Bill, Sam, Ben, Mona, George -- Please share & discuss with your Bulwark colleagues and inform us about this essay written by Bob Bauer and Jack Goldsmith and distributed by Damon Linker. It's about the Russell Vought favored theory and pattern of "radical constitutionalism" apparent in Trump's EOs about Tik Tok, among others, to nullify…
Bill, Sam, Ben, Mona, George -- Please share & discuss with your Bulwark colleagues and inform us about this essay written by Bob Bauer and Jack Goldsmith and distributed by Damon Linker. It's about the Russell Vought favored theory and pattern of "radical constitutionalism" apparent in Trump's EOs about Tik Tok, among others, to nullify our Constitution, Laws and intimidate SCOTUS. In combo with GOP Senators silent support for Elon Musk's deputized access to unilaterally withhold Congressional appropriated funding, access the Treasury Dept. payment system, withhold all foreign aid, attempted abolishment of US AID, and by voting to confirm Hegseth, Bond, RFK, Jr., Gabbard and Patel, I'm seriously worried about history repeating itself with Hitler's 53-day evisceration of Germany's democracy. What can we do as citizens if we don't have a GOP Rep. or Senator to beg to save our democracy? I'm feeling that depressed.
A lot will ride on the Supreme Court. Are they up to the task? And if they are, will Trump listen or ignore them. That is the advice being given him by his legal teams. That was the gist of this paper, which also appeared on the webpage for the American Enterprise Institute. You can regard the Institute as not exactly paying fealty to Trump.
The theory of "radical constitutionalism" looks like a bad-faith effort to dress up an unbounded imperial presidency as strict adherence to the Constitution.
The traditional conservative complaint was that 1) the permanent bureaucracy was making decisions that should be made by Congress - in part because legislators didn't want to bother, and also because they lacked subject-matter knowledge (which conservative critics of the "administrative state" seem to consider unimportant); and 2) courts were letting them do it, instead of adjudicating whether agency decisions conformed to statutory law. In short, the executive branch was usurping legislative and judicial functions.
Another complaint, greatly amplified in the Trump era, was that career bureaucrats, aka the "deep state," were sabotaging the president's agenda. To whatever extent that was happening, MAGAs turned this complaint into the narrative that any impediments to the will of a sociopathic madman - even if it came in the former of actually adhering to the law or following a constitutional process to hold him to the law - was part of an outrageous conspiracy against the "duly elected president." MAGA ideologues basically adopted Trump's belief that he should be free to do whatever he wants, and they packaged it as "the will of the American people."
So they've tossed out any concern about the executive branch infringing on legislative and judicial territory, and they're concocting a "constitutional" justification for a presidency with unlimited power. IMO, Trump's obvious disdain for rules was perhaps the main reason they embraced him so enthusiastically in the first place.
Bill, Sam, Ben, Mona, George -- Please share & discuss with your Bulwark colleagues and inform us about this essay written by Bob Bauer and Jack Goldsmith and distributed by Damon Linker. It's about the Russell Vought favored theory and pattern of "radical constitutionalism" apparent in Trump's EOs about Tik Tok, among others, to nullify our Constitution, Laws and intimidate SCOTUS. In combo with GOP Senators silent support for Elon Musk's deputized access to unilaterally withhold Congressional appropriated funding, access the Treasury Dept. payment system, withhold all foreign aid, attempted abolishment of US AID, and by voting to confirm Hegseth, Bond, RFK, Jr., Gabbard and Patel, I'm seriously worried about history repeating itself with Hitler's 53-day evisceration of Germany's democracy. What can we do as citizens if we don't have a GOP Rep. or Senator to beg to save our democracy? I'm feeling that depressed.
https://executivefunctions.substack.com/p/the-trump-executive-orders-as-radical
A lot will ride on the Supreme Court. Are they up to the task? And if they are, will Trump listen or ignore them. That is the advice being given him by his legal teams. That was the gist of this paper, which also appeared on the webpage for the American Enterprise Institute. You can regard the Institute as not exactly paying fealty to Trump.
If history isn't repeating itself, it's rhyming.
The theory of "radical constitutionalism" looks like a bad-faith effort to dress up an unbounded imperial presidency as strict adherence to the Constitution.
The traditional conservative complaint was that 1) the permanent bureaucracy was making decisions that should be made by Congress - in part because legislators didn't want to bother, and also because they lacked subject-matter knowledge (which conservative critics of the "administrative state" seem to consider unimportant); and 2) courts were letting them do it, instead of adjudicating whether agency decisions conformed to statutory law. In short, the executive branch was usurping legislative and judicial functions.
Another complaint, greatly amplified in the Trump era, was that career bureaucrats, aka the "deep state," were sabotaging the president's agenda. To whatever extent that was happening, MAGAs turned this complaint into the narrative that any impediments to the will of a sociopathic madman - even if it came in the former of actually adhering to the law or following a constitutional process to hold him to the law - was part of an outrageous conspiracy against the "duly elected president." MAGA ideologues basically adopted Trump's belief that he should be free to do whatever he wants, and they packaged it as "the will of the American people."
So they've tossed out any concern about the executive branch infringing on legislative and judicial territory, and they're concocting a "constitutional" justification for a presidency with unlimited power. IMO, Trump's obvious disdain for rules was perhaps the main reason they embraced him so enthusiastically in the first place.