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Sincere question: are you and I using “democracy” to mean the same thing? What Trump is doing is a reversion to how the federal government was run after the fo

Sincere question: are you and I using “democracy” to mean the same thing? What Trump is doing is a reversion to how the federal government was run after the founding and during the 18th century (what’s derisively called the “spoils system”). Trump campaigned with a bunch of people with specific ideas (RFK, Musk, Gabbard, etc.) and then when elected put those people in positions of authority. Here, taking an axe to the civil service was Item #9 on Trump’s platform: https://www.donaldjtrump.com/platform https://www.donaldjtrump.com/platform. He sent Musk as his surrogate to camp out in the key swing state of Pennsylvania the week before the election. For many Trump voters, this is what they voted for. For others, maybe DOGE wasn’t their thing, but they were content with it to get RFK Jr. or Gabbard or Tom Homan. And from all those people you got a winning coalition. What you’re talking about sounds more like Wilsonian managerialism. Where elections are more like an input signal to a credentialed civil service service that applies its expertise to the problems of governance: https://fedsoc.org/commentary/fedsoc-blog/woodrow-wilson-s-case-against-the-constitution https://fedsoc.org/commentary/fedsoc-blog/woodrow-wilson-s-c.... You can make a fair case that governance by detached civil servants is better, but how can you possibly say that it’s more democratic?

tomrod 2y ago
Typically, democratic means voting people in Congress in, then Congress votes and represents their constituents. There is a reason the President was not initially elected by the people. The spoils system and the current systems failings are precisely that foresight. When Congress is weak, the Executive is unchecked. Go read the Old Whig 4
- amazingamazing 2y ago
  Luckily a weak congress can be replaced. I see nothing that has happened so far personally that cannot be democratically corrected.
- derangedHorse 2y ago
  > Typically, democratic means voting people in Congress in, then Congress votes and represents their constituents That's still happening.
- rayiner 2y ago
  Sure, presidential electors should be appointed by state legislatures and the administrative state is unconstitutional. But if we aren’t relitigating all that: we have an administrative state, to which Congress has delegated vast authority. Given that, how is it possible to argue that we should then further insulate that administrative state from accountability to the only elected official who can effectively hold it accountable—the President? What’s left? That view reduces the elected government to a meta-government. Congress’s job is to make largely jurisdictional and procedural rules for the civil service to follow, and the president’s job is to mind adherence to those rules. But actual policymaking is delegated to the civil service, which is insulated from elections. The spoils system is good, actually, and I’m persuaded that’s how the constitution was meant to work. People who voted for Trump loved that he put up a slate of people he was going to appoint with concrete visions of how they were going to run the government. That seems democratic to me.
  - ilove196884 2y ago
    Sorry but the spoils state is called corruption and is totally bad in all forms. If you want to curtail the so called administrative agency then the parties have to win elections by dicisive margins. Or the president and judiciary can force Congress to pass laws.
relaxing 2y ago
You’ve neglected any discussion of democracy beyond the executive branch.
- swat535 2y ago
  Can you expand? I keep hearing on HN about how the US is being "taken over", that there is a "coup in place" and Musk is a "fascist" and so on (I'm not making these up, these are genuine HN comments in this thread and elsewhere). I'd like someone to clearly explain to me, an outsider about why such hostility has been ushered in this community ? Please point me to specifics so that I can understand what law(s) are being broken? Why are we seeing blog posts like this "listing names".. like it's September 1, 1939 ? I've been a member of HN for many years and have never seen this level of panic bubbling up, I've been trying to follow it but it's hard to follow a balanced discussion when I see half the comments downvoted and only one sided conversations are happening, which is quite upsetting for me, since one of the reasons I cherish this community, is because of its ability to provide nuanced discussions. So if I may, I'd invite you (and others) to please engage in thoughtful discourse, so that I can genuinely be informed and make my own conclusions on the matter.
  - rayiner 2y ago
    I think we’re seeing a lot of culturally rooted assumptions about the nature of government bubbling to the surface. There’s a lot of people who subscribe to progressive managerialism, which was championed by Woodrow Wilson. This is the dominant culture of knowledge workers. What Trump is doing is deeply upsetting to them. They will invoke things like records laws or the Impoundment Act or whatever, but nobody gets this worked up about laws requiring paperwork. They’re upset at the idea that you could just have a president who runs the executive branch however he wants regardless of what the civil service wants. Most Americans, by contrast, are populists, either left-populists or right-populists. The breach of orderly practices doesn’t get them worked up. Look at how AOC frames what’s going on. She doesn’t talk about paperwork violations—her supporters wouldn’t care. She accuses Musk of robbing the Treasury, threatening to stop social security payments, etc. I don’t think those things are true, but it’s the kind of thing that would move her populist supporters to action.

