Halls of Shrewd'm / US Policy
No. of Recommendations: 2
On all sorts of memorials and buildings.
After all, Trump is trying to cage and deport illegal immigrants.
FDR systematically caged LEGAL immigrants.
Yes, White Liberals want less competition in IT and engineering. Fine -- but why honor the cager?
Trump belongs there - not FDR.
No. of Recommendations: 2
On all sorts of memorials and buildings.
How about on the dime? Plan Steve for coinage reform calls for elimination of the penny (already done by Lord Trump) the nickle and quarter. We would have coins of $1, half dollar, and tenth dollar (dime), each bearing an image of Lord Trump, because Lord Trump is the most perfect person, most perfect head of state, and a perfect, robust, virile, picture of manhood. And having his image on all the new coins would guarantee their acceptance by the most ignorant, superstitions, conspiracy obsessed, segments of the population, who would otherwise reject the new coins, because they are "different".
Steve...sarcasm R us
No. of Recommendations: 6
I can't see the original post, but there are indeed some apt parallels to FDR.
We've kind of lost the sense of it, with the passage of time, but FDR also was a President who was heedless of the traditional assumptions of how the federal government should operate, what its constraints were, and what was an appropriate exercise of federal (vs. state) authority. He was also reviled by his opponents as a tyrant who willfully smashed through all the "guardrails" of what a Republic should be and his unrestrained political broadsides at the judiciary - the anti-New Dealers were just as appalled by his court-packing plan as we are today of Trump's political attacks on the lower levels of the judiciary.
FDR fundamentally changed what America regarded as the appropriate way the federal government should work and what powers should be vested in the Executive. He basically created the modern administrative structure. His opponents were aghast that he was not honoring how things had always been done before, or what the Supreme Court had previously said were the appropriate limits of the federal government. Because the federal government then proceeded to work that way for the next century, we don't have a "feeling" of how dramatic that break was at the time. But it was revolutionary (small "r"), a fundamental change that was shocking and dramatic at the time....but came to feel normal because it was the way things were going forward.
I think Trump is doing much the same thing, here. For most of the last 80 years - the life of the Administrative state - we've had a particular practice of how the federal government operates in executing the laws. I guess we can think of it as a "shared priorities" system. Basically, all the folks in the Executive Branch worked for the federal government - and since the federal government was run by both the President and Congress, the federal employees would work to implement the priorities of both the President and Congress.
The consequence of that is to force/allow federal employees to "serve two masters." They listen to what the President wants them to do (through the Department secretaries that are their bosses), and they listen to what Congress wants them to do (as expressed through direct conversation and interaction with Congressbeings through oversight, budget, and other meetings). This puts the federal employees in something of a difficult position when those masters have different priorities, as often happens. It also gives them a lot of power and discretion, for when Congress and the President want different things, there's a legitimate basis for the federal employees to do either of those things.
Trump is changing that entirely. His approach is that while the federal government is run by both the President and Congress, they have entirely different roles due to their different functions. Congress makes the laws, the President executes the laws - and since the President executes the laws, federal employees are supposed to implement just the President's priorities. Only the President "executes" the laws. Congress gets to make the laws under the legislative power, and then they have to butt out and let the President run the government.
For those who think that Trump will have a negative place in history because of this, I think FDR is a caution against that. FDR's opponents were relegated to the dustbin of history, not FDR, because FDR's changes lasted. So FDR isn't remembered as a person who "broke the Republic," but a person who created the modern national government. Trump might equally be remembered not as a person who broke democracy, but as the President who reformed the Executive to make it responsive to the election choices of the people rather than the "dead hand" of Congress as wielded by federal staff.
No. of Recommendations: 1
FDR fundamentally changed what America regarded as the appropriate way the federal government should work
Ayup. As I offered, a number of weeks ago, maybe before I was booted off the Fool, Trump is the most interventionist POTUS since FDR. Trump hasn't tried to pack SCOTUS, like FDR did, but then Trump inherited a court that was already pre-packed.
Steve
No. of Recommendations: 3
For those who think that Trump will have a negative place in history because of this, I think FDR is a caution against that. FDR's opponents were relegated to the dustbin of history, not FDR, because FDR's changes lasted.
I don't mind caps, or reasonable limits to immigration. I don't think we should ignore the Geneva Convention though, because our military needs that. That's what concerns me about blowing up boats - we don't want that done to us, or to have it become commonplace. I just hope declaring emergencies when there are none to use extraordinary powers doesn't last. As a people, we can grant extraordinary powers during emergencies, but Trump does it on whim using trumped up prdetexts, and, as a Constitutional Democratic Republic, we need limitations to be respected. Miller and Project 2025 need to go by the wayside, but if there are useful parts to the Republic I haven't seen, point them out to me.
No. of Recommendations: 3
As a people, we can grant extraordinary powers during emergencies, but Trump does it on whim using trumped up pretexts, and, as a Constitutional Democratic Republic, we need limitations to be respected.
I think that misses the main thrust of his changes.
