Shrike
6mo ago
set up its own network of shell companies or charities to just continue the work of infiltrating nations and cultivating domestic assets
I think it does. The thing about USAID is that it's a very convenient tool for going sneaky stuff because it's in a lot of the right places, and as I understand it it is pretty much overtly the tool we use to exercise soft power along the lines of "funding pro-democracy organizations overseas." I don't think the intelligence community will be blind and deaf without it, or anything.
Shrike
6mo ago
"$3 million for Pakistani development funds" (actually this is going to fund Cuban Government Overthrow Twitter)
Shrike
6mo ago
I'm left with the impression that Musk and MAGA are being more truthful than NPR, and maybe the Agency does deserve to go into receivership.
I suspect that "The Agency" is an...apt term to describe USAID.
People are thinking a lot about
- The message shutting down US foreign aid sends to US citizens, and
- The message shutting down US foreign aid sends to foreign governments who want to receive US aid funding,
Missed in this is the question of 3): What message is being sent to foreign governments by shutting down a branch of the US intelligence apparatus*?
*Yes, I think this is an overstatement, but think about it from the perspective of a foreign government: once USAID serves as cover for a hostile covert op aimed at overthrowing a government, you have to assume the entire agency is serving as a CIA arm. And this is without getting into even the "soft power" or perhaps "propaganda" aspects of what USAID does.
Shrike
6mo ago
This is kinda what I think, too - although of course the actuarial tables are interesting, Trump seems very active and I think he's unlikely to just tip over. Plus, he seemed to handle the first term fairly well.
I will say that I did get the impression that he was older during the debates. But I wouldn't be surprised if he makes it to 90.
Looking at his family members might be interesting:
- Father, Fred Trump: 93
- Mother, Mary Anne MacLeod Trump: 88
- Brother, Robert Trump, 71: (seems he died of complications related to a fall, but had perhaps been in poor health)
- Brother, Fred Trump Jr., 42: heart attack (alcoholic)
- Uncle, John Trump, 77
- Grandmother, Elizabeth Trump, 85
- Grandfather, Frederick Trump, 49 (died in the 1919 flu pandemic)
Now, the internet assures me that lifestyle, not DNA, is the most important part of longevity, so this is a dodgy guide at best. But it seems to me that Trump already survived his version of the bird flue and isn't likely to die of alcoholism. He inherited his father's spot at the top of the Trump empire - if he takes after his mother and father (and grandmother) he'll be golden.
Shrike
6mo ago
The German government's credit wasn't really impacted, surprisingly.
Well that seems counterintuitive, but the interwar years were a weird time to be sure.
ETA: despite perhaps losing the plot, I enjoyed this - econ is not my strong suit, which means it is good for me to be discussing it.
Shrike
6mo ago
Be that as it may, I don't think it's good for the American economy to loan money and not have it paid back. Obviously a certain amount of this is the cost of doing business, but it's not good when that happens.
Are you saying that failing to pay their war debts didn't hurt German credit?
I sense I might be losing the thread on this, so feel free to lay your thesis out for me.
Shrike
6mo ago
I assume it was bad for the German economy because it made banks less likely to lend to them, drying up credit. (Plus the whole part where the French got irritated by the lack of repayment and seized some of their territory.)
Shrike
6mo ago
"So PEPFAR was good but using USAID to do surveillance work for the NSA and routing $300 million accidentally into the coffers of an African warlord was not so great. On balance, now that PEPFAR funding is restored and funding to African warlords isn't, I think this is a W for Elon" is the sort of post I could easily see Scott writing in a year. I wonder if Team Trump will be able to turn up anything really juicy.
Shrike
6mo ago
And it is unfortunately not an accurate model of reality — it's not true.
This is clearly an accurate model of reality in theory - a finite amount of land cannot support an infinite amount of people. Malthus was wrong in his concrete predictions about agriculture because he did not take into account technological increases. But as a model of reality, it's correct that the land can only support a certain amount of people through agriculture - it's just that we are tremendously efficient now.
I won't speak for 2rafa as to how immigration harms him/her, but I find it interesting that the general argument against immigration you mention isn't one that I commonly hear. In fact (going to how wrong Malthus in fact was) I don't think I have ever heard anyone argue seriously that the United States can't accept more immigrants because we will run out of food. Housing, maybe, but not food.
Shrike
6mo ago
almost all by American banks which Germany never paid back.
Yes this seems Bad For The Economy
Also, the great depression started when the US stock market crashed, spreading elsewhere.
Certainly. But am I wrong that Germany rug-pulling US banks and investors (and the European economy performing poorly due to the issues you mention, along with the occupation of the Ruhr) was bad for American speculators? And "overspeculation" was a leading cause of the 1929 stock market crash, wasn't it?
Shrike
6mo ago
It's been a long time since my economics and history courses, but I don't think the United States was owed much if anything by Germany. To the extent that anything in 1919 was causitive [and, to be fair, I don't think most things are monocausal] I think it would have been by American investments in Germany and Europe failing to yield expected returns. Germany had a string of economic problems – hyperinflation, the occupation of the Ruhr – related to its reparations debts, and from what I understand these not only negatively impacted Germany but Europe as a whole. Now, to your question, I don't know what degree of American stock market speculation was actually in Europe, so possibly my cool Keynes myth is bunk, but given that the European markets in the 1930s were sensitive to the American stock market, I imagine the reverse was true as well. But do take the theory with a grain of salt, I gather that the True Causes of the Great Depression are still a cause for debate among actual economists.
Shrike
6mo ago
At the very least it would be the honorable thing to do to publish a list of (reasonable) “demands” before implementing tariffs of that magnitude. Right now, as many have said here, it’s unclear what he actually wants Canada and Mexico to give him.
I think Trump thinks tariffs are good, under which circumstances a list of demands doesn't make sense since the tariffs are the point.
Regaining limited manufacturing autarky is something of a national emergency right now, so I am interested if these tariffs will help out with that at all or nah.
Shrike
6mo ago
Meynard Keynes arguably predicted the Great Depression in 1919 by forecasting the obvious inability of the Germans to pay back their crushing war reparations and the economic fallout that would ensue. Tariffs might have impacted things but I choose to believe that the Depression was mostly baked in since 1919 (since correct predictions are cool).
Even if Elon took over Twitter, fired 100% of the staff, and refilled 20% of the staff with buddies/ideological allies, that's downsizing, not merely landing your buddies spots. If your goal is to land your buddies spots you fire 20% of the staff and replace them with your buddies.
It seems plausible to me that stocking the bureaucracy with allies is a goal but frankly that codes more to me as Trump (or any politician, each turnover election they replace the political appointees for a reason!) than it does Elon. I think Elon actually cares a lot about competency and meritocracy.
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