Donald Trump, The Transformational President

The New York Times admits that Trump is going further than Buckley, Reagan, Goldwater, and Taft "might have imagined possible"

Today the New York Times published a "news analysis" titled "From Science to Diversity, Trump Hits the Reverse Button on Decades of Change." For those who do not read the Times--and I don't blame you--a "news analysis" is where a reporter writes an op-ed. It is not entirely objective, but instead allows a card-carrying journalist to tell us what he really thinks. Yet, if you read between the lines, you can actually see some admiration: Trump is doing what was once thought impossible. Consider this excerpt:

Mr. Trump's shift into reverse gear reflects the broader sentiments of many Americans eager for a change in course. The United States has cycled from progressive to conservative eras throughout its history. The liberal period ushered in by Franklin D. Roosevelt eventually led to a swing back to the right under Ronald Reagan, which led to a move toward the center under Bill Clinton.

But Mr. Trump has supercharged the current swing. The influential writer William F. Buckley Jr. once defined a conservative as someone standing athwart history and yelling, "Stop!" Mr. Trump seems to be standing athwart history yelling, "Go back!"

He has gone further than noted conservatives like Mr. Buckley, Mr. Reagan, Barry Goldwater or Robert Taft might have imagined possible. While they despised many of the New Deal and Great Society programs that liberal presidents introduced over the years, and sought to limit them, they recognized the futility of unraveling them altogether.

"They were living in an era dominated by liberals," said Sam Tanenhaus, author of "Buckley," a biography published last month. "The best they could hope for was to arrest, 'stop,' liberal progress. But what they dreamed of was a counterrevolution that would restore the country to an early time — the Gilded Age of the late 19th and early 20th centuries."

"Trump," he added, "has outdone them all, because he understands liberalism is in retreat. He has pushed beyond Buckley's 'stop,' and instead promises a full-throttle reversal."

Indeed, although Mr. Reagan vowed during his 1980 campaign to abolish the Department of Education, which had been created the year before over the objections of conservatives who considered it an intrusion on local control over schools, he never really tried to follow through as president, because Democrats controlled the House. The issue largely faded until Mr. Trump this year resurrected it and, unlike Mr. Reagan, simply ignored Congress to unilaterally order the department shuttered.

One of Trump's greatest strengths is his ability to not care what elites think. Usually, when the elites calls a conservative a racist or sexist or homophobe or something else, he wilts. When they accuse a conservative of trying to hurt poor people or roll back progress, he caves. When they charge a conservative with standing on the wrong side of the arc of history, he switches sides. Not Trump. He can almost single-handedly shift the Overton window on what topics are open for discussion. And Trump inspires other conservatives to likewise discount what elites think. That mantra has spread.

Things that have been accomplished would have been unfathomable a decade ago. Let's just rattle off a few high points. Roe v. Wade is gone. Humphrey's Executor is on life support. Even after Obergefell and Bostock, we got Skrmetti. Despite all the outrage, illegal immigration at the southern border has basically trickled to a halt.  Blind deference to "experts" has been irreparably altered by the distrust occasioned by COVID and transgender medicine for children. The federal bureaucracy is being dismantled. Nationwide injunctions are no more. And so on.

A common refrain is that Trump is ignoring the Constitution. During the New Deal and the Great Society, FDR and LBJ did great violence to the Constitution and the separation of powers. They got away with it because they were trying to do the "right" thing. Yet critics expect Trump to behave nicely, and be a good conservative like George W. Bush or Mitt Romney. That's not what we have. And in Trump's defense, some (but not all) of his actions are seeking to restore the original meaning of the Constitution, whereas the same could not be said for FDR and LBJ.

Speaking of book projects, I am in the early stages of a three-volume set on the Trump presidency and the Constitution. I actually wrote most of the first installment by the end of 2020, but put it on hold after January 6. I had no idea what the future would bring, so I stood down. I think the first installment would track from the moment Trump came down the golden escalator to election day in 2020. The second installment would start with the 2020 election, cover January 6, and chronicle the three years of Lawfare (Jack Smith, Section 3, and everything else). The third installment would begin on inauguration day 2025, through… Well, I'm not really sure where this all ends. But it is clear enough to me that Trump has transformed the nation in ways that likely cannot just be forgotten come 2029.