Trump's major change to the government isn't in the substance of what he's doing (though that's important). It's in completely reorienting the focus of the Executive. If I had to summarize the most important policy of the Trump Administration, it would be this:
Anyone who takes actions that contradict the priorities of the President will be fired.
That's the major change. For the last 80 years, since the Administrative state was created, staff at the Executive have tried to implement the priorities of both the President and the Congress (both current and past, as expressed through statutes and programs). Congress has current power. And Congress' past decisions to do things like create a government program to do X, or establish a Department to do Y, were also things to be furthered even if they were not the current President's priorities.
Trump came in and said, "No more. You only do what the President's priorities are, and nothing else." Don't worry about pissing off Congress, don't worry about pissing off the constituencies that like/support the things that Congress has done in the past. That's not your job. You don't make those calls - you don't get to affect the power dynamic between the Executive and the Legislative branch, or decide that one group's priorities are the right ones to promote in any given situation. If you contradict my priorities, you're out. I get to make the call over what priorities to elevate over what Congress wants (present or past), not you.
Democrats have tried to characterize that as autocracy or anti-democratic...but it's really not. The President is elected to wield the power of the Executive, and he's always had the power to tell his Cabinet officials (and by extension the rest of the government) that they're supposed to only follow his instructions and not independently reach conclusions based on a desire to placate or accommodate Congress. No President has really ever done so, because Congress does have a lot of power to strike back at a President if it wants to - so you usually don't want your Cabinet officials to tell them to pound sand, because you'll need them one day. But the core argument isn't really anti-democratic, because the President is himself elected and is elected to that specific role. Congress is elected, too, but their role is legislative and budgetary and (most importantly) collective. "Get the votes to pass a bill and that's how you can give instructions to federal employees" is the organizing principle - and that's not entirely wrong.
Actually, I should say that Congress has a lot of power over a Democratic President. Because Democratic Presidents (usually) want something from Congress during their term, so they had to bargain with them. But because of the way the parties have aligned and re-aligned over the decades, we're now in a position where the Republican party's issue set doesn't really align much with wanting further Congressional action on anything legislative.
This is a sea change in how the Executive is run. It fundamentally restructures the direction that the administrative state looks to for making decisions, away from looking at both Congress and the President and just to looking at the President.
No. of Recommendations: 4
This is a sea change in how the Executive is run. It fundamentally restructures the direction that the administrative state looks to for making decisions, away from looking at both Congress and the President and just to looking at the President.
I think we've all been coming to grips with this. I read the discussion you were having about FDR and thinking. FDR was "A switch in time saves nine," with the USSC. Trump hasn't gone far enough to get the huge pushback(s), and the USSC is so far ineffective on doing reasonable limitations, and it mostly appears as if the conservative justices don't really want to. Trump doesn't have plenary power, but I see nothing standing in his way. There will always be a different approach that will allow him to get what he wants. Show me a limit. I don't see any.
I mean how do you hem this in? Haven't we been semi counting on inflation to hit, the dollar to drop, employment to rise, but we are now coming to the conclusion the tariff hit hasn't had a big hit on the economy so far. The dollar has dropped 10%, and there are squeezes out there, but nothing seems to derail his shows "ICE, IMMIGRANTS, and ANTIFA" I don't think it's too bad yet either.
Even if Trump leaves, there is now a known pathway for a ruthless intelligent person to take the same path and be even smarter about it.
No. of Recommendations: 4
I mean how do you hem this in?
You don't. I mean, any more than it already is hemmed in.
Congress has spent the last eighty years building up power in the Executive branch, under the assumption that it would be wielded a certain way. They assumed it would be wielded a certain way because Congress holds the power of the pen and the purse. Since any President would want to have Congress do things in order to cement their legacy (new legislation, new programs), they would always have a seat at the table.
Trump doesn't want any legislation from Congress. Sure, he'd probably love a crime bill or some changes to the immigration and naturalization acts - but they're not important to his agenda. His major policy goals are in areas where he doesn't need legislation: immigration enforcement, law and order, international trade, and changing the federal government. He's not out here trying to get changes to Social Security or health care reform or making changes to environmental statutes or anything.
In that respect, he is hemmed in. He's only really able to advance an agenda within the Executive. If he wanted to pursue anything in Congress, he'd be thwarted pretty quickly. But he's come to realize (I think) that the Executive power of the Presidency has been broadened so immensely by decades of Congressional expansion that it's more than enough for him.
If you have a President that's almost exclusively interested in the exercise of Executive power, and doesn't care much at all about legislation, there's almost nothing that can be done to rein him in. I mean, if the Democrats controlled a chamber of Congress, they could harry him a bit through the exercise of oversight authority and whatnot - but since he's a lame duck and largely unconcerned with what his opponents say about him anymore, that won't do anything.
Elections have consequences. He got elected President, so he gets to run the Executive branch. Every power that's vested in the President is his to wield. Unless and until he needs to get something through Congress, he can completely ignore Congress.
