Latest news with #Madisonian
Yahoo
7 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump's War on the ‘Deep State' Will Hurt His Own Agenda
For nearly a decade, U.S. President Donald Trump and his supporters have raged against the 'deep state' and how it has allegedly been weaponized against him and his followers. If one believes the MAGA narrative, a coterie of unelected bureaucrats implacably opposed to Trump's agenda have disregarded their obligations to implement it. Instead, they have engaged in a variety of strategic leaks, excessive lawfare and malign resistance to thwart his America First policies. A month into Trump's first term, for instance, his chief strategist at the time, Steve Bannon, famously declared war on the 'administrative state.' The first Trump administration's attempts to accomplish this proved to be fitful at best. Just a few months into his second term, however, these redoubled efforts have had greater success at eroding the size and influence of the federal bureaucracy. These initiatives include staff layoffs overseen by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE; the planned expansion of Schedule F employees who can be fired at will; and the trauma inflicted on those bureaucrats who have stayed on. In other words, the deep state is getting shallower. The idea that the federal bureaucracy needs reform is hardly unique to Trump and his MAGA supporters. More than a decade ago, my Fletcher School colleague Michael Glennon argued in his book, 'National Security and Double Government,' that the unelected bureaucracy was now exercising unprecedented influence over U.S. foreign policy, superseding the Madisonian institutions that the U.S. Constitution empowered. The bureaucratic politics literature within political science is replete with hypotheses about how institutional imperatives and organizational culture can affect policy implementation. Bureaucrats within the federal government often possess an informational advantage over political appointees, making it easier for them to resist undesired policies. To get more in-depth news and expert analysis on global affairs from WPR, sign up for our free Daily Review newsletter. Furthermore, these bureaucratic issues have bedeviled presidents since long before Trump. After Dwight Eisenhower was elected president, Harry Truman famously said, 'Poor Ike! When he was a general, he gave an order and it was carried out. Now he's going to sit in that big office and he'll give an order and not a damn thing is going to happen.' And at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the U.S. military continued U-2 overflights of the USSR despite heightened tensions, John F. Kennedy bemoaned, 'There is always some [expletive] who doesn't get the word.' The bureaucracy has similarly stymied Trump's foreign policy preferences on occasion. During his first term, Trump often found himself rolled by the Pentagon on questions of withdrawing troops from Afghanistan. In 2020, his outgoing Syria envoy infamously bragged to the press about the 'shell games' he and others played in order to obfuscate how many troops the U.S. had in the country after Trump's decision to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria in 2019. Even in his current term, there is evidence that elements of the national security bureaucracy are still up to their old tricks. When Trump asked for metrics to measure progress in the short-lived U.S. bombing campaign against the Houthis, for instance, U.S. military commanders reportedly responded 'by providing data showing the number of munitions dropped.' Relying on quantitative metrics that are only loosely related to the stated policy goal is Bureaucratic Politics 101. As the Trump administration's efforts to winnow the bureaucracy have made inroads, one might expect to see a more docile bureaucracy that keeps its head down and tries to accomplish its assigned tasks. In actuality, however, the political science literature offers multiple cautionary tales against assuming that life is that simple. The most obvious and direct problem is that the ways in which the Trump administration has attacked the bureaucracy have weakened the state's capacity to perform any essential tasks. One can complain about unnecessary red tape all day long, but Americans like knowing that nuclear weapons will not accidentally explode, airplanes will land safely and extreme weather events will be detected and responded to. Despite its loud denials, however, the Trump administration's myriad staffing cuts at the National Nuclear Security Administration, Federal