#709 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Wednesday July 19)
Good morning,
UNITARY EXECUTIVE AND THE DANGER OF AUTOCRACY
Democrats seem downright giddy over the prospect of facing Donald Trump in the 2024 election. Trump remains the leading candidate in the Republican pack, but there’s lots of time between now and the primaries. By the same token, it’s a long time until the general election and there are any number of surprises that could occur in the interim, economic and geopolitical, any of which could weaken a sitting president.
In anticipation of victory, the Trump faithful are beginning to make plans for the second Trump term and this time, they won’t make the same mistakes as they attempt to remake the government and bend it to their will—breaking all constitutional and traditional norms. Make no mistake about it—they have a plan for turning the executive branch upside down in a way that would change our governance forever. You may not have noted the details, as the story was buried amongst other, theoretically more important, stories.
The plan is to tighten the grip of the president over the entirety of the Executive Branch. This is not conjecture—both he and his acolytes are quite open and transparent about their intent. Trump ended his last term trying to bring the Justice Department to heel as the instrumentality of the president and his private lawyers. He tried to reduce the number of “Schedule F” civil service employees, firing them and replacing them with political appointments of his choosing. He failed because he started too late. This time, given the opportunity, he won’t make the same mistake.
Trump and his acolytes have adopted the principle of the “unitary executive”—meaning that, as the elected leader of the executive, all executive departments report directly to him, as instrumentalities of his political will (granted to him virtually unconstrained by having been elected). And this means the EPA, CDC and other federal agencies will be stripped of any semblance of independence from the whims of the president.
In the words of The New York Times, “Mr. Trump and his associates have a broader goal: to alter the balance of power by increasing the president’s authority over every part of the federal government that now operates, by either law or tradition, with any measure of independence from political interference by the White House, according to a review of his campaign policy proposals and interviews with people close to him.”
The article goes on to say, “He wants to revive the practice of “impounding” funds, refusing to spend money Congress has appropriated for programs a president doesn’t like — a tactic that lawmakers banned under President Richard Nixon.”
And here is what former White House personnel chief John McEntee has to say: “The president’s plan should be to fundamentally reorient the federal government in a way that hasn’t been done since F.D.R.’s New Deal.” He goes on, “Our current executive branch was conceived of by liberals for the purpose of promulgating liberal policies. There is no way to make the existing structure function in a conservative manner. It’s not enough to get the personnel right. What’s necessary is a complete system overhaul.”
And as the Times article quotes Mr. Trump: “We will demolish the deep state. We will expel the warmongers from our government. We will drive out the globalists. We will cast out the communists, Marxists and fascists. And we will throw off the sick political class that hates our country.”
It’s clear as day. The agenda is a Stephen Bannon special. It’s an overhaul of all we believe about checks and balances, the relative independence of the administrative state, and the very nature of our system.
IN THE MEANTIME
In the meantime, the Republican party leadership refuses to break from this authoritarian wannabe, running for office in part to bring an end, one way or another, to his many criminal indictments. That many of them deem Joe Biden so bad that they would vote for this man is an insult to the many great people who preceded him in the Republican party, who stood for principle over their own interests. It is why they cannot be allowed to regain power with this man in charge.
REMEMBERING LEON RUSSELL
More and more, I feel like our generation is holding the torch for great talents and watching them drop away one by one. Leslie Mayer reminded me that there is a new album of Leon Russell covers coming out. Here is one of Leon’s greatest: “A Song For You”:
Have a great day,
Glenn