While it's kind of nuts, the US public did just elect this lot so I guess now they have them.
See this from before the election https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1830829538118381574
See this from before the election https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1830829538118381574
People have been conditioned to NOT think about what would be positive policy. I.e. sadopopulism:
the government makes you hurt, and then you want somebody else to hurt more.I think that for the most part federal employees are good people who work just as hard for one president as another. I used to work at a government agency. It was full of fantastic, dedicated, hard working people.
But in recent years there seems to be a large number of people who think that being a federal employee gives them the right to use their positions to “Resist” what people voted for. And such thinking has no place in our democracy. And it’s shameful that federal employees didn’t condemn what happened in 2017.
Yes, they should. Unless you believe that it's so easy to run the government that you can replace all the workers every four years (doubtful at best), you need to keep these people in their roles.
It doesn't matter what the Constitution theorizes; the simple truth is that an advanced country needs career civil servants capable of thinking for themselves. That inherently means they will loudly disagree if they think the president is doing something stupid.
It is unconscionable to have a system where the federal workforce enthusiastically implements the policies of the president from one party, but hinders the policies of the other. And to be clear, I don’t think most federal employees think this way. I think most federal employees, especially the old school ones, see it as their duty to do their job the best they can regardless of who sets the policy. So I was shocked and upset by what I saw in 2017. Not just that a vocal minority of federal employees declared they were bad at their jobs and disloyal to the duly elected president. But moreso because the silent majority of good federal employees stood quiet and didn’t say anything.
And remember the Resistance wasn’t about things that were “obviously illegal.” It was federal workers trying to frustrate immigration and environmental policies they disagreed with. That’s simply way out of the proper lane.
You're clearly American. The American founding fathers wanted to avoid tyranny of the majority. That is clear. Civil servants pushing back is exactly that! No, it's not documented in the Federalist papers but the world is a lot more complicated than the 18th century.
And there hasn’t been any material change since the 18th century. There were fierce debates over policies back in the 1700s, including some of the same debates we’re having today, like over tariffs. The federal government already had thousands of employees even during Jefferson’s time in 1802. Nobody imagined that those employees would have anything more than a ministerial role carrying out the agenda of the elected President.
And yes, the only way to describe what you’re seeing among federal employees today is a religion. I’m in DC. Some people—and again to be clear it’s a minority—are literally crying over changes in government policies related to immigration, defriending people based on who they voted for, etc. These are not detached professionals who deserve the public trust. They’re religious nuts who believe they have the moral high ground and that gives them the right to override the constitutional design.
This is why people actually speaking out about swooping changes in their administration is important.
I find it very odd that you find that upholding democracy matters, even if it means to enact and act on behalf on people that are actively dismantling it or have a proven track record at effectively ignoring the popular vote, which since you are a fervent democratic believer, I am guessing you are also against various different problems such as: gerrymandering, purging voters of certain groups from the ballots, attempting to manipulate election results and even in some case ignoring the popular vote altogether in a more than dodgy manner (see this description of the 2000 election https://www.uvm.edu/~dguber/POLS125/articles/pomper.htm )
This is without counting that an important number of members of the current administration, refused to acknowledge January 6 or admit that the previous administration was indeed legitimate...
So yes people should do their jobs, but should be held to standards, even a soldier is bound by the oath to the constitution, as does everyone appointed to a Federal position:
"An individual, except the President, elected or appointed to an office of honor or profit in the civil service or uniformed services, shall take the following oath: “I, ___, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God."
Again you pledge not to the administration but to the institution and the constitution, so I do not think your point do really stand here.
Look at the Blusky group linked here. What holocaust is the national park service “Resistance Team” preventing? You’re invoking the Holocaust to justify defying the duly elected president’s policy choices on legitimate political issues: the environment, immigration, etc.
And Trump won the popular vote.
Not in the 2016 election he didn't.
(And AIUI the last one is beginning to look a lot closer than first assumed, too.)
Their job is to do what they were hired to do, not swear fealty to the president. There is a reason why some positions are political and some are career - it's because you do in fact need "credentialed technocrats" if you're trying to run a developed country in the 21st century.
