You hit the nail on the head. As bad as some of the actual policy goals are, the Schedule F proposal is by far the most dangerous. It's the equivalent of AIDS, attacking our political immune system. Too bad it's in the realm of "save democracy" that so far seems to not resonate with voters. Is it possible that Kamala can find a compelling way to do it that reaches voters at the margins?
A couple months ago, the Biden-Harris Ed Dept and EEOC issued rulings (with the force of law) requirng any girl or woman who needs to shower and change at school or at work to allow any boy or man watch her do it.
And this is what passes for "democracy" in today's USA.
So yeah, I am all-in on firing every last one of those "neutral" bureaucrats.
Short version: employers must allow anyone who claims a female "gender identity" to use female-only workplace facilities (lockers, showers). There is no gatekeeping of any kind on a claim of "gender identity". It is entirely up to the invidual and can be changed at will.
Ed Dept is the same, but for students at all schools at all levels (K-12, college).
Thank you for this lucid analysis. The Trump plans to fire seasoned experts is the Achilles heel of the Achilles heel (Project 25) of Trump’s demise. And the end of Heritage Foundation and its vicious acts of promoting unconscionable voter suppression and election administration malfeasance. These are the first steps to the recovery of authentic conservatism.
Even before Biden’s inauguration, The Heritage Foundation promoted the Big Lies of Election Fraud via its many-times debunked voter fears database, and via Heritage Action produced a “Fact Sheet” premised on that flaky database which served as a blueprint fir Red State legislature to adopt Red state voter suppression laws under the cover of « Election Integrity” in 19 Red States. The blueprint provides, among other things, empowers citizen vigilantes at the polls an for the installation of Big Lie proponents to serve as election officials instead of bipartisan officials ans poll workers. The former head of Heritage moved to the Conservative Partnership Institute - CPI - which funds Cleta Mitchell’s “Election Integrity” group has persuaded Red Stzte officials to abandon a proven bipartisan system called ERIC and adopt an unproven system misleadingly called Eagle-eye (AI), cobbled together by a medical doctor, which has been shown to wrongly disenfranchise voters in Red and Swing states. Happy to provide more examples. Based on those « successes » Heritage jumped feet first into Project 25, which former president Trump is trying to walk away from but which informed the platform presented at the Republican National Convention. Hope this helps.
You claim that "The blueprint provides, among other things, empowers citizen vigilantes at the polls an for the installation of Big Lie proponents to serve as election officials instead of bipartisan officials ans poll workers."
The closest to that I can find at that link is this:
1 Observers (except for purposes of recording the actual votes cast by individuals) should be allowed to have cameras and recording devices wherever they are stationed.
2 Election officials should welcome observation, and cameras should be stationed in all polling locations and ballot counting and election-processing facilities so that the public can watch elections and the canvassing and tabulation of ballots as these events are happening live through the Internet.
3 State law should provide that election officials who prevent legally qualified observers from viewing the election process are disciplined, including by suspension, termination, and/or civil fines.
4 For this and many other reasons, all polling places should be run either by a politically neutral polling official or jointly by at least two officials representing the two major political parties.
5 States should allow any registered voter to be an observer in any polling or other election location in the state and not limit observers solely to the specific county or township where they are registered to vote.
which seems to me to be pretty far from what you claim: "the installation of Big Lie proponents to serve as election officials instead of bipartisan officials ans poll workers"
My apologies. Go to defendyourvotingrights.org, and review the articles (all with links) under Heritage Foundation, Conservative Partnership Institute (CPA), Republican National Committee, RNC Committee on Election Integrity, Cleta Mitchell, her Election Integrity effort (funded by CP), among others. The Heritage Action “Fact Sheet” has been widely reported and the work by Heritage Action in coordinating with Red State legislatures via the RNC and the state repiublican leadership council. You won’t be disappointed.
Inside the Election Denial Groups Planning to Disrupt November
Groups like True the Vote and Michael Flynn’s America Project want to mobilize thousands of Trump supporters by pushing baseless claims about election fraud—and are rolling out new technology to fast-track their efforts.
Tom, do you actually read these links? Because I think they’re all a big pile of nothing. This latest one says volunteers are submitting large numbers of voter-roll challenges. This is a completely legal process. It’s taking up time and effort by elections officials to review the challenges, but that is exactly what should happen, and is happening. This article contains not even one specific example of a voter who was unfairly disenfranchised. And neither do any of your other links, as far as I was able to find.