Comments

[Supremacy Claus]

I was bored with Trump and wanted to move on to younger people. Then the scumbag lawyer profession opened their campaign of lawfare against a political opponent. I was forced to go full MAGA. The lawyer profession got Trump elected, the dumbasses.

He has turned out to be the greatest President ever, greater than Washington, the founder of America. Washington refused to be named king and went home after 2 terms, starting America. Trump's achievements in 6 months have exceeded that of any President in any 4-year term. Thank you, lawyer dumbasses.

All the lawyer dumbasses should be arrested for honest services fraud and for being corrupt officials. That includes all the judges. They took tax money as salaries. They used their offices for partisan political attack. All have been reported to their oversight agencies. These agencies have refused to enforce their own Codes of Conduct. The oversight agency officials should also be arrested. All legal costs should come from their personal assets, not from the taxpayer. In lawfare, the masking charge is a perjured sworn statement to prevent the election of an opponent. Prison terms should be for criminal perjury to run consecutively with the honest services fraud beef. Put them all in gen pop.

As to the charges against Trump, all are pretextual. Lend me your laptop for an hour. I can get you decades in fed stir, and $millions in fines, down to all toddlers. There are millions of garbage rules and laws that everyone violates several times a day. Arrest the lawyers and judges. No one is above the law. To deter.

[bobsnort]

> Then the scumbag lawyer profession opened their campaign of lawfare against a political opponent

Is that what you call it when someone breaks the law?

Quick question for you: did Trump comply with the lawful subpoena to return government property stored at Mar-a-Lago? Yes or no?

[Incunabulum]

Was the subpoena lawful?

Did Trump not have the right to challenge it?

Did the FBI not rush in before the courts had actually ruled on anything?

Federal district courts have made a lot of rulings this year that then got overturned on appeal because the ruling was judged incorrect (ie, the Trump administration actually had the legal authority) or - often - outside the judges authority.

[bobsnort]

> Was the subpoena lawful?

Yes, it was lawful. I have never seen any persuasive claim to the contrary. If Trump felt it wasn't lawful, he had the right to challenge it court. He did not have the right to ignore or to respond to it fraudulently.

> Did Trump not have the right to challenge it?

He did have the right to challenge it in court. He decided not to do that.

> Did the FBI not rush in before the courts had actually ruled on anything?

They did not rush. Trump had many opportunities to comply with the subpoena or to challenge, and he didn't do that. When a subpoena for stolen government material is ignored, you can expect that the government will enforce the subpoena. He was surprised by this response only because he thinks the law does not apply to him.

[Roger S]

Trump did ultimately prevail in court. He did nothing wrong. He did not steal any documents. He merely retained some copies, as was his right.

[bobsnort]

> Trump did ultimately prevail in court.

Trump did not "prevail" in the matter of the theft of the government documents: he simply ordered the DOJ to drop the case when he was re-elected. That is not an effective administration of justice.

In other matters, such as the matter of his business records, he was convicted.

> He did nothing wrong. He did not steal any documents. He merely retained some copies, as was his right.

They weren't copies, they were the originals. Keeping them was not his right, as they belong to the United States, not to Donald Trump. And he flagrantly disobeyed a judge's subpoena to return them, which is punishable in its own right.

And we haven't even talked about the conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election.

[Kazinski]

Oh no, that's not what happened, the case was already dead before the election.

The case was dismissed because the special prosecutor bringing the case was unlawfully appointed, and not confirmed by Congress.

Now to be sure it wasn't dead as a doornail dead, the 11th circuit might have revived it, and the Supreme Court may or may not have allowed that.

But he certainly never ordered the DOJ to just drop the case, it was actually Jack Smith that requested Trump be dropped from the case, from ABC:

"Trump's federal prosecution ends as appeals court drops him from classified documents case
The special counsel is still pursuing the case against Trump's co-defendants.

