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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.
Where was all this complaining about the forms of the Republic when Obama was using his phone and pen, or everyone from Johnson to Biden was implementing DEI by executive order?
No, the Democrats have knocked every check and balance in the nation flat in their attempt to purge Republicans from power, and now the Republicans have turned tail on them. It's too late to call upon institutional integrity now.
There was plenty of complaining about it. As someone who dislikes both the left and the right, I am not impressed by "the Democrats did bad thing X, so now the Republicans should also get to do bad thing X" arguments. I'd rather that nobody did bad thing X, if X is actually bad.
It's fair that you complain. But, let's be honest, 99% of the complaining is not coming from principled libertarians. It's coming from totalitarian statists who are mad that their toys are being taken away.
Suddenly, when their 300k per year no-show job is under threat, they rediscover the Federalist Papers.
I'm not a libertarian either, and I also didn't like seeing the expansion of executive powers under Obama, or much of anything that Biden did.
Mostly what I see here is arguments over who smashed the Defect button first. If we can't get back to a stable equilibrium where everyone isn't choosing Defect, then whatever America becomes, it will just be wearing labels like "Democracy" and "Republic" as skinsuits. (I'm aware some people believe this is already the case. But if you're an accelerationist who thinks we should just abandon the pretense and make Trump God-Emperor, then I'm not interested in your opinions about executive authority.) There is very little Trump can do that a succeeding Democratic administration can't undo (except perhaps fix it so there can never be another Democratic administration - is that what you are actually hoping for?), and of course, they will continue following precedent and the next Democratic president will act even more like a monarch. Everyone cheering for Trump and Musk now will be outraged - outraged! - at this abuse of power and violation of norms.
Yes, a lot of the people outraged today are hypocrites who thought it was just fine when Obama and Biden were abusing their authority. So what? Do you think it's actually bad for presidents to do this, or do you think it's only bad when it's not the president you voted for? If the former, then what do you expect to be the outcome of each president being encouraged by his supporters to expand his powers? That your party will be in power forever so it's okay?
I guess I should say here that I am very much in a "Wait and see" mood right now. As I said before the election, I don't think Trump is going to be a good president, but I'm willing to be proven wrong, and I am enjoying the leftist convulsions. However, the President can't just abrogate the powers of Congress and decide (or delegate to Elon Musk to decide) which pieces of the federal government he'd like to keep and which pieces he'd like to do away with. (And if you are saying "Yes he can!" and triumphantly quoting Andrew Jackson, well, see above. Better lube up for when the Democrats return to power. And Andrew Jackson also ran a notoriously corrupt spoils system, in which federal employment was explicitly conditioned on party loyalty and when your party lost an election, you lost your job. This obviously created undesirable incentives, and led to the civil service reforms some are so eager to dismantle.)
On a slightly more pedantic point, I see a lot of people talking about "$300K laptop jobs." No government worker makes $300K - even the top of the SES pay scale is capped at around $250K, and the GS workers (with or without laptops) are making far less. If you mean NGO workers, maybe some of their executives make that much, but the peons who are mostly the ones losing their jobs don't. Lobbyists, lawyers, and contractors, though? Sure, and oddly enough, I don't see many of them losing their jobs yet.
No there is a difference in kind. DACA is an example of the imperial presidency. There is clear law on the matter. Obama created a new system diametrically opposed to the law.
In contrast, Trump is trying to rein in the unaccountable bureaucracy in a way that can square with congressional delegates (see my above comment to anon_).
That is, just because Trump and Obama both aggressively used the power of the president doesn’t mean they are the same thing. There are important differences that make them different in kind. So your analysis rests on a faulty assumption that the actions are similar.
I agree with you about DACA. I do not agree that what Trump is doing is different in kind, or "a return to norms." I think you just like what Trump is doing and disliked what Democrats did.
What do you think is his limiting principle? If granted success in unilaterally abrogating the power of Congress and the Supreme Court, do you think he will refrain at any point from doing other things he wants on Constitutional grounds?
