I’m not sold, and I’m going to lay out some general reasons.
Firstly, a lot of the concerns expressed here I think are extremely unlikely. I do not think there is any serious risk that Trump will send the military after, or otherwise seriously harass, former government employees. I do not think he will pursue a third term or otherwise interfere with our tradition of free and fair elections. And I do not think he will openly defy a court order.
Some of the other things you fear I don’t necessarily see as bad. As a matter of democratic accountability, by which I mean accountability to the people rather than checks and balances or “good” governance, I do think the president has the right to fire executive branch employees, whether or not we like the particular decisions he makes.
Secondly, and my error bars on this point do cross the zero line, but my expectation is that Trump will reduce the risk of a nuclear or biological catastrophe. The wars in Ukraine and Israel both started on Biden’s watch. With Trump I am hopeful that both will reach some kind of resolution on somewhat favorable terms.
I do think it is good that people are filing lawsuits challenging the questionably legal things Trump is doing. I don’t think that this intervention is particularly neglected.
Also, you seem to suggest that Danielle Sassoon’s actions in regard to the Eric Adams case are somehow an instance of legislative checks on the executive. I don’t get that. Sassoon was an employee of the executive branch, not the legislative. That’s why an executive branch official was able to fire her.
I haven’t thought about this in great depth, so I’m very open to the possibility that this topic should be deprioritised. I haven’t understood your rationale, so I hope you don’t mind if I probe further.
Firstly, a lot of the concerns expressed here I think are extremely unlikely. I do not think there is any serious risk that Trump will send the military after, or otherwise seriously harass, former government employees.
I guess I’d be somewhat interested to know why serious harassment is so unlikely. The sources that I cited seemed to be quite worrying to me on this front.
The Guardian reported the following: “Trump’s escalating threats to pervert the criminal justice system need to be taken seriously,” said the former justice department inspector general Michael Bromwich. “We have never had a presidential candidate state as one of his central goals mobilizing the levers of justice to punish enemies and reward friends. No one has ever been brazen enough to campaign on an agenda of retribution and retaliation.” And NPR reported that “Trump has issued more than 100 threats to investigate, prosecute, imprison or otherwise punish his perceived opponents”.
Having said that, the point I was making relied less on whether Trump would actually seriously harass people, but rather whether they would fear that Trump would do so, and specifically fear this enough that they would avoid taking actions which might act as a check/balance on presidential power. Do you believe that people don’t have this fear?
Some of the other things you fear I don’t necessarily see as bad. As a matter of democratic accountability, by which I mean accountability to the people rather than checks and balances or “good” governance, I do think the president has the right to fire executive branch employees, whether or not we like the particular decisions he makes.
I’m not sure I follow. Which are things which I fear, but which you don’t see as necessarily bad? When I first read this, I thought you were referring to my list of things I fear:
Evisceration of aid becoming permanent
Increased risk of conflict, potentially moving beyond the likes of Greenland and escalating to great power conflict
Increased risk of (accidental or deliberate) use of nuclear weapons. (Apparently the administration fired over 300 employees at the national nuclear security administration, then tried to reinstate them, but at time of writing doesn’t seem to know how; sources: 1,2,3)
Exacerbation of climate change
An unwillingness to follow international norms may lead to greater willingness to develop biological weapons
If tech billionaire “oligarchs” prefer greater deregulation of AI, this could exacerbate the risk of loss of control of AI/misalignment
The human rights abuses typical of a totalitarian state
I’m assuming you do consider all of these to be bad.
When you spoke about the right to fire executive branch employees, were you referring to my concerns about the erosion of democratic institutions? In that section, I observed that:
Trump wants to fire the director of the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) which monitors conflicts of interests. (Source: MSNBC)
Trump fired 17 inspectors general, whose role is to audit the actions of government.
I’m perfectly willing to believe he has that right, but my question is more about whether it leads to better outcomes. Will government make better decisions without the OGE monitoring conflicts of interest? Will government make better decisions if the inspectors general are loyalists? (assuming that’s what they are.) I imagine this leads to worse outcomes, but if you are more sanguine I’d be interested to know why.
I do think it is good that people are filing lawsuits challenging the questionably legal things Trump is doing. I don’t think that this intervention is particularly neglected.
I had the intuition that there was probably a lot of work that could be done here, but that the firehose of actions meant that it was hard for people to spare the attention on any of them. This gave me the impression that while lawsuits were happening, there’s probably lots more that can be done. Not least because lawsuits are often expensive, and could peter out or become ineffective because of lack of funds. This is pretty impressionistic though, so if you have a more carefully researched opinion, I’d be interested.
I guess I’d be somewhat interested to know why serious harassment is so unlikely. The sources that I cited seemed to be quite worrying to me on this front.