Aviation Administration and Federal Emergency Management Administration have put all of these essential government functions at risk. And despite the claims of the libertarians in the administration, like Elon Musk, the private sector will not necessarily be able to pick up the slack for the erosion of public goods. Indeed, the provision of public goods often facilitates the functioning of private markets. Unfortunately, that can work in reverse as well. The elimination of positions at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, for example, will make private insurance more difficult to issue. A related problem is tasking bureaucracies with multiple, conflicting goals. That is a surefire way to reduce government efficiency, and yet this is exactly what Musk's DOGE has done time and again during the first half of this year. For example, the Social Security Administration, or SSA, has a longstanding history of efficiency at fulfilling its primary task: accurately and speedily processing payments to retirees and other beneficiaries. Its skill at this task was so good that James Q. Wilson made it one of his exemplary cases in his classic text, 'Bureaucracy.' As has been well-chronicled, however, DOGE's efforts to install anti-fraud measures at SSA proved debilitating to the agency's core mission. The DOGE-led staff reductions have slowed the pace of claims processing. DOGE's changes are causing the SSA's website to crash on a near-daily basis. Wait times on the phone have increased dramatically. All the while, minimal amounts of fraud have been detected, mainly because the claims of Social Security fraud, waste and abuse were wildly inflated among Trump's MAGA base. Perhaps the most pernicious effect has been in the areas where the shallow state is trying to comply with the administration's priorities, as the bureaucracy is often picking the lowest-hanging fruit to reach those goals. This has been on prominent display in the efforts to adhere to Trump's executive orders prohibiting diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, initiatives as well as his crackdown on immigration. On the former, the bureaucracy's efforts to scrub anything DEI-related from official websites has led to absurd overreaches, such as wiping any references to the World War II-era aircraft that dropped the first nuclear bomb on Hiroshima, because its name—the Enola Gay—probably tripped a keyword filter. Trump's defenders have accused the bureaucracy of 'malicious compliance.' But the problem also stems from the lack of clarity in Trump's directives, which can lead to overzealousness from bureaucrats seeking to avoid opening themselves up to charges of dereliction of duty. Even in areas where the administration has not cut staff to the bone, the shallow state is implementing Trump's preferred policies in a shallow manner. Consider the efforts to crack down on illegal immigration and deport undocumented immigrants currently residing in the United States. Trump and his subordinates initially signaled that criminals and gang members would be the priority for these deportations. Over the past four months, however, the shallow state has implemented deportations in ways that expose myriad bureaucratic shortcuts, badly warping the process. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, agents have relied on caricatural metrics, like tattoos and hoodies, to identify gang members, with unsurprising results. The Cato Institute recently concluded that more than 20 percent of the Venezuelans deported to El Salvador in March had entered the U.S. legally and committed no criminal offense. ICE has also scooped up those who have scheduled meetings with immigration officials because, according to political scientist Auston Kocher, they are the easiest people for ICE to collect. Kocher's analysis of ICE data shows that detentions of immigrants with no criminal record have grown three times greater than those of convicted criminals. This has led to the internment of individuals who have endeavored to comply with all the rules. Trump might very well succeed in eviscerating his fantasized deep state. The result will not be a more efficient bureaucracy, however, but a shallow state that is unable to perform its vital functions—including carrying out the directives of the president of the United States. Daniel W. Drezner is distinguished professor of international politics at the Fletcher School at Tufts University. He is the author of Drezner's World. The post Trump's War on the 'Deep State' Will Hurt His Own Agenda appeared first on World Politics Review.