What if their job is against the whims of an administration working in direct opposition to the laws passed by Congress?
Musk has attempted to shut down USAID, which is a Congressionally mandated agency. Are you still going to call it "putting a thumb on the scale of their preferred party" when the employees inevitably resist this?
There is a spectrum. An FCC employee tasked with ensuring a device won't emit interference can easily do their job with very little reference to politics!
But an FCC employee tasked with ensuring free and fair access to broadcast licenses now no longer can, because Donald Trump has put HIS hand on the scale in opposition to the law and Constitution.
The executive branch is not allowed to ignore a law passed by Congress, only interpret it in good faith. This is written into the Constitution (the part that goes "shall faithfully execute"). This means that executive branch employees disobeying the president in accordance with US law are in fact working within the system.
If your suggestion is that in such a case they should kowtow to the president, you are deluding yourself. That is not democracy; Congress is the voice of the people and are the only federal lawmakers.
If the GOP would like to use their majority to undo existing laws, great! They actually have to vote and go through the motions instead of handwaving it away as executive privilege. Historically, this has not worked very well for them - it turns out that a platform of "tear it all down" works a lot better in on the campaign trail than in practice and they've been unable to repeal laws because they simply could not come up with a replacement.
This is pretty ironic in defense of Trump's actions here. He's initiating multiple constitutional crises.
Whatever arguments people have about whether the President can stop payment on block grants versus earmarks are trifles in comparison.
The President is supposed to execute the laws that Congress passes, and to spend money as Congress appropriates it. He does not have carte blanche to do whatever he would like with the Federal government. There are some areas where the President has more freedom of action (like foreign policy), but when it comes to administering government, he is not all-powerful.
The Administrative Procedure Act (APA) of 1946 contains the rule that prevents the U.S. executive branch from acting in an arbitrary and capricious manner. Specifically, 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A) directs courts to "hold unlawful and set aside agency action, findings, and conclusions found to be arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law."
If you think an action will be set aside by the courts, there are processes for handling that through in-house as legal departments and ultimate the President’s Office of Legal Counsel. And those lawyers have the job of aggressively representing the elected administration’s interpretation of the law before the courts. But line federal employees have zero role in the APA process.
This is basic high school US civics 101 on how our government functions.
The branches have to be dictatorships inside themselves. The founders were very deliberate in creating a system with democratic accountability. Everyone with power is either elected or appointed by someone who is elected. Career civil servants are not elected. Voters have no way to influence them other than by electing the president. And so career civil servants cannot have powers beyond the ministerial. Otherwise you end up with a government that isn’t responsive to elections—where people can’t change the course of government by voting.
I'm not going to give a basic civics lesson. The executive 'executes' the rules and policies established by the legislative branch. Government employees execute those rules, the President oversees. The only people the President gives orders to are the military. Musk has control of the National Checkbook, with no oversight, protocols or security to limit his actions. That is dictatorial power, not Constitutional executive authority.
Sorry bud, you want blind following of dictates. That is not the American system of government.
By the way I’d give the same courtesy to any president. His student loan forgiveness was obviously illegal, as well as being bad policy. But it would’ve been beyond the pale for his Department of Education to ignore the directive.
> The executive 'executes' the rules and policies established by the legislative branch. Government employees execute those rules, the President oversees.
Show me where it says anything like this in Article II: https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/articles/art...
Article II is crystal clear. The very first sentence says: “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.” It’s parallel to the congressmen or Supreme Court justices. The “civil service” are just staff. The constitution doesn’t even bother mentioning them.
What you’re saying is that there’s this key organ of government—the “non-political civil service”—with independent responsibilities exercising their best judgment, that somehow isn’t even mentioned in the constitution!
You're saying that as if it were a real zinger, clinching the argument for you. I don't think it is or does.
Yeah, the constitution may not mention a non-political civil service. So what?!? It ultimately regulates a whole lot of shit that it doesn't explicitly mention. Like, does the constitution explicitly mention Elon Musk's employees installing drives on government computers? No? Clearly unconstitutional, then!
According to the theory you're espousing here, that employee is a drone who will have to transfer the money, even though it's obviously illegal.