The Guardian reported the following: “Trump’s escalating threats to pervert the criminal justice system need to be taken seriously,” said the former justice department inspector general Michael Bromwich. “We have never had a presidential candidate state as one of his central goals mobilizing the levers of justice to punish enemies and reward friends. No one has ever been brazen enough to campaign on an agenda of retribution and retaliation.” And NPR reported that “Trump has issued more than 100 threats to investigate, prosecute, imprison or otherwise punish his perceived opponents”.
I think a lot of where we differ is in how much we trust the media when it comes to Trump. I’ve generally found that media will report ordinary things as though they were extraordinary and bad, will take the worst possible interpretation of ambiguous quotes, and do whatever else they think will keep people irrationally afraid of Trump. Take the particular claim that you made your centerpeice—that Musk was throwing around his wealth to support Trump’s nominees. “Rich American uses wealth to influence politicians” is not exactly news—that happens every day on both sides of the aisle. And what you put in block quotes was just that fact wrapped in hyperbolic language. I looked very briefly at your seven sources. All were during the election and all seemed to draw on the same quote: “Trump said that if ‘radical left lunatics’ disrupt the election, ‘it should be very easily handled by — if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military.’” The author somehow read that as “Trump has expressed support for using government force against domestic political rivals.” Talk about a straw man! Trump was suggesting using the military to ensure the election happens. That may be unwise and unprecedented and predictably totally unnecessary, but it is nothing like using the military against political rivals. This is the press’s standard MO when reporting on Trump. So when they say “100 threats to whatever” I just assume that few if any of the things on their list are actually what they are claimed to be.
Having said that, the point I was making relied less on whether Trump would actually seriously harass people, but rather whether they would fear that Trump would do so, and specifically fear this enough that they would avoid taking actions which might act as a check/balance on presidential power. Do you believe that people don’t have this fear?
I agree that people have that fear. I do not think it is warranted. And I think indulging an unwarranted fear is generally a bad idea—you just incentivize people to have unwarranted fears in the future. We need political rhetoric to cool down right now, not heat up.
For your bulleted list of bad things, I agree that many of them are unqualifiedly bad. A few of them I have more nuanced views on. But I don’t want to go point by point through it, as I don’t think that would shed any light on whether democracy is at risk or what we should do about it.
With regard to IGs and OGE, I’m not too familiar with these institutions, but my read is that the practical implications of who holds these posts are basically nil. IGs don’t directly remedy anything, they just write reports. They weren’t going to accomplish anything Trump’s appointees didn’t want them to accomplish anyway.
I get worried when I see people questioning whether the president has the right to fire them, because I value democracy in the literal sense—accountability to the people—and the mechanism by which any executive branch employee is accountable to the people in our system is through the president’s ability to fire them.
As for the neglectedness of lawsuits, I think we need to ask about particular lawsuits. It is certainly true that some lawsuits can fail for lack of money or talent. I don’t know of a reason to think that either is in short supply when it comes to challenging Trump. As you’ve pointed out, people are scared as shit, and there are plenty of liberals in the legal profession. But if we want to make the neglectedness case, I want to see it at the level of a particular legal issue, not just “trump is bad for [checks and balances and good government]”.
I’m not sold, and I’m going to lay out some general reasons.
Firstly, a lot of the concerns expressed here I think are extremely unlikely. I do not think there is any serious risk that Trump will send the military after, or otherwise seriously harass, former government employees. I do not think he will pursue a third term or otherwise interfere with our tradition of free and fair elections. And I do not think he will openly defy a court order.
Some of the other things you fear I don’t necessarily see as bad. As a matter of democratic accountability, by which I mean accountability to the people rather than checks and balances or “good” governance, I do think the president has the right to fire executive branch employees, whether or not we like the particular decisions he makes.
Secondly, and my error bars on this point do cross the zero line, but my expectation is that Trump will reduce the risk of a nuclear or biological catastrophe. The wars in Ukraine and Israel both started on Biden’s watch. With Trump I am hopeful that both will reach some kind of resolution on somewhat favorable terms.
I do think it is good that people are filing lawsuits challenging the questionably legal things Trump is doing. I don’t think that this intervention is particularly neglected.
Also, you seem to suggest that Danielle Sassoon’s actions in regard to the Eric Adams case are somehow an instance of legislative checks on the executive. I don’t get that. Sassoon was an employee of the executive branch, not the legislative. That’s why an executive branch official was able to fire her.
I haven’t thought about this in great depth, so I’m very open to the possibility that this topic should be deprioritised. I haven’t understood your rationale, so I hope you don’t mind if I probe further.
I guess I’d be somewhat interested to know why serious harassment is so unlikely. The sources that I cited seemed to be quite worrying to me on this front.
