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Nothing Ever Happens
DOGE is as good as dead. They’ve hit the wall.
Federal judge pauses deadline for federal workers to accept Trump’s resignation offer.
DOGE Staffer Resigns Over Racist Posts.
The one shining light of hope for true government reform was Elon Musk’s DOGE. They seemed to be making real progress. They may not have been loved, but they were feared, and Machiavelli said that’s enough.
Now they have lost the momentum. Stays and injunctions will start pouring in as district court judges stop fearing that their orders will be simply ignored.
If the
deep statecareer civil service can draw blood with a trick as old as “drag-up old racist internet comments”, then DOGE really are toothless. No one will take them seriously anymore.Maybe Congress can tap in…
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.
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.
Trump's true test was always going to be whether or not he can get Congress to work for him. If he crashes on the same shores as Obama did, he's capped at being a powerful executive and doesn't secure a lasting legacy.
I hope that unitary executive action wasn't the only chapter in his plan and that he actually has a consolidation phase in mind. Otherwise this is going to end up a very heroic defeat.
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.
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