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
JD Vance accuses courts of trying to ‘literally overturn' the will of American voters
The more Donald Trump and his administration push the legal envelope, the more they lose in court. In fact, Adam Bonica, a political science professor at Stanford, found that the president has faced a variety of legal fights this month, and he's lost 96% of the time. Even when Trump's cases have landed before Republican-appointed judges, he's still lost 72% of the time. For assorted partisans, there are competing ways to interpret the White House's many legal setbacks. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt, for example, recently pitched reporters on the idea that an elaborate conspiracy against Trump has made it nearly impossible for the president to succeed in a corrupted justice system. And while that was hysterical nonsense, Trump himself has gone further, accusing judges who dare to rule in ways he doesn't like of being anti-American 'monsters' and 'lunatics' who 'who want our country to go to hell.' JD Vance hasn't used comparable rhetoric, but when the vice president sat down last week with The New York Times' Ross Douthat, he did voice concern about 'a real conflict between two important principles in the United States.' From the transcript of the interview: Principle 1, of course, is that courts interpret the law. Principle 2 is that the American people decide how they're governed. That's the fundamental small-d democratic principle that's at the heart of the American project. I think that you are seeing, and I know this is inflammatory, but I think you are seeing an effort by the courts to quite literally overturn the will of the American people. This argument comes up from time to time, despite its ridiculousness. Indeed, about a month after Trump's second inaugural, Elon Musk appeared on Fox News and argued, 'If the will of the president is not implemented and the president is representative of the people, that means the will of the people is not being implemented, and that means we don't live in a democracy.' The argument reflects a certain child-like logic: Trump won a democratic election, so to deny the president's will is to defy democracy. Of course, if the U.S. were an autocracy; if the rule of law didn't exist; and if the powers of the presidency were indistinguishable from that of a king, then Musk's pitch might make sense. But since that isn't the case, Musk's argument is both absurd and at odds with how our Madisonian political system is designed to work. The trouble, of course, is that Vance's pitch was similar — and similarly wrong. To hear the vice president tell it, not quite 50% of voters backed Trump, which in turn means the president reflects the will of the American electorate, which ultimately means that courts should let Trump do as he pleases because the alternative is to 'quite literally overturn' the voters' will. Vance said this assessment would be seen as 'inflammatory,' but that's the wrong adjective. It's far more accurate to describe it as pseudo-constitutional gibberish. It falls on the judiciary to evaluate legal disputes on their merits. It is not the job of the courts to defer to another branch of government based on election results. In our system, there is no such rule that suggests, 'If people vote for a candidate, the candidate's platform instantly becomes legal.' New York magazine's Ed Kilgore summarized, 'Repeated again and again, the idea that judges should bend the law to suit Trump because he, unlike his predecessors, uniquely embodies the Popular Will (even though an actual majority of voters did not vote for him last year) is pernicious and, worse yet, validates the already-powerful authoritarian tendencies of the president, his advisers, and his fans in conservative media and on MAGA social media.' It's a point worth keeping in mind the next time one of Trump's allies peddles this absurdity. This article was originally published on
Washington Post
21-03-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
Congress needs a Supreme Court jolt to rein in a rampant presidency
A Madisonian moment has arrived. Power vested in the judiciary by the Constitution's Article III might yet prod Congress into exercising its atrophied Article I powers to restrain today's rampant presidency, whose Article II powers can only be checked by the courts, and by a Congress reinvigorated by the courts.
Yahoo
17-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Democratic voters' attitudes on partisan compromise undergo a dramatic shift
While the topline takeaways in the latest NBC News poll related to Donald Trump and his weakening public standing, there were some revelations related to Democratic voters' attitudes that were every bit as interesting, if not more so. From the network's analysis: Back in April 2017, 59% of Democrats said they wanted congressional Democrats to make compromises with Trump to gain consensus on legislation, with 33% saying they should stick to their positions even if that means not being able to get things done in Washington. Now, that sentiment has completely flipped. Almost two-thirds of Democrats, 65%, say they want congressional Democrats to stick to their positions even if that risks sacrificing bipartisan progress, and just 32% want them to make legislative compromises with Trump. The shift from 2017 to 2025 is certainly notable, given the relevant parallels: It compares the beginning of the president's first term with the beginning of his second. But there's also value in looking back even further. I wrote an item for the Washington Monthly about this way back in 2011, noting an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll that reflected striking partisan asymmetry: At the time, in the wake of the 2010 midterm elections, more than two-thirds of Democratic voters (68%) said