By Peter Charalambous and Katherine Faulders
November 26, 2024, 2:26 PM
One day after special counsel Jack Smith moved to dismiss both his cases against President-elect Donald Trump, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit complied by dropping Trump from Smith's appeal of his classified documents case, ending Trump's prosecution on federal charges.

"Appellant's motion to dismiss the appeal as to Donald J. Trump only is GRANTED," the Eleventh Circuit's clerk wrote in a one-sentence order Tuesday."

If you want to blame outside intervention, blame the voters.

[Sarcastr0]

You cannot plausibly argue that was dismissed because Smith thought Judge Cannon's take on the law was going to prevail.

If that were the case, the appeal would have been dismissed as to everyone and much earlier.

We all know why Trump was dropped; don't be disingenuous.

[Kazinski]

I repeat myself:

"If you want to blame outside intervention, blame the voters."

[Sarcastr0]

Which is not how 'prevail in court' works.

You're bringing things into a legal discussion that don't belong. up the chain the question was: "Was the subpoena lawful?' Responding with 'well the voters...' is a level of misunderstanding I have a hard time processing.

Then you jump onto the opposite side of the discussion, somehow. The voters did it, but not the guy they voted for!
'Trump didn't drop the case' is a ridiculous statement to make. you're pissing on your own leg and telling everyone it's raining.

[Commenter_XY]

Sarcastr0 has a problem with voting.

[bobsnort]

> The case was dismissed because the special prosecutor bringing the case was unlawfully appointed, and not confirmed by Congress.

That was the finding of one Aileen Canon, who is famously in the bag for Trump. That ruling was also in contravention of decades of solid case law and would have been overturned on appeal. No serious legal observer took her ruling seriously, and she has a history of making ridiculous pro-Trump rulings that get overturned on appeal.

Let's put it this way: if you're so sure that the case was dead, then why was Trump so adamant about immediately dropping the case and firing everyone involved in it? Why not let it play out in court?

> If you want to blame outside intervention, blame the voters.

No, I'll blame Trump and his AG. The cases should not have been dismissed. Trump bears responsibility for placing himself above the law. The voters are the victims, not the perpetrators, of this miscarriage.

[Kazinski]

Like I said, Trump was not the one who dropped the case, it was Jack Smith, 3 months before Trump came back into office, Merrick Garland was the AG, who declaimed any authority over Smiths decisions.

Do you think Trump should have opposed the motion?

Once the voters spoke, it was inevitable.

If you are upset, go out an howl at the waning moon, I'm sure your neighbors will understand.

[bobsnort]

> Like I said, Trump was not the one who dropped the case, it was Jack Smith, 3 months before Trump came back into office, Merrick Garland was the AG, who declaimed any authority over Smiths decisions.

You are arguing disingenuously. Jack Smith did not drop the case because in the interest of justice or because he thought he couldn't win: he was complying with DOJ policy. Here's a direct quote from Smith:

“The (Justice) Department’s position is that the Constitution requires that this case be dismissed before the defendant is inaugurated. This outcome is not based on the merits or strength of the case against the defendant.”

Had Trump not won the election, the case would not have been dropped, and Trump likely would be in jail.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/25/politics/trump-special-counsel-jack-smith

I really have no patience for your dissimulation. Argue honestly. No one cares how many "internet points" you collect.

[Kazinski]

Well now you seem to understand:

"Had Trump not won the election, the case would not have been dropped, and Trump likely would be in jail."

That at least comports better with reality, but Smith waa still a long way from that result, in Florida at least, in DC he may had a surer thing with a judge and jury completely sympathetic to his case.

[David Nieporent]

It was not 3 months before anything. It was of course after the election. To be fair, however, Smith did it not because of Trump, but because of the longstanding OLC opinion — binding on DOJ — that a sitting president could not be prosecuted.

[Dr. Ed 2]

I note Cannon wasnt appealed.