I don’t fuck with pointless hypos—yes if Trump had all of the power he would probably use it. Few men wouldn’t.
But explain how you think curtailing the power of the admin state is akin to DACA.
Exactly, which is why we should enforce the constraints that are supposed to prevent him from doing that.
There are a lot of things that fall under the category of "curtailing the power of the admin state." Some of them are legal, and are even things I would agree with. Some of them aren't. The President can't just dissolve agencies that were created by law, or redirect or deny funding that was appropriated by Congress. Ending birthright citizenship is another example - even if you think birthright citizenship should be abolished, that requires a Constitutional amendment, not just the President saying so. DACA was the President making new law with his pen, which he's not supposed to do. It's directly equivalent to a lot of the things Trump is doing now.
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And Trump tried to repeal it, and was told by the judges that he'd have to go through the proper administrative procedures to do so -- even though it was not created through those procedures. A check isn't a balance if it's a check on one side only.
That was one of the most absurd rulings — sure it might be illegal but the president saying he won’t enact a program because he think it’s illegal is not sufficient to stop a purely EO.
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I feel I should point out that there's a middle-ground here: specifically, "fix it so that SJ is a political non-starter" such that there might be another Democratic administration but it wouldn't get there without abandoning SJ (and then wouldn't want to roll all of it back).
The most obvious, rapid and permanent way to do that ("start WWIII, laugh as the Blue Tribe burns"), I'm decidedly against, at least assuming there's no proper reason for one. The subtler methods I'm less sure about; dismantling the SJ lock on academia-as-gatekeeper-of-the-middle-class I'm fervently in support of, while extreme measures like e.g. bringing back sodomy laws and stripping the vote from those that break them I'd oppose.
Do you really think "SJ" is the biggest problem? Are you putting every single disagreement about how society should operate under that umbrella? Trans issues and DEI make the most noise in politics today, but I really do not think they are actually the biggest problems facing the country, and while 90% of discussion on this forum is about culture war issues, it is, as always, the economy, stupid. (A quote- not actually calling you stupid.) We're trillions of dollars in debt, facing major issues from cans that have been kicked down the road for decades, we've got China and Russia and maybe WWIII, and AI that may or may not be civilization-threatening issues on the horizon - all of these things, IMO, are more important than the "SJ" stuff we like to argue so much about here.
I'll also note that several people replied to me saying, basically, "You're ridiculous for suggesting two sides compromise and work together, that just means one side unilaterally disarms (because the other side is evil)." But when you say "make SJ a political non-starter" - as much as I personally think most SJ stuff is a distraction, it's a major plank for Democrats, so you're just saying they should unilaterally disarm (i.e. abandon all the things they stand for). Sure, it's nice to dream your opponents will abandon all the goals you don't like and focus on the things you care about.
Among your solutions, I agree (obviously) that WWIII (or American Civil War II) would be bad. Likewise a reTVrn to sodomy laws (and repealing the 19th Amendment, and expelling the Jews Edward I-style, etc.) Dismantling the "SJ lock" on academia I'd be in favor of, which is why (I whisper so my friends in academia don't hear me) I'm not entirely against abolishing the DOE, though I'm not sure the bull-in-chinashop way Trump and Musk are going about it is legitimate (or legal). But I really don't think breaking woke hegemony in academia, even if it can accomplished, is our biggest issue. It just makes lots of Red Tribers cheer and forget about the more pressing economic issues that affect them more.
Not disagreeing (I'm on record as saying I'd vote for our SJ party if they had word one about civil defence), but SJ (and the reaction to it) seems to be what's driving the polarisation, which is AFAICT what you were discussing.
I'm not making any demands. I'm pointing out that there are levers Trump/Vance 2028/the Republicans have access to that might alter political demographics* such that it's impossible (or at least vastly more difficult) to assemble a winning coalition while holding to SJ, and thus such that the Democratic Party will have to either jettison SJ or keep losing (and of course I defend their right to pick either), which is a third option omitted by your previously-proposed dilemma of "either set up a one-party state or get everything rolled back later". I agree with pulling some of those levers (the academia one is particularly justified, IMO, as this seems more like "undoing creepy enemy social engineering" than like "doing creepy social engineering in its own right", and the lever Elon Musk already pulled of "buy and uncensor Twitter" seems to have gone pretty well) and not with pulling others, but either way I have essentially no input into which ones the Republicans including Trump do and do not pull.