Trump intends to do with the federal government bureaucracy what he's done to the RNC (now co-headed by his dingbat daughter-in-law): gut it and replace it with people who swear fealty not to the country but to him. It's not the most outrageous proposal within Project 2025 but it's one of the most likely to be implemented if the Trump-Vance ticket emerges victorious in November. Theil acolyte Vance is, if anything, even more excited about Schedule F than Trump. Democrats need to keep tying the Project 2025 albatross around Trump's neck because once people know what's in it, they hate it.
I support the power of elected officials to fire/hire administrative employees. That is why we elect them. If Trump makes the hypothetical decision you outlined in your article, one must trust the Judiciary branch to ensure it is constitutional… and Congress to limit his power if it is outrageous. Saving democracy cannot mean protecting life long jobs that influence policies with real life impact.
They want to monkey with a system that's been in place for more than 100 years? (during which we became the worlds powerhouse, won two world wars etc). What's the sudden emergency?
The system is ALREADY being "monkeyed with" via DEI requirements:
> An international group of researchers is raising the alarm about how U.S. science funding is increasingly being tied to compliance with DEI (“Diversity,” “Equity,” and “Inclusion”) ideology. Their groundbreaking peer-reviewed research article documents how U.S. funding agencies have begun to impose DEI requirements as a prerequisite for STEMM funding and explains why this is a threat to academic freedom and research integrity.
I'll look at this and see if there's any 'there' there. My objection to your previous comment is the trumpian nicknaming. In my experience, it usually it indicates blunt thinking and motivated reasoning.
No one who has run a team, much less a department or business unit, thinks it’s a good idea to turn over 80%+ of your reporting structure when leadership changes.
To compound that by favoring fealty and grievance over core competencies as qualifications is laughable in its detriment to the enterprise.
Let’s not conflate the protections for under performing workers that Damon correctly calls out with this effort. 80% of federal employees are not deserving of ouster. This is about the necessary continuity and institutional memory required to run a federal system the size of ours. There are actual people who will be gravely impacted. This isn’t a thought experiment to them. The sad part is that many of those who may severely impacted are Trump’s own supporters.
The only thing that surprised me about the Schedule F proposal was that it took four years for Trump and his lieutenants to attempt it. I feared and expected DJT to begin that project on Day One in 2016. I also expected he would begin with the military and national security personnel.
I suspect if Trump wins and these proposals are carried out that some Trump appointed-judges, like Aileen Cannon, won't be too much of a barrier to those plans and we'll just have to wonder which conservatives on the SCOTUS bench would hold the line.
Need a bit of balance I think. A bit underwhelmed here. I know we always have to start with the premise that we're looking at a ticking time bomb, but there is an alternative point of view. Its really the re-institution of the Spoils System, from our last legitimately demagogic president, Andrew Jackson, no? Damaging, sure, but apocalyptic? Well, the Federalist society, and McConnell have already packed the Court/s, and kept Trump out of jail, and riddled the judiciary with stooges like Cannon, so this latest Federalist Society abortion is bad, but is it truly worse than what has happened already? Count me on the side which says that the hacktastic John Roberts, Mr Leo and friends have already damaged America more than Trump has ever dreamed of doing.
I see a second Trump term, with his galloping cognitive decline, as not identical to, but rhyming with the first: staggering incompetence, low attention span, childishly stupid pronouncements that cause all kinds of bead clutching, a cascade of impeachments, and maybe a few 25th amendment tryouts, until he does the full Biden and gets packed off. The real losers, the people who will actually bleed, in my view, will be the Taiwanese, the Ukrainians and the Palestinians, because there will cease to be any barriers to Russian, Israeli, or Chinese expansion, at least not from Washington. [I wonder where Zelinsky will seek asylum? We have a large Ukrainian-American community here in Yonkers who would undoubtedly welcome him and keep him safe. ] I don't know if China is the future, but they must be gleeful at the prospect. Which is why Xi, Bibi, and Putin want a second Trump term so bad they can taste it.