[David Nieporent]

As is true roughly 120% of the time, you're wrong.

[Bruce Hayden]

Doesn’t matter whether or not it was appealed. It was never heard and decidedby the appeals court, so Judge Cannon’s ruling remains in effect - that Smith was illegally appointed, so anything done by the “Special Prosecutor” was ultra vires.

[David Nieporent]

I don't know what "remains in effect" means here. It's a district court opinion; it has no precedential effect outside of the now-dismissed case. On 1/21/29, President AOC can re-appoint Jack Smith as special prosecutor, and Smith can bring a new indictment in SDFL, and Cannon's ruling would have no legal effect.

[Roger S]

No, Trump was not even charged with taking any original documents.

And his NY business records case was dismissed before sentencing, so no, he was not convicted.

[bobsnort]

> No, Trump was not even charged with taking any original documents.

Technically, the charge was violations of the Espionage Act, as well as making false statements and engaging in a conspiracy to obstruct justice. Which is worse than just taking documents.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_prosecution_of_Donald_Trump_(classified_documents_case)

> And his NY business records case was dismissed before sentencing, so no, he was not convicted.

Uh, no. Stop lying, please. https://apnews.com/article/trump-trial-deliberations-jury-testimony-verdict-85558c6d08efb434d05b694364470aa0

[Roger S]

I guess you are admitting that you were wrong about the charges. And that AP story was before the sentencing that might have formalized a conviction.

[bobsnort]

> I guess you are admitting that you were wrong about the charges.

I have no idea how you could possibly reach that conclusion. The Espionage Act charges stem from Trump having stolen documents.

> And that AP story was before the sentencing that might have formalized a conviction.

There was no sentencing because charges were dropped because Trump was elected president.

Are you really that confused by the sequence of events here? Do you need the matter presented to you in a book with very short words in very short sentences?

[Bruce Hayden]

No. Espionage Act claims were based on his mere possession, not theft, of the documents. Of course, the court never got to his defense that he had effectively declassified them, still had a Q Clearance at the time of the MAL raid, or that, breaking precedents, the Biden WH revoked the equivalent of a security clearance given to ALL previous Presidents. The alleged “theft” of documents was the (illegal) request by NAR under the PRA to return the documents. Trump, of course, stole nothing. He just ordered GSA to move the boxes from the WH to MAL.

[Roger S]

As Hayden says, Trump was not charged with stealing the documents. and the NY charges were not dropped. The sentencing judge discharged the case, and there was no conviction.

[David Nieporent]

No. Espionage Act claims were based on his mere possession, not theft, of the documents. Of course, the court never got to his defense that he had effectively declassified them,

Declassification — which would have required him to testify, since there was no documentation of such, and of course there's no chance he would testify — is not a defense to any of the charges in the indictment. Nor is him having a clearance (which he did not, in fact, ever have, because presidents don't get/need clearance).

[David Nieporent]

And his NY business records case was dismissed before sentencing, so no, he was not convicted.

That is a lie. It was not dismissed at any point in time, and he was in fact sentenced.

[NvEric]

"And we haven't even talked about the conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election."

What, where Biden admitted to stealing the election through fraud ?

[Sarcastr0]

Meh, I've seen better 2020 truthers.

[David Nieporent]

They weren't copies, they were the originals. Keeping them was not his right, as they belong to the United States, not to Donald Trump.

Just to be clear, this is a red herring, because he was only being prosecuted for retaining national defense information, not the other items. Whether they were originals or copies is thus irrelevant. "No, no, I only mishandled copies of classified material" isn't a defense to violating the Espionage Act.

[Brett Bellmore]

The key point is that he wasn't doing anything previous Presidents and members of Congress hadn't done. Pence had documents he shouldn't have had. Biden had documents he shouldn't have had, and shared them with his biographer. If you locked up everybody in Washington who was similarly guilty you'd shut the joint down!