The Guardian reported the following: “Trump’s escalating threats to pervert the criminal justice system need to be taken seriously,” said the former justice department inspector general Michael Bromwich. “We have never had a presidential candidate state as one of his central goals mobilizing the levers of justice to punish enemies and reward friends. No one has ever been brazen enough to campaign on an agenda of retribution and retaliation.” And NPR reported that “Trump has issued more than 100 threats to investigate, prosecute, imprison or otherwise punish his perceived opponents”.
Having said that, the point I was making relied less on whether Trump would actually seriously harass people, but rather whether they would fear that Trump would do so, and specifically fear this enough that they would avoid taking actions which might act as a check/balance on presidential power. Do you believe that people don’t have this fear?
I’m not sure I follow. Which are things which I fear, but which you don’t see as necessarily bad? When I first read this, I thought you were referring to my list of things I fear:
Evisceration of aid becoming permanent
Increased risk of conflict, potentially moving beyond the likes of Greenland and escalating to great power conflict
Increased risk of (accidental or deliberate) use of nuclear weapons. (Apparently the administration fired over 300 employees at the national nuclear security administration, then tried to reinstate them, but at time of writing doesn’t seem to know how; sources: 1,2,3)
Exacerbation of climate change
An unwillingness to follow international norms may lead to greater willingness to develop biological weapons
If tech billionaire “oligarchs” prefer greater deregulation of AI, this could exacerbate the risk of loss of control of AI/misalignment
The human rights abuses typical of a totalitarian state
I’m assuming you do consider all of these to be bad.
When you spoke about the right to fire executive branch employees, were you referring to my concerns about the erosion of democratic institutions? In that section, I observed that:
Trump wants to fire the director of the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) which monitors conflicts of interests. (Source: MSNBC)
Trump fired 17 inspectors general, whose role is to audit the actions of government.
I’m perfectly willing to believe he has that right, but my question is more about whether it leads to better outcomes. Will government make better decisions without the OGE monitoring conflicts of interest? Will government make better decisions if the inspectors general are loyalists? (assuming that’s what they are.) I imagine this leads to worse outcomes, but if you are more sanguine I’d be interested to know why.
I had the intuition that there was probably a lot of work that could be done here, but that the firehose of actions meant that it was hard for people to spare the attention on any of them. This gave me the impression that while lawsuits were happening, there’s probably lots more that can be done. Not least because lawsuits are often expensive, and could peter out or become ineffective because of lack of funds. This is pretty impressionistic though, so if you have a more carefully researched opinion, I’d be interested.
I think a lot of where we differ is in how much we trust the media when it comes to Trump. I’ve generally found that media will report ordinary things as though they were extraordinary and bad, will take the worst possible interpretation of ambiguous quotes, and do whatever else they think will keep people irrationally afraid of Trump. Take the particular claim that you made your centerpeice—that Musk was throwing around his wealth to support Trump’s nominees. “Rich American uses wealth to influence politicians” is not exactly news—that happens every day on both sides of the aisle. And what you put in block quotes was just that fact wrapped in hyperbolic language. I looked very briefly at your seven sources. All were during the election and all seemed to draw on the same quote: “Trump said that if ‘radical left lunatics’ disrupt the election, ‘it should be very easily handled by — if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military.’” The author somehow read that as “Trump has expressed support for using government force against domestic political rivals.” Talk about a straw man! Trump was suggesting using the military to ensure the election happens. That may be unwise and unprecedented and predictably totally unnecessary, but it is nothing like using the military against political rivals. This is the press’s standard MO when reporting on Trump. So when they say “100 threats to whatever” I just assume that few if any of the things on their list are actually what they are claimed to be.
I agree that people have that fear. I do not think it is warranted. And I think indulging an unwarranted fear is generally a bad idea—you just incentivize people to have unwarranted fears in the future. We need political rhetoric to cool down right now, not heat up.
For your bulleted list of bad things, I agree that many of them are unqualifiedly bad. A few of them I have more nuanced views on. But I don’t want to go point by point through it, as I don’t think that would shed any light on whether democracy is at risk or what we should do about it.
With regard to IGs and OGE, I’m not too familiar with these institutions, but my read is that the practical implications of who holds these posts are basically nil. IGs don’t directly remedy anything, they just write reports. They weren’t going to accomplish anything Trump’s appointees didn’t want them to accomplish anyway.
I get worried when I see people questioning whether the president has the right to fire them, because I value democracy in the literal sense—accountability to the people—and the mechanism by which any executive branch employee is accountable to the people in our system is through the president’s ability to fire them.
As for the neglectedness of lawsuits, I think we need to ask about particular lawsuits. It is certainly true that some lawsuits can fail for lack of money or talent. I don’t know of a reason to think that either is in short supply when it comes to challenging Trump. As you’ve pointed out, people are scared as shit, and there are plenty of liberals in the legal profession. But if we want to make the neglectedness case, I want to see it at the level of a particular legal issue, not just “trump is bad for [checks and balances and good government]”.