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The United States was not meant to be a "democracy." Benjamin Franklin famously described the government created by the Constitutional Convention as "A republic, if you can keep it."
While there were certainly people in the founding generation who saw a place for a heavy democratic element in the United States, such as Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, I think it is fair to say that most educated gentlemen around the time of the founding were steeped in a tradition going back to Aristotle and Plato where "democracy" was the term for a bad form of government by the many.
Despite Alexander Hamilton advocating for the current Constitution, his original hours-long presentation to the Congress had a much stronger executive, and Hamilton famously told Jefferson, "The greatest man who ever lived was Julius Caesar." There's many ways to interpret this statement, but I think it is obvious that Hamilton hadn't completely shaken off the monarchical thinking of an Englishman, and wanted a strong central authority as the best guarantee of liberty for the people.
Federalist Paper 51, written by Madison, describes how the checks and balances of the United States republic are meant to function. The whole letter is worth a read, but I will focus on one part:
(Emphasis mine.)
Schlessinger's The Imperial Presidency, and Higgs' Crisis and Leviathan both document how this vision failed from different angles. Schlessinger examines the history of the growth of executive power, and the various techniques presidents used to get their way - from operating secret naval wars without congressional approval and oversight, to the use of impoundment to appropriate funds earmarked by congress (which was eventually eliminated after the Nixon presidency, due to his perceived abuse of the power.) Higgs looks at the way that crises created opportunities for the federal government to seize ever greater power, and while it is not limited to the growth in presidential power, it is impossible to ignore all of the emergency powers Congress ceded to the President across the constant cycle of crises.
Higgs was writing in 1987, and Schlessinger in 1973, and the trends they described have only continued.
And so we come to the present day, where Donald Trump became President on January 20th, and began what some are calling an "autocoup." On a diverse forum like this one, I am sure that there are at least a few monarchists that would be thrilled if that was true. I'm sure I can't convince them that an autocoup would be a bad thing, if that is, in fact, what is happening. But for the classical liberals, libertarians, conservatives and centrist institutionalists, I want to make the case that the way things happen matters as much as what is actually happening.
Some are defending actions like Elon Musk's DOGE dismantling the Department of Education without any apparent legal backing, by saying that this is what Trump supporters voted for.
But this simply isn't true. Or more accurately, that's not how this works.
I repeat: America is not a "democracy." America is a republic with checks and balances and a rule of law.
To the extent that we have democratic elements in our republic, then I certainly think that Trump and his supporters should be able to do what they were elected to do. If they want to pass an actual law that gets rid of USAID or the Department of Education, then let them do it. If they want to pass a law to rename The United States Digital Service, and give it unlimited power to control federal funding, then they should pass a law to do so. And if they can't get the Congress they voted in to make it happen, too bad, that is how a Republic works. The same applies if federal judges or the supreme court strike down a law or action as unconstitutional. One person doesn't just get the power to do whatever they want, without any oversight or pushback from the legislative or judicial branches.
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.
EDIT: Typos.
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.
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.
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.
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