I'll say this right out: It was remarkably stupid of Trump to think that they'd let him get away with the same violations that everybody else got away with. By the time he left office in his first term he should have already known that the knives were out for him, and that he wasn't going to get the usual 'important person' waiver when it came to enforcing laws everybody around him routinely violated.

So it really was on him, even if it was selective enforcement.

[Sarcastr0]

But as you've been told countless times, he was doing things very differently.

He lied; he had others lie. And he moved the documents to try and hide them.

You're very committed to the idea that Trump is normal. It makes you forget things.

[Brett Bellmore]

Biden moved his documents around, too. Lied about having them. It's just you'll excuse him as having made mistakes, rather than admitting he was lying about it.

We have laws concerning classified documents for a reason. Well, often things get classified for bad or stupid reasons, but the system as a whole has a good reason for existing.

But we also have a long, long practice of letting 'important' people, and even their minions, get away with grossly violating those laws. Like Sandy Berger getting a slap on the wrist for deliberately stealing Clinton era documents from the National archives, and destroying them. If you or I did that, we'd be looking at hard time. He gets a slap on the wrist, because everybody knew he was doing it for an ex-President.

So, yes, Trump broke the law. He broke a law he and everybody else knew wasn't being enforced against people in his position. That's still breaking a law, of course, but I guess a little different, unless maybe you're keen on locking up Biden for his last few years, throwing Pence in the slammer, and searching the homes and offices of every retired member of Congress, and prosecuting most of them.

You don't seem to be getting that I'm agreeing that Trump broke the law, and criticizing him for being so stupid as to think that he in particular would be allowed to get away with it, just because everybody around him was, and had been for decades.

But that's not good enough for you, that I admit Trump was guilty. I have to pretend that he was uniquely guilty, that this wasn't a law people by the score were routinely violating, and Trump just got singled out for enforcement.

[David Nieporent]

Note that his evidence that Trump was selectively prosecuted is that Sandy Berger got what Brett considers a light sentence after he was prosecuted.

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, in the end, Berger was just a minion for somebody else who was important. So he got a slap on the wrist instead of being left alone entirely.

Just reducing it to the misdemeanor, when the actual conduct could have been charged as a felony, demonstrates that.

[David Nieporent]

Well, in the end, Berger was just a minion for somebody else who was important.

And… we're back to the nutty conspiracy theories.

[Sarcastr0]

Your comparison cuts the opposite way you want, Brett. Berger's behavior was not normal; hence the prosecution and all the headlines.

So you invent a conspiracy and claim some phantom puppetmaster did stuff like what Trump did and it was normal and they totally got away with it.

An insane choice. But pretty on par for you.

[Commenter_XY]

It was selective enforcement.

[David Nieporent]

The key point is that he wasn't doing anything previous Presidents and members of Congress hadn't done.

Yes, he was.

Pence had documents he shouldn't have had.

Did he refuse to return them when asked? Did he actually lie about it, and cause others to lie about it, and hide them, to avoid being discovered?

Biden had documents he shouldn't have had, and shared them with his biographer.

Did he refuse to return them when asked? Did he actually lie about it, and cause others to lie about it, and hide them, to avoid being discovered?

[Bruce Hayden]

David - the request to return the documents was most likely illegal. NAR had neither the power nor the authority to demand them back, nor to make a criminal referral to the FBI, under the PRA. And, as it turned out, so was the subpoena, but mostly because Smith’s appointment was illegal.

[David Nieporent]

the request to return the documents was most likely illegal.

It was not. What law do you think criminalizes asking for documents?

NAR had neither the power nor the authority to demand them back, nor to make a criminal referral to the FBI, under the PRA.

Nobody needs power or authority to make a criminal referral. The Archivist could do that; the janitor at the visitor's center at Yosemite National Park could do it; Taylor Swift could do it; you could do it; I could do it. A "criminal referral" is just a fake legalese term for asking a prosecutor to investigate/prosecute, which anyone can do.

And, as it turned out, so was the subpoena, but mostly because Smith’s appointment was illegal.

It was not, and that would not affect the validity of a grand jury subpoena anyway.

