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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.
This is just such an insane understanding of the current state. You are complaining about a lack of checks and balances. Fine. Understand that for the last fifty years the administrative state has run amok with functionally no checks. No balances. They fund their own activists and media to make sure they get what they want.
So now we have an executive cutting down that bureaucratic state — an energetic executive trying to eliminate the unelected unaccountable and unconstitutional fourth branch. Yet you are upset about it from a checks and balances? No you need to kill the admin state in order for congress and the presidency to actually have power and therefor effort there to be actual checks.
I have already said words to the effect that I am fine with dismantling the administrative state, if that is what voters want Trump and Congress to do. I am less convinced than you are that Trump couldn't have done this the "right way" with actual laws. Sure, a few Republican lawmakers defecting would scupper his plans, but if they did, that too would be an important check in our system working as intended.
Trump has the bully pulpit. Trump claims he has a mandate. Let him actually do the work of getting the laws he wants passed.
This is a better path for one big reason: If Trump accomplishes his dismantling of the administrative state via EOs, that will mean that if Democrats ever get the presidency again they can just bring the administrative state back even if it will take some doing. This is all assuming we actually have a republic where Democrats could actually get back into power again, of course.
I feel like the administrative state is like Planet Fitness. It's easy to sign up for but impossible to cancel.
We should make it just as easy to get rid of as it was to implement in the first place. We voted for the Department of Education so that children would have better outcomes. But this hasn't happened. In fact, since the DOE was founded, our international rankings have tumbled.
Congress never voted for "Let's hire a bunch of workers with no accountability whatsoever and, once they are hired, they can never be fired for any reason whatsoever".
The President is in charge of the executive branch. He is empowered to enforce the laws passed by congress which clearly means firing workers for incompetence and dereliction of duty.
The original Civil Service Reform Act was passed by enormous margins
The most recent one passed by even larger margins
While on one hand today's GOP can only dream of such majorities in wiping it away, they really don't need much more than 50% + 1. Given that remove employees fixes the deficit, they can even use reconciliation to skip the filibuster.
Thanks. This is kinda nuts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Service_Reform_Act_of_1978
Chalk one up for mistake theory I suppose. This act was supposed to do the very opposite of what it did.
It's mindboggling going back 50 years and seeing what a high-trust society really looks like. Back then Carter could propose a law that said "oh sure we're going to make the government accountable and efficient" and everyone just assumed that it would happen. Because, um, that's what the law says.
No one understood "who, whom" back then. They all just thought "We're all on the same team guys. I'm sure the government workers won't just rob us blind. After all, they love their country too."
Like many awful things, this was there to solve a different awful problem, and now that the original problem is gone we don't even realize it.
Prior to 1892, administrations routinely gave out the vast majority of federal commissions as graft. It was a giant crony network robbing the country blind. Hiring by merit and removing firing except for-cause was, believe it or not, a step forwards at the time.
Of course, in the end you can't destroy a power you can only shift it around the plate. And so instead of being robbed by nepotistic machine politicians, we empowered the civil service. And then the civil service turned around and robbed us blind.
You can only destroy a monster by summoning another monster.
If Final Fantasy X has taught me anything, you can destroy a monster without doing that. But you do have to kill God to do it.
But we did that 140 years ago. Nothing else should stand in our way.
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