Now, I don't necessarily buy the rebuttal to people who say that 'we survived 2017-2021 so we'll survive this too" by those who say "well, now he knows how to grasp the levers of power, and he has ruthless people to do it for him now." Is that true? Didn't he have Stephen Miller and Bannon in the government before, and didn't they flame out? Pretty ruthless guys, right? How about certifiable crazy person John Bolton; was he incompetent, or just mildly principled? Are the genius sons, the ones who helped him pick The Vants --great pick, boys! -- coming on board? [The daughter and son in law seem to have checked out, which is interesting. Undoubtedly trying to figure out ways to spend all that Saudi money. The wife only makes contractual obligation appearances, of course.] Where is this new burst of competence on the part of the ConMan coming from-- we're talking about a 50 year long record of clowning, here -- and based off the campaign so far, how has this been manifested? Isn't the campaign, so far, a clear preview of what is yet to come, if he succeeds? Also, as soon as Trump gets sworn in again, he becomes a lame duck, and the maneuvering for the succession will begin, starting with whatever wretched soul-less individual he chooses as Veep [still not sure The Vants is going to be there].
Dems, do your damn jobs. If they do, it won't matter if Stephen Miller is drawing up plans for political reeducation camps. Which he probably is. If they don't, they should join the legendary Robbie Mook in looking for another line of work.
By the way, anyone who might think that the government service is characterized by seasoned experts should read Legacy of Ashes about the CIA's almost unbelievable history of incompetence. From its inception. We will always have incompetence in government [the Secret Service, anybody?], and we'll have it whether Trump gets in again or not.
And Nixon, Kissinger, and later Reagan -- with his Iran Contra buddies - ran off the books governmental projects -- all debacles -- with various people frequently of slightly superior competence to anyone currently sucking up to Trump. We survived them too.
1) The Schedule F deployment was relatively late in Trump’s term. It flies in the face of what’s observable to assert that the planning over the ensuing four years and the fact of Project 2025 will result in the same outcomes. Feel free to whistle past the graveyard. I won’t wait up.
2) I don’t buy claims that even a critical mass of federal employees are grossly incompetent (citing the CIA or Ollie North as somehow representative of federal employees is amusing but brazenly disingenuous). I’m not a huge Michael Lewis, but he wrote a short book in defense of federal departments and their contributions. Might be worth your time if you’re interested in the less lurid corners of the gub’mint.
I love Michael Lewis. I worked in state govt for 38 years; you don't have to tell me that some people in public service are insanely hard working, and underpaid, [election volunteers who get their lives threatened for doing their uncompensated jobs also come readily to mind] while others are swamp creatures who should be lying on their backs at the bottom of ponds [obligatory Fawlty Towers reference]. Everyone knows there should be an easier way to get rid of the latter, but the Trumpies are trying like hell to hire more of them. And I'm not dying to find out if we're going to get another four years of hideous govt, or worse, a total end of the American experience. I think my biases are pretty clear. What I do think is that these great schemes of the Federalists are not unprecedented, and that we've been here before, especially with Nixon and Reagan. And, big coincidence, there are articles today in the NY Review of Books, re- stating, with real legal citations and stuff, what I said before about the profound damage done to this country by normies Roberts, Alito and Williams, none of whom were appointed by Trump. By all means fight against a return of Trump, but we have a lot of other things to un-do as well.
I think that the CIA is a spectacular exception to the above, but I'm not going to demonize everybody in the public sector either, and I don't think I did.
If I failed to affirm your take on McConnell and the Roberts court I apologize heartily. I made much the same case you did during Trump’s term. I consider McConnell an utter nihilist and the strain of originalism practiced by the current court to be incoherent at best and transparently bad faith at worst. Your take is so utterly aligned with mine that I figured anything I’d have added would be gilding the lily, which I’ve now done anyway. It was worth it and I feel better.
I don’t know how much time you’ve spent in the private sector, but the ratio of good faith actors to pond dwellers* is no different among the rank and file there. It seems to rankle certain among the citizenry more when it’s a gov’t employee (“I’m payin’ yore salary!!”) but that doesn’t make the amplification particularly valid. And trust me when I say that it is no easier to fire (sorry, coach out) someone at a Fortune 100 company than it is in the Township of Bee Pollen in Any State, USA.
If anything, I see the circumstances you describe with the SCOTUS as proof of how much damage can be done by focused, driven ideologues. If anything, the success of the Federalist Society’s takeover of the rightist judiciary makes me more inclined to believe that the Heritage Society’s plan will be accomplished, not less. It’s that it’s not unprecedented, and that similar projects have worked that is alarming here.
*Having spent over 25 years supporting Public Sector retirement plans including some noteworthy State Of… clients, I’ve had a front row seat to the disruption that necessarily follows from elections and political appointments while also confirming the benefits of the lifers who serve steadily through democracy’s inherent messiness. I’m preaching to the choir obviously, but I can’t imagine the chaos that would ensue if even a quarter of them turned over every time a different party took charge.