[David Nieporent]

Was the subpoena lawful?

Yes.

Did Trump not have the right to challenge it?

One can always go to court to ask that a subpoena be quashed. Trump did not, however, do that. He just created a false affidavit saying that he had complied with it.

Did the FBI not rush in before the courts had actually ruled on anything?

No. This has been yet another episode of Simple Answers to Stupid Questions. The FBI waited a very long time, the opposite of "rushing in," and did so pursuant to a search warrant, not a subpoena.

[Bruce Hayden]

No, the search warrant wasn’t legal either, because it was issued by the illegally appointed Smith and his staff. It became illegal the minute that Judge Cannon ruled Smith’s appointment was illegal. That’s the law of the case. An appeal might have reversed that - but never did. Everything that Smith and his team had done was, thus, ultra vires, in regards to the FL case.

[David Nieporent]

No, the search warrant wasn’t legal either, because it was issued by the illegally appointed Smith and his staff.

You're really bad at lawyering. Really really really bad. Search warrants, including this one, are issued by judges, not prosecutors. The search warrant is public; you can see the judge's signature at the bottom if you check.

[Supremacy Claus]

Hi, Bob. You are a nitpicker. You are dirty. Nitpicking by the scumbag lawyer or scumbag judge should be punished like criminal perjury, with prison sentences, heavy fines, and all costs to personal assets.

The question is, would this legal procedure have taken place if Trump were not running for office? If not, the procedure is perjury in the sworn statement to the court.

The judge's statements are also sworn. One judge valued Mar a Lago at $18 million. A small empty lot nearby was valued at $250 million. This judge needed to be evaluated for mental illness, not just perjury.

[David Nieporent]

Showing that legal acumen that got you that unaccredited mail order law degree!

If not, the procedure is perjury in the sworn statement to the court.

Procedures can't be perjury, and also, what sworn statement to the court? And also, "Wouldn't have happened if something else were true" isn't perjury.

The judge's statements are also sworn.

They are not.

One judge valued Mar a Lago at $18 million.

He did not.

[The Folding Attorney]

"Nitpicking" is precisely what lawyers and judges do for a living. Why? Because, for one thing, we have something called Law, and it is often not as well-written as we might wish.

Go ahead and hire a non-nitpicking lawyer. You'll end up like the My Pillow guy.

[Bruce Hayden]

Go ahead and hire DN, who nit picks that the valuation of MAL by the NY judge wasn’t exactly $18 million, ignoring that that judge’s insanely low valuation was part of how that judge’s verdict against Trump.

[David Nieporent]

My point had nothing to do with whether it was $18 million or $18.2 million. My point was that the judge didn't set a value on the house. If you were an actual litigator, you'd understand how summary judgment works: judges don't make factual findings for summary judgment. The state submitted admissible evidence as the property's approximate value. Trump submitted no admissible evidence as to its value. Therefore, Judge Engoron ruled that there was no disputed issue of material fact. As judges do in that procedural situation.

[LoganMankins]

Yeah, I can tell you dropped out of high school

[David Nieporent]

Speaking of book projects, I am in the early stages of a three-volume set on the Trump presidency and the Constitution.

Will they come with the crayons, or will people have to purchase those separately?

One of Trump's greatest strengths is his ability to not care what

the law is.

[santamonica811]

It's funny, because when I read Josh's post, my mind immediately went to (a) pop-up books, and (b) scratch-n-sniff books.

[To be honest; your crayons comment was more clever and more trenchant than either of my initial reactions.]

[Dr. Ed 2]

David, you color with your crayons. Stop trying to smoke them!

[Supremacy Claus]

Hi, David. Try to be funny. You sound stupid and frustrated.

[Commenter_XY]

He is very frustrated.

[Randal]

Despite all the outrage, illegal immigration at the southern border has basically trickled to a halt.

Nobody is outraged about stopping illegal immigration. In fact it was Biden's (probably illegal) executive order that got the ball rolling!

You seem to have forgotten that Republicans consistently thwarted Biden's efforts at border control because they wanted to preserve the issue.