tomrod 2y ago

Typically, democratic means voting people in Congress in, then Congress votes and represents their constituents. There is a reason the President was not initially elected by the people. The spoils system and the current systems failings are precisely that foresight. When Congress is weak, the Executive is unchecked. Go read the Old Whig 4

amazingamazing 2y ago
Luckily a weak congress can be replaced. I see nothing that has happened so far personally that cannot be democratically corrected.
derangedHorse 2y ago
> Typically, democratic means voting people in Congress in, then Congress votes and represents their constituents That's still happening.
rayiner 2y ago
Sure, presidential electors should be appointed by state legislatures and the administrative state is unconstitutional. But if we aren’t relitigating all that: we have an administrative state, to which Congress has delegated vast authority. Given that, how is it possible to argue that we should then further insulate that administrative state from accountability to the only elected official who can effectively hold it accountable—the President? What’s left? That view reduces the elected government to a meta-government. Congress’s job is to make largely jurisdictional and procedural rules for the civil service to follow, and the president’s job is to mind adherence to those rules. But actual policymaking is delegated to the civil service, which is insulated from elections. The spoils system is good, actually, and I’m persuaded that’s how the constitution was meant to work. People who voted for Trump loved that he put up a slate of people he was going to appoint with concrete visions of how they were going to run the government. That seems democratic to me.
- ilove196884 2y ago
  Sorry but the spoils state is called corruption and is totally bad in all forms. If you want to curtail the so called administrative agency then the parties have to win elections by dicisive margins. Or the president and judiciary can force Congress to pass laws.

relaxing 2y ago

You’ve neglected any discussion of democracy beyond the executive branch.

swat535 2y ago
Can you expand? I keep hearing on HN about how the US is being "taken over", that there is a "coup in place" and Musk is a "fascist" and so on (I'm not making these up, these are genuine HN comments in this thread and elsewhere). I'd like someone to clearly explain to me, an outsider about why such hostility has been ushered in this community ? Please point me to specifics so that I can understand what law(s) are being broken? Why are we seeing blog posts like this "listing names".. like it's September 1, 1939 ? I've been a member of HN for many years and have never seen this level of panic bubbling up, I've been trying to follow it but it's hard to follow a balanced discussion when I see half the comments downvoted and only one sided conversations are happening, which is quite upsetting for me, since one of the reasons I cherish this community, is because of its ability to provide nuanced discussions. So if I may, I'd invite you (and others) to please engage in thoughtful discourse, so that I can genuinely be informed and make my own conclusions on the matter.
- rayiner 2y ago
  I think we’re seeing a lot of culturally rooted assumptions about the nature of government bubbling to the surface. There’s a lot of people who subscribe to progressive managerialism, which was championed by Woodrow Wilson. This is the dominant culture of knowledge workers. What Trump is doing is deeply upsetting to them. They will invoke things like records laws or the Impoundment Act or whatever, but nobody gets this worked up about laws requiring paperwork. They’re upset at the idea that you could just have a president who runs the executive branch however he wants regardless of what the civil service wants. Most Americans, by contrast, are populists, either left-populists or right-populists. The breach of orderly practices doesn’t get them worked up. Look at how AOC frames what’s going on. She doesn’t talk about paperwork violations—her supporters wouldn’t care. She accuses Musk of robbing the Treasury, threatening to stop social security payments, etc. I don’t think those things are true, but it’s the kind of thing that would move her populist supporters to action.