I heart your Fawlty Towers reference. I will defend the story where Cleese hits his head and starts making horrendous Nazi jokes at the expense of some German tourists as one of the funniest episodes of television ever made. In fact, I may see if I can stream it now…
I agree with everything here, obviously, and would just totally endorse what you said about the private sector -- all those politicians who moronically promise to 'run government like a business' are totally deserving of our contempt. My wife still works in the private sector, and in my experience the practices there are consistently more ludicrous than those permitted in the public sector- the only difference is that the waste and malfeasance is on a far larger scale.
Really looking forward to Fawlty Towers-The Play- when it get to the states.
Civil Service reform in the 1880's was essentially the first campaign finance law. Patronage was the political currency of the time that greased the wheels of government. Today of course it's unfettered PAC donations that greases our system today. Imagine the double impact of both unfettered patronage AND money into our political system?????
It isn't just loyalist cronies who will be favored, at least if people like Bannon are driving things. It will be people who are ignorant of/hostile to the whole infrastructure of modernity. In his long interview with David Brooks, Bannon openly boasted that new recruits who would replace professional civil servants are the new cohort of "activists" who are symbolized by the "mostly moms who didn't read a lot of books in college" and who didn't care about politics before but were radicalized by the pandemic. Proof of the effectiveness of this "army" is the ouster of McCarthy, the takeover of state political bodies, and the purging of the RNC in favor of people from their own ranks.
In other words: people not only motivated by ideology alone but whose lack of subject expertise is their reason for being hired.
On one hand, it's easy to guess that this would backfire. You can't keep a vast, complex, technologically advanced country of 330 million people functioning without people with field-specific expertise and knowledge of modern bureaucracy. People won't get their social security checks on time. Disaster responses like the debacle of Katrina would be a common occurrence. Two or three million dead from the next pandemic would not seem like "freedom."
On the other hand, at least some of these folks behind the scenes would welcome that kind of state failure, certain that it would be the opening for some new order to be born. The reality might be less dire than a failed state. But it could easily become the morass that is post-Brexit Britain.
"Disaster responses like the debacle of Katrina would be a common occurrence."
Those ALREADY ARE a common occurrence! For the latest example, see Butler PA and the USSS head who was handpicked by Doctor Jill, and who (like most of the bureaucrats Trump will fire) profoundly believes that the highest goal is getting "experts" who "look like America", regardless of their ability to do the job.
Trump simply cannot do any worse than the DEIocrats are already doing.
You're aware, I assume, that female USSS agents need to meet drastically lower physical standards than male agents. Why, exactly, is that? If there is a physical standard, it should be related to the needs of the job, and should be the SAME for all people doing that job.
That's DEI in action: lower the standards for favored identity groups.
I would link to the USSS standards, but since you're no longer paying any attention to me, I won't bother.
An imperative to protect an entrenched administrative caste (or nomenklatura) is an ideology unto itself. Therein lies the flaw: the interest of that caste is in its own power and recognition. That is not liberalism.
When Andrew Jackson introduced the spoils system, it was considered a victory for democracy -- and the Estsblishment of its day was terrified of the prospect that peasants would be swarming the White House. All this talk of "a complex and rapidly-changing economy and society" is merely a front for the Nurse Ratcheds of the world.
“The technical necessity for organization, as Robert Michel showed long ago, sets in motion an inevitable tendency toward oligarchy. The leadership after a time is bound to have separate interests from the rank-and-file…. No loopholes have yet been discovered in the iron law of oligarchy.”
You hit the nail on the head. As bad as some of the actual policy goals are, the Schedule F proposal is by far the most dangerous. It's the equivalent of AIDS, attacking our political immune system. Too bad it's in the realm of "save democracy" that so far seems to not resonate with voters. Is it possible that Kamala can find a compelling way to do it that reaches voters at the margins?
A couple months ago, the Biden-Harris Ed Dept and EEOC issued rulings (with the force of law) requirng any girl or woman who needs to shower and change at school or at work to allow any boy or man watch her do it.
And this is what passes for "democracy" in today's USA.
So yeah, I am all-in on firing every last one of those "neutral" bureaucrats.
Link please. From an actual news (as opposed to opinion) site.
Here is EEOC: https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/eeoc-says-workplace-bias-laws-cover-bathrooms-pronouns-abortion-2024-04-29/
Short version: employers must allow anyone who claims a female "gender identity" to use female-only workplace facilities (lockers, showers). There is no gatekeeping of any kind on a claim of "gender identity". It is entirely up to the invidual and can be changed at will.