*To quote B5, "I'll tell you something, my friends, the world is changing every day. The only question is, who's doing it?"; people do change their minds, people do get born or immigrate and start voting, people do die or emigrate and stop voting, and the state of the public square and the education system and the immigration system affect all of those.
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It's certainly extremely pervasive. And by instituting political tests for various positions (such as university faculty, lawyers, doctors) it is a major long term problem. Maybe not the biggest, but very big.
if the Republicans had the re-institution of Jim Crow as a platform plank, would you not insist they abandon it?
I can't insist they do anything, but it would make me even less likely to vote Republican. Do you think everything that can be categorized under the umbrella of "SJ" is equivalent to reinstituting Jim Crow laws? The way people use SJ here seems to refer to liberalism, writ large. "Criminalize leftism" is literally a position I know at least one poster explicitly advocates (and many others clearly would endorse) but it's dumb to suggest that liberals would seriously consider this proposal. A more appropriate analogy would be me "insisting" the Republicans abandon social conservatism. As a liberal I might like that, but it's dumb to think it's a serious proposition.
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Yes, it's bad when presidents abuse their authority and Congress is dysfunctional and supine. But it is worse when abuses of authority are only ever policed in one direction and thus policy only ever moves as a one-way ratchet. That dynamic is far more unhealthy than the underlying abuse itself because it cuts at the popular legitimacy of the democratic process entirely, and also leads to degradation of the quality of the party in power (see California, Illinois, NY, etc.).
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I agree with most of what you said but I just want to correct the record and say that plenty of NGO officers make 300k or more much.
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If you can ask "so what?" when it comes to Bush and Obama, why can't you do it regarding Trump?
Anyway, forget the talk about hypocrisy, and let's just focus on the outcomes. Yes, if Trump keeps ruling by decree, the next Dem administration can just undo everything by decree. What you're leaving out is that if Trump doesn't do that, the Dems can still just rule by decree (and have the advantage of not having their institutions disrupted). Show me a path to sustainably reducing abuses of power in the future, and you'll have a compelling argument, but right now you're asking for unilateral disarmament.
That's what I'm doing - I don't really care much about the hypocrisy on either side. I expect both sides to be hypocritical. "We are upset when their side does it, but when our side does it it's good" is practically a default in politics.
I don't know that there is one, but it would require people to actually value bipartisanship again, because you'd have to have people in both parties actually negotiating with each other, instead of treating a political victory as the opportunity to sack and pillage until the party's over.
Look, I understand (and expected) your "You're just asking for unilateral disarmament" argument. I can tell you with lots of Dems (and very liberal ones) on my Facebook feed, that they absolutely feel the same way every time they were asked not to get carried away under Biden, or when they were gloating about all the things Harris was going to do to own the conservatives, and now, when they are being asked to reflect on where it brought them. You are, after all, evil, and norms and rule and law don't really apply when you're trying to fight Nazis. Wow, you say, how terrible and unreasonable! This just proves we should crush them harder. Yup, and so we get exactly the same argument from the right - Democrats are so evil, so unreasonable, so unhinged, that norms and rules of law don't really apply.
So it goes. I'm not quite a doomer yet, but there's no way out unless at least some people want a way out that isn't "unilateral disarmament."
Well then, it's going to be hard for your charges of hypocrisy to mean something. You detail the thought process behind it yourself, and how it's so tragic that both sides see each other as evil and refuse to talk to each other, but if I offer to out my monkey-brain urge to get even on hold, let bygones be bygones, an all I want in return is some plan to ensure this won't happen again, and you've got nothing... then I'm sorry, fighting with gloves off is not hypocrisy. You need to offer a clear and actionable alternative if you want to criticize others.