they expected their party's leaders to make compromises as part of a broader effort to gain consensus. The same data found a majority of Republican voters (56%) arguing that GOP leaders should stick to their guns and avoid compromise, no matter the consequences. A week earlier, a Pew Research Center survey pointed in a nearly identical direction: Most Democratic voters said Democratic officials should focus on compromise, while most Republican voters wanted GOP officials to stand on principle. A Gallup poll taken around the same time found very similar results. The disconnect between the parties was extraordinary, and it endured for quite a while. For over a decade, Democratic voters embraced a compromise-based approach because it appeared unavoidable: In a complex, Madisonian style of government, filled with choke points and pitfalls, give-and-take is baked into the system. It seemed wholly unrealistic to think any one party or faction would get everything it wanted, so rank-and-file Democrats naturally understood that concessions and negotiations would be part of any responsible approach to governing. The Democratic base not only endorsed compromise as part of a mature policymaking model, those same voters also expected it. Most Republican voters fundamentally rejected such a posture, insisting that those who compromised were guilty of weakness and betrayals. Not surprisingly, the parties' elected officials internalized these attitudes. It became the norm for Democratic officials — in the White House and on Capitol Hill — to strive for bipartisan agreements, while GOP officials equated bipartisan dealmaking with defeat. In time, not surprisingly, Democrats noticed that they weren't getting many RSVPs to the compromise parties they threw. Republicans slapped away outstretched hands. Olive branches were treated like poison ivy. GOP officials even abandoned some of their own ideas and priorities the moments Democrats endorsed them. In other words, there's no great mystery as to why, exactly, the Democratic base has shifted so dramatically in its approach to bipartisan negotiation and cooperation. To be sure, it's a multifaceted dynamic. The increasing radicalization of Republican politics necessarily repulses much of the Democratic mainstream, making compromise effectively impossible. Relatedly, given the degree to which the incumbent GOP president appears indifferent to bipartisan governing and reality, it's not too surprising to see so many Democratic voters reject the idea of trying to work with him in good faith in pursuit of common ground. But at the heart of the debate, there's an inescapable realization: Democratic voters were on board with compromises until they grew tired of being alone. Now, according to the data, they're ready for something different — thanks entirely to the conditions that Republicans themselves created. The question for party leaders is whether Democratic policymakers are ready to reassess years' worth of assumptions and adapt to their base's new set of expectations. This article was originally published on
New York Times
11-03-2025
- Business
- New York Times
Democracy Dies in Dumbness
It used to be common knowledge — not just among policymakers and economists but also high school students with a grasp of history — that tariffs are a terrible idea. The phrase 'beggar thy neighbor' meant something to regular people, as did the names of Senator Reed Smoot and Representative Willis Hawley. Americans broadly understood how much their 1930 tariff, along with other protectionist and isolationist measures, did to turn a global economic crisis into another world war. Thirteen successive presidents all but vowed never to repeat those mistakes. Until Donald Trump. Until him, no U.S. president has been so ignorant of the lessons of history. Until him, no U.S. president has been so incompetent in putting his own ideas into practice. That's a conclusion that stock markets seem to have drawn as they plunged following the Trump triple whammy: first, tariff threats against our largest trading partners, spelling much higher costs; second, twice-repeated monthlong reprieves on some of those tariffs, meaning a zero-predictability business environment; finally, his tacit admission, to Maria Bartiromo of Fox News, that the United States could go into recession this year, and that it's a price he's willing to pay to do what he calls a 'big thing.' In short, a willful, erratic and heedless president is prepared to risk both the U.S. and global economy to make his ideological point. This won't end well, especially in a no-guardrails administration staffed by a how-high team of enablers and toadies. What else isn't going to end well, at least for the administration? Let's make a list. The Department of Government Efficiency won't end well. It is neither a department nor efficient — and 'government efficiency' is, by Madisonian design, an oxymoron. A gutted I.R.S. work force won't lower your taxes: It will delay your refund. Mass firings of thousands of federal employees won't result in a more productive work force. It will mean a decade of litigation and billions of dollars in legal fees. High-profile eliminations of wasteful spending (some real, others not) won't make a dent in federal spending. They'll mask the untouchable drivers of our $36 trillion debt: Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and defense. The threats to our allies won't end well. It might seem sophomorically funny, sort of, to troll Justin Trudeau, just once, as 'governor' of 'the great state of Canada.' It's grotesque, horrifying and idiotic to contrive phony pretexts to embark on a relentless trade war against our friendliest neighbor — not least because it has suddenly boosted the political fortunes of Trudeau's successor, Mark Carney, at the expense of the Conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