Ed Dept is the same, but for students at all schools at all levels (K-12, college).
Thank you for this lucid analysis. The Trump plans to fire seasoned experts is the Achilles heel of the Achilles heel (Project 25) of Trump’s demise. And the end of Heritage Foundation and its vicious acts of promoting unconscionable voter suppression and election administration malfeasance. These are the first steps to the recovery of authentic conservatism.
Can you provide a list of those "vicious acts of promoting unconscionable voter suppression"?
Thanks!
Even before Biden’s inauguration, The Heritage Foundation promoted the Big Lies of Election Fraud via its many-times debunked voter fears database, and via Heritage Action produced a “Fact Sheet” premised on that flaky database which served as a blueprint fir Red State legislature to adopt Red state voter suppression laws under the cover of « Election Integrity” in 19 Red States. The blueprint provides, among other things, empowers citizen vigilantes at the polls an for the installation of Big Lie proponents to serve as election officials instead of bipartisan officials ans poll workers. The former head of Heritage moved to the Conservative Partnership Institute - CPI - which funds Cleta Mitchell’s “Election Integrity” group has persuaded Red Stzte officials to abandon a proven bipartisan system called ERIC and adopt an unproven system misleadingly called Eagle-eye (AI), cobbled together by a medical doctor, which has been shown to wrongly disenfranchise voters in Red and Swing states. Happy to provide more examples. Based on those « successes » Heritage jumped feet first into Project 25, which former president Trump is trying to walk away from but which informed the platform presented at the Republican National Convention. Hope this helps.
You don't provide any links so I had to try to track them down myself. As best I can tell this is what you're referring to:
https://www.heritage.org/election-integrity-facts
You claim that "The blueprint provides, among other things, empowers citizen vigilantes at the polls an for the installation of Big Lie proponents to serve as election officials instead of bipartisan officials ans poll workers."
The closest to that I can find at that link is this:
1 Observers (except for purposes of recording the actual votes cast by individuals) should be allowed to have cameras and recording devices wherever they are stationed.
2 Election officials should welcome observation, and cameras should be stationed in all polling locations and ballot counting and election-processing facilities so that the public can watch elections and the canvassing and tabulation of ballots as these events are happening live through the Internet.
3 State law should provide that election officials who prevent legally qualified observers from viewing the election process are disciplined, including by suspension, termination, and/or civil fines.
4 For this and many other reasons, all polling places should be run either by a politically neutral polling official or jointly by at least two officials representing the two major political parties.
5 States should allow any registered voter to be an observer in any polling or other election location in the state and not limit observers solely to the specific county or township where they are registered to vote.
which seems to me to be pretty far from what you claim: "the installation of Big Lie proponents to serve as election officials instead of bipartisan officials ans poll workers"
My apologies. Go to defendyourvotingrights.org, and review the articles (all with links) under Heritage Foundation, Conservative Partnership Institute (CPA), Republican National Committee, RNC Committee on Election Integrity, Cleta Mitchell, her Election Integrity effort (funded by CP), among others. The Heritage Action “Fact Sheet” has been widely reported and the work by Heritage Action in coordinating with Red State legislatures via the RNC and the state repiublican leadership council. You won’t be disappointed.
One more link, in additojn to the many provided at defendyourvotingrights.org (by searching Heritage Foundation): “The man who cries voter fraud”
https://electionlawblog.org/?p=144388https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=24, https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8https://electionlawblog.org/?author=5
The Guardian has https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2024/jul/10/voter-fraud-hans-von-spakovsky-project-2025 of Hans von Spakovsky, who authored the https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_CHAPTER-29.pdf of the Heritage Foundation’s https://www.project2025.org/policy/.
Another linkl for you:
Inside the Election Denial Groups Planning to Disrupt November
Groups like True the Vote and Michael Flynn’s America Project want to mobilize thousands of Trump supporters by pushing baseless claims about election fraud—and are rolling out new technology to fast-track their efforts.
BY https://www.wired.com/author/david-gilbert/
https://www.wired.com/category/politics
APR 8, 2024
https://www.wired.com/story/election-denial-groups-november-2024/
Tom, do you actually read these links? Because I think they’re all a big pile of nothing. This latest one says volunteers are submitting large numbers of voter-roll challenges. This is a completely legal process. It’s taking up time and effort by elections officials to review the challenges, but that is exactly what should happen, and is happening. This article contains not even one specific example of a voter who was unfairly disenfranchised. And neither do any of your other links, as far as I was able to find.
