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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   36631 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 20, 2025

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I noticed there is a slow drible of talk about some of Trumps Executive Orders. I kinda wanted to talk about all of them as a package, and some of them more specifically. I would advise everyone to just go ahead and read all of the executive orders (there are about 50):

https://www.whitehouse.gov/news/

They are generally short, about a page long. The titles are descriptive of the goals, so you can even skip reading many of them. And you don't need to hear about them via a second hand source.

I got the general gist of all of them within an hour or two on Inauguration day (when they were posted).

My general impressions:

  1. I like the visibility and ease of reading these. Its nothing like most legislation that goes through congress that often require a law degree, and an in depth knowledge of regulations just to sort of understand them.
  2. I don't like this continuing tradition of using executive orders to run the government. From what I remember this started in earnest under Bush 2. But its also pretty clear that congress is increasingly non-functional and uninterested in their assigned role in the constitution. Congress has delegated away its power for almost 100 years at this point, granting law-making powers to bureaucracies that are run under the executive branch. So I don't like the executive order - ocracy, but it seems there is no alternative.
  3. I care less about the culture war type orders, like renaming things. I think it is probably good to have them in there from a strategy perspective. Let your enemies exhaust themselves on silly issues.
  4. My favorite Executive order: Restoring Accountability To Policy-Influencing Positions Within the Federal Workforce. Basically people in the bureaucracy are supposed to carry out the will and directive of the president / executive branch. If they sandbag or fail to do this, then that is grounds for dismissal. They don't have to agree with the president or be loyal, but none of this "resist" stuff. It was a little ridiculous that this EO needed to be issued in the first place.
  5. The one that I think will actually personally impact me the most: Return to In-Person Work. I live close enough to DC. Traffic is going to get worse.
  6. Two executive orders have me worried. One is about cost of living: Delivering Emergency Price Relief for American Families and Defeating the Cost-of-Living Crisis. The actual text mostly talks about getting rid of barriers and harmful regulations. I hope that is where it stops. But populist politicians have often resorted to price controls to "fight" inflation. I strongly hope they avoid that pitfall.
  7. The other EO that worries me is related to trade America First Trade Policy. The basic economics case against tariffs seems air tight to me. Tariffs seem like a classic policy failure to me. The costs are distributed among all US consumers, but the benefits are often concentrated within certain sectors, or even specific companies. I was also hoping to see an end to the Jones Act, but this EO seems like it thinks that legislation is great.

Maybe this should go to the pardon thread, or even get it's own top level post, but I'm not summarizing the entirety of the drama.

In any case Ross Ulbricht is free and Trump is now the greatest president who has ever lived*. Blackpillers in disarray.

*) Ok sorry, not quite, there's still Snowden to take care of, and I don't know if there's anything that can be done for Assange, other than an official apology.

He publicly announced he would pardon Ulbricht as a favor to the libertarians months ago when they endorsed him.

Since you linked to me, and like I said, when Trump successfully deports a mere 25% of the illegal immigrant population (say 3.2 million people, and long-term settled in the US too, not border pushbacks) I’ll cease the blackpilling. Some things are easy, others are hard. It’s the difficult things that are most important.

I would also stop it if SCOTUS abolishes birthright citizenship, but I am very doubtful.

I would also stop it if SCOTUS abolishes birthright citizenship, but I am very doubtful.

That is one of the EOs. Whether it works is I guess another thing.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/protecting-the-meaning-and-value-of-american-citizenship/

Some judge in Hawaii is bound to zap it.

And then it goes to the supreme court ...

The Supreme Court will surely rule to uphold birthright citizenship, right?

Regardless of what the intent of the 14th amendment was, the language seems pretty clear to me. And, despite what liberals might think, the current court isn't just a conservative version of the Warren-era clownshow. They seem pretty reasonable for the most part and often reach a bipartisan consensus.

The Supreme Court will surely rule to uphold birthright citizenship, right?

Oh, certainly. But then, there's the question of whether Jim might be right when he says things like:

Doubtless the left will say of the order ending birthright citizenship “Hey, Civics 101, an executive order must have a basis in existing law or the constitution. You cannot change the constitution by executive order” That is normality bias. We have not had laws nor a constitution for a long time. There will be a supreme court case over birthright censorship, but it will matter as much as the Queen arriving in a stagecoach to open Parliament matters.

and:

It is normality bias to think that the upcoming Supreme court case on anchor babies matters. Whether these executive orders have actual effect is going to be resolved in a different way.

Augustus Caesar had military victory and death squads, and it still took him twelve years to get the Roman government in order. Trump has none of those, but he has made an impressive start.

We have long said that America’s problems are coup complete. When Trump was president, but not in power, and the presidency was in power, we often said that Trump should perform an autogolpe against the presidency. Trump has issued a pile of executive orders against the presidency, which look very like an autogolpe. That the border orders and the hostage rescue took effect makes it likely that the autogolpe will take effect. But, on the other hand, even after sending most of the long parliament home, Cromwell found it heavy going, and so did Augustus Caesar.

If Trump’s decrees subjecting the presidency to the president stick, all his decrees will stick, including constitutional amendment by presidential decree. If they do not, none of them will stick. I am still keeping my head down because I do not want to be J6ed.

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