There's many ways to address this, from "who started it" to disputing whether or not what is happening now is even approaching what they did in the past, but in the end you can always say "they see you in the same way", so I'll give you an argument where I think this does not hold true.
Again, let's forget about the past, and focus on the future. Ultimately, I wish your liberal friends all the best. I want that they are able to live their lives according to their values, free from the interference of evil chuds like me. When I'm in a good mood, I even wish that it brings them all the happiness they expect, rather than what I think are the likely consequences of their ideas. Even though by now they came up with things that warrant a holy crusade, and a declaration that the child sacrifices will stop (and this is more literal than some might expect), I'm willing to accept a cease fire where they their thing in peace, as long as I'm allowed the same. Would you say your liberal friends would find those terms acceptable? If not, than I'm sorry, but we are not the same, and any implication that we are equivalent is false.
I think some of them would, and some of them would not. Just as you personally might be willing to live and let live, but many (most) of your fellow rightists would not. So yes, I think you are equivalent, and the way out is either war or the "moderates" among us persuading the majority to curb the extremists. I do what little I can (I have had relationships suffer as a result); do you ever tell your side "Hey, maybe dial it down a bit"?
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There are two possible outcomes. One: The Democrats do it when they are in power, and the Republicans refrain when they are in power. Two: Both do it when they are in power. The second is less bad, unless you're a Democrat.
And this was a major error. Better that the civil service change political valence with elections than it become a power bloc of its own which remains aligned with one side regardless of who is in power now.
There is another possible outcome. Can you see the one you are missing?
Having actually read American history, I strongly disagree. There are ways to rein in excesses by any branch or segment of the government that doesn't require the entire government simply become spoils for the victor, or one branch ignoring the other two. Of course I don't think you have an accurate conception of the "Deep State" any more than you have an accurate conception of people who are not aligned with you.
The trouble with making this argument is that at some point you have to actually make the argument, not just snark about it. I don't think you have, and I don't think you can, and I don't think the foremost advocates can or will.
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Have you lived recent American history?
The administrative state is not, formally, a branch outside the Executive.
Indeed I have, and I'm older than you.
No, but we have laws (which the other two formal branches have a say in) which the Executive can't just override. Just as every military officer, in theory, serves at the pleasure of the President, his ability to unilaterally dismiss officers has been constrained by law (since around 1950, IIRC). The civil service works for the President, but he can't just order them to ignore laws imposed on them by Congress and Supreme Court rulings, or fire people because they aren't personally loyal to him.
I am not against the president "reigning in" a bureaucratic state out of control and probably agree with you about some of the ways federal agencies have inappropriately balked his intentions in the past (so I understand, if not agree, with why he's acting the way he is now). But either we actually have laws and a Constitution, or else stop talking about laws and civil society and admit you just want to be the boot.
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I don't think it was necessarily an error in and of itself. Neutral civil services are a thing. Even Bush had far less issues on that front than Trump, and TTBOMK it did great for the first 100 years or so. It's a problem when polarisation and especially educational polarisation are very strong, which they often aren't.
Are they? I agree with FC's take that this sort of neutrality is just an artifact of relative homogeneity. The distance between Bush and Obama or Biden just isn't that great, there's a reason why all the neocons jumped ship to the Dems, and why the supposedly neutral civil service started having problems with neutrality when Trump showed up.
(I think I tried to post something like this a few days ago, but something messed up somewhere. I was prepping for a colonoscopy at the time, so I was rather distracted by the whole "shitting acid regularly" issue and then afterward by the whole "recovering from sedation" issue.)
I'm not sure we actually have a substantive disagreement here. I said that strong polarisation (causing loyalty to tribe to exceed loyalty to the job and to society) and particularly educational polarisation (causing the civil service to not reflect the electorate and thus be incapable of self-policing) are the factors that cause a "neutral" civil service to become just a permanent weapon for one side. I noted that these factors are not always present. You seem to be agreeing with me by talking about relative homogeneity (i.e. a lack of strong polarisation and strong educational polarisation).
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