Trump intends to do with the federal government bureaucracy what he's done to the RNC (now co-headed by his dingbat daughter-in-law): gut it and replace it with people who swear fealty not to the country but to him. It's not the most outrageous proposal within Project 2025 but it's one of the most likely to be implemented if the Trump-Vance ticket emerges victorious in November. Theil acolyte Vance is, if anything, even more excited about Schedule F than Trump. Democrats need to keep tying the Project 2025 albatross around Trump's neck because once people know what's in it, they hate it.
Trump's problem is that he doesn't have enough daughters-in-law.
That's the least of Trump's problems.
I support the power of elected officials to fire/hire administrative employees. That is why we elect them. If Trump makes the hypothetical decision you outlined in your article, one must trust the Judiciary branch to ensure it is constitutional… and Congress to limit his power if it is outrageous. Saving democracy cannot mean protecting life long jobs that influence policies with real life impact.
They want to monkey with a system that's been in place for more than 100 years? (during which we became the worlds powerhouse, won two world wars etc). What's the sudden emergency?
The system is ALREADY being "monkeyed with" via DEI requirements:
> An international group of researchers is raising the alarm about how U.S. science funding is increasingly being tied to compliance with DEI (“Diversity,” “Equity,” and “Inclusion”) ideology. Their groundbreaking peer-reviewed research article documents how U.S. funding agencies have begun to impose DEI requirements as a prerequisite for STEMM funding and explains why this is a threat to academic freedom and research integrity.
https://hxstem.substack.com/p/politicizing-science-funding-undermines
I'll look at this and see if there's any 'there' there. My objection to your previous comment is the trumpian nicknaming. In my experience, it usually it indicates blunt thinking and motivated reasoning.
No one who has run a team, much less a department or business unit, thinks it’s a good idea to turn over 80%+ of your reporting structure when leadership changes.
To compound that by favoring fealty and grievance over core competencies as qualifications is laughable in its detriment to the enterprise.
Let’s not conflate the protections for under performing workers that Damon correctly calls out with this effort. 80% of federal employees are not deserving of ouster. This is about the necessary continuity and institutional memory required to run a federal system the size of ours. There are actual people who will be gravely impacted. This isn’t a thought experiment to them. The sad part is that many of those who may severely impacted are Trump’s own supporters.
The only thing that surprised me about the Schedule F proposal was that it took four years for Trump and his lieutenants to attempt it. I feared and expected DJT to begin that project on Day One in 2016. I also expected he would begin with the military and national security personnel.
I suspect if Trump wins and these proposals are carried out that some Trump appointed-judges, like Aileen Cannon, won't be too much of a barrier to those plans and we'll just have to wonder which conservatives on the SCOTUS bench would hold the line.
Need a bit of balance I think. A bit underwhelmed here. I know we always have to start with the premise that we're looking at a ticking time bomb, but there is an alternative point of view. Its really the re-institution of the Spoils System, from our last legitimately demagogic president, Andrew Jackson, no? Damaging, sure, but apocalyptic? Well, the Federalist society, and McConnell have already packed the Court/s, and kept Trump out of jail, and riddled the judiciary with stooges like Cannon, so this latest Federalist Society abortion is bad, but is it truly worse than what has happened already? Count me on the side which says that the hacktastic John Roberts, Mr Leo and friends have already damaged America more than Trump has ever dreamed of doing.
I see a second Trump term, with his galloping cognitive decline, as not identical to, but rhyming with the first: staggering incompetence, low attention span, childishly stupid pronouncements that cause all kinds of bead clutching, a cascade of impeachments, and maybe a few 25th amendment tryouts, until he does the full Biden and gets packed off. The real losers, the people who will actually bleed, in my view, will be the Taiwanese, the Ukrainians and the Palestinians, because there will cease to be any barriers to Russian, Israeli, or Chinese expansion, at least not from Washington. [I wonder where Zelinsky will seek asylum? We have a large Ukrainian-American community here in Yonkers who would undoubtedly welcome him and keep him safe. ] I don't know if China is the future, but they must be gleeful at the prospect. Which is why Xi, Bibi, and Putin want a second Trump term so bad they can taste it.
Now, I don't necessarily buy the rebuttal to people who say that 'we survived 2017-2021 so we'll survive this too" by those who say "well, now he knows how to grasp the levers of power, and he has ruthless people to do it for him now." Is that true? Didn't he have Stephen Miller and Bannon in the government before, and didn't they flame out? Pretty ruthless guys, right? How about certifiable crazy person John Bolton; was he incompetent, or just mildly principled? Are the genius sons, the ones who helped him pick The Vants --great pick, boys! -- coming on board? [The daughter and son in law seem to have checked out, which is interesting. Undoubtedly trying to figure out ways to spend all that Saudi money. The wife only makes contractual obligation appearances, of course.] Where is this new burst of competence on the part of the ConMan coming from-- we're talking about a 50 year long record of clowning, here -- and based off the campaign so far, how has this been manifested? Isn't the campaign, so far, a clear preview of what is yet to come, if he succeeds? Also, as soon as Trump gets sworn in again, he becomes a lame duck, and the maneuvering for the succession will begin, starting with whatever wretched soul-less individual he chooses as Veep [still not sure The Vants is going to be there].
Dems, do your damn jobs. If they do, it won't matter if Stephen Miller is drawing up plans for political reeducation camps. Which he probably is. If they don't, they should join the legendary Robbie Mook in looking for another line of work.
By the way, anyone who might think that the government service is characterized by seasoned experts should read Legacy of Ashes about the CIA's almost unbelievable history of incompetence. From its inception. We will always have incompetence in government [the Secret Service, anybody?], and we'll have it whether Trump gets in again or not.
And Nixon, Kissinger, and later Reagan -- with his Iran Contra buddies - ran off the books governmental projects -- all debacles -- with various people frequently of slightly superior competence to anyone currently sucking up to Trump. We survived them too.
Wow, will wonders never cease! A comment by JD (not that one!) that I agree with completely.
If the feeling is ever mutual, we will no doubt be instantly sucked into a mini-black-hole accidentally created at the Large Hadron Collider.
1) The Schedule F deployment was relatively late in Trump’s term. It flies in the face of what’s observable to assert that the planning over the ensuing four years and the fact of Project 2025 will result in the same outcomes. Feel free to whistle past the graveyard. I won’t wait up.
2) I don’t buy claims that even a critical mass of federal employees are grossly incompetent (citing the CIA or Ollie North as somehow representative of federal employees is amusing but brazenly disingenuous). I’m not a huge Michael Lewis, but he wrote a short book in defense of federal departments and their contributions. Might be worth your time if you’re interested in the less lurid corners of the gub’mint.
I love Michael Lewis. I worked in state govt for 38 years; you don't have to tell me that some people in public service are insanely hard working, and underpaid, [election volunteers who get their lives threatened for doing their uncompensated jobs also come readily to mind] while others are swamp creatures who should be lying on their backs at the bottom of ponds [obligatory Fawlty Towers reference]. Everyone knows there should be an easier way to get rid of the latter, but the Trumpies are trying like hell to hire more of them. And I'm not dying to find out if we're going to get another four years of hideous govt, or worse, a total end of the American experience. I think my biases are pretty clear. What I do think is that these great schemes of the Federalists are not unprecedented, and that we've been here before, especially with Nixon and Reagan. And, big coincidence, there are articles today in the NY Review of Books, re- stating, with real legal citations and stuff, what I said before about the profound damage done to this country by normies Roberts, Alito and Williams, none of whom were appointed by Trump. By all means fight against a return of Trump, but we have a lot of other things to un-do as well.
I think that the CIA is a spectacular exception to the above, but I'm not going to demonize everybody in the public sector either, and I don't think I did.
If I failed to affirm your take on McConnell and the Roberts court I apologize heartily. I made much the same case you did during Trump’s term. I consider McConnell an utter nihilist and the strain of originalism practiced by the current court to be incoherent at best and transparently bad faith at worst. Your take is so utterly aligned with mine that I figured anything I’d have added would be gilding the lily, which I’ve now done anyway. It was worth it and I feel better.
I don’t know how much time you’ve spent in the private sector, but the ratio of good faith actors to pond dwellers* is no different among the rank and file there. It seems to rankle certain among the citizenry more when it’s a gov’t employee (“I’m payin’ yore salary!!”) but that doesn’t make the amplification particularly valid. And trust me when I say that it is no easier to fire (sorry, coach out) someone at a Fortune 100 company than it is in the Township of Bee Pollen in Any State, USA.
If anything, I see the circumstances you describe with the SCOTUS as proof of how much damage can be done by focused, driven ideologues. If anything, the success of the Federalist Society’s takeover of the rightist judiciary makes me more inclined to believe that the Heritage Society’s plan will be accomplished, not less. It’s that it’s not unprecedented, and that similar projects have worked that is alarming here.
*Having spent over 25 years supporting Public Sector retirement plans including some noteworthy State Of… clients, I’ve had a front row seat to the disruption that necessarily follows from elections and political appointments while also confirming the benefits of the lifers who serve steadily through democracy’s inherent messiness. I’m preaching to the choir obviously, but I can’t imagine the chaos that would ensue if even a quarter of them turned over every time a different party took charge.
I heart your Fawlty Towers reference. I will defend the story where Cleese hits his head and starts making horrendous Nazi jokes at the expense of some German tourists as one of the funniest episodes of television ever made. In fact, I may see if I can stream it now…
I agree with everything here, obviously, and would just totally endorse what you said about the private sector -- all those politicians who moronically promise to 'run government like a business' are totally deserving of our contempt. My wife still works in the private sector, and in my experience the practices there are consistently more ludicrous than those permitted in the public sector- the only difference is that the waste and malfeasance is on a far larger scale.
Really looking forward to Fawlty Towers-The Play- when it get to the states.
Civil Service reform in the 1880's was essentially the first campaign finance law. Patronage was the political currency of the time that greased the wheels of government. Today of course it's unfettered PAC donations that greases our system today. Imagine the double impact of both unfettered patronage AND money into our political system?????
It isn't just loyalist cronies who will be favored, at least if people like Bannon are driving things. It will be people who are ignorant of/hostile to the whole infrastructure of modernity. In his long interview with David Brooks, Bannon openly boasted that new recruits who would replace professional civil servants are the new cohort of "activists" who are symbolized by the "mostly moms who didn't read a lot of books in college" and who didn't care about politics before but were radicalized by the pandemic. Proof of the effectiveness of this "army" is the ouster of McCarthy, the takeover of state political bodies, and the purging of the RNC in favor of people from their own ranks.
In other words: people not only motivated by ideology alone but whose lack of subject expertise is their reason for being hired.
On one hand, it's easy to guess that this would backfire. You can't keep a vast, complex, technologically advanced country of 330 million people functioning without people with field-specific expertise and knowledge of modern bureaucracy. People won't get their social security checks on time. Disaster responses like the debacle of Katrina would be a common occurrence. Two or three million dead from the next pandemic would not seem like "freedom."
On the other hand, at least some of these folks behind the scenes would welcome that kind of state failure, certain that it would be the opening for some new order to be born. The reality might be less dire than a failed state. But it could easily become the morass that is post-Brexit Britain.
"Disaster responses like the debacle of Katrina would be a common occurrence."
Those ALREADY ARE a common occurrence! For the latest example, see Butler PA and the USSS head who was handpicked by Doctor Jill, and who (like most of the bureaucrats Trump will fire) profoundly believes that the highest goal is getting "experts" who "look like America", regardless of their ability to do the job.
Trump simply cannot do any worse than the DEIocrats are already doing.
DEiocrats? OK, no longer paying any attention to you. bye.
You're aware, I assume, that female USSS agents need to meet drastically lower physical standards than male agents. Why, exactly, is that? If there is a physical standard, it should be related to the needs of the job, and should be the SAME for all people doing that job.
That's DEI in action: lower the standards for favored identity groups.
I would link to the USSS standards, but since you're no longer paying any attention to me, I won't bother.
“DEiocrats? OK, no longer paying any attention to you. bye.”
Yes. Sadly this bridge has a troll.
Project 2025’s plan to BAN PORN is NOT persuading white men to vote for a convicted criminal.
Pretty much wiping out their whole raison d'etre there, Dude.
An imperative to protect an entrenched administrative caste (or nomenklatura) is an ideology unto itself. Therein lies the flaw: the interest of that caste is in its own power and recognition. That is not liberalism.
When Andrew Jackson introduced the spoils system, it was considered a victory for democracy -- and the Estsblishment of its day was terrified of the prospect that peasants would be swarming the White House. All this talk of "a complex and rapidly-changing economy and society" is merely a front for the Nurse Ratcheds of the world.
THE PROBLEM, STATED SUCCINCTLY:
“The technical necessity for organization, as Robert Michel showed long ago, sets in motion an inevitable tendency toward oligarchy. The leadership after a time is bound to have separate interests from the rank-and-file…. No loopholes have yet been discovered in the iron law of oligarchy.”
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.