[Incunabulum]

Biden's EO that didn't actually stop the several 10's of thousands of illegal crossings every month all the way to the end of his administration somehow brought it all to a screeching halt at the end of January?

Also, Democrats have been and are outraged at stopping illegal immigration. Their standard rallying cry for several years now is that we need a permanent underclass that can be exploited for their labor in order to maintain the average American's living standard. Oh, and also that those illegal immigrants get some extra numbers on the census to help get a few more Democrat seats in the House.

[Randal]

Their standard rallying cry for several years now is that we need a permanent underclass...

What are you talking about? The only one pushing a permanent underclass is Trump. That's what you end up with if you don't have birthright citizenship. Generation after generation of non-citizens. I don't think you lot can imagine it since it's so un-American. You seem to think they'll just somehow disappear.

Anyway, a permanent underclass is exactly what the 14th Amendment was designed to prevent. Get on board already! You're over 150 years behind the times.

[Roger S]

No, Pres. Trump is the one trying to send those people home. The Democrats have imported an underclass.

[bobsnort]

> No, Pres. Trump is the one trying to send those people home.

Or really, to any non-home country, such as Libya, El Salvador, or South Sudan. I'm sure they'd much rather be tortured to death in a foreign country than remain an "underclass."

[Bruce Hayden]

Well, the illegals could always self-deport.

[Randal]

There's no other "home" for kids who were born here dum dum.

Otherwise, instead of the 14th Amendment, we've just sent all the slaves "home" to Africa.

[Supremacy Claus]

The Democrats imported 30 million cheater voters to make the nation a permanent one-party state, and to shithole our nation like Cuba, Venezuela and Cali. These are unlivable and governed by the shithole people. These were invited in without due process. Now they want 30 million trials and appeals to deport them and to deshithole the nation. These shithole people will spawn 5 shithole children per shithole family, spreading shitholing in a viral manner.

[David Nieporent]

Note how the same people who supported the importation of slaves use the term "imported" for voluntary migration.

[Bruce Hayden]

You mean your Democrats? This may be nitpicking, but you apparently think that is essential for attorneys, which you claim to be. But the Republican Party was formed to abolish slavery. Your Democrats, upon election of the first Republican President, promptly tried to secede from the Union to protect their ownership of slaves. Losing there, and after the Republicans did, indeed, abolish slavery, Democrats spent the next century intimidating and lynching their former slaves and their descendants, with their KKK and Jim Crow laws. This was finally ended with the Republicans, plus some Northern Democrats, enacting the Civil Rights Acts in the 1960s.

Is this what you were talking about?

[David Nieporent]

You mean your Democrats?

No; I meant Roger S.

And I don't know what "your Democrats" means. I have not voted for a Democrat since roughly 1996. (I was a registered Democrat until 2016, when I switched so I could vote against Trump in the GOP primary, but that was just via inertia. Wasn't much reason to switch party registration before that, so I didn't bother.)

[The Folding Attorney]

Pres. Trump is the one trying to send those people home.

Except for the underclass that works in restaurants and hotels. The rest he'll send wherever he can.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Nobody is outraged about stopping illegal immigration. In fact it was Biden's (probably illegal) executive order that got the ball rolling!

You seem to have forgotten that Republicans consistently thwarted Biden's efforts at border control because they wanted to preserve the issue."

So, the big lie technique, eh?

[bernard11]

Brett, it's true.

And here you are doing it again - the very thing you claim to despise - attributing bad motives to someone disagreeing with you.

Randal clearly believes, as do I, that the GOP killed a popular bipartisan immigration reform bill at Trump's behest because he wanted to retain immigration as a campaign issue. (It happens to be true, BTW, but that's irrelevant to my point.)

Instead of accepting that at face value you immediately accuse him of lying, and not just lying but deliberately propagating a Big Lie to advance Democratic causes.

It's scummy, and you know it.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Reagan said that bipartisan bill was the biggest mistake he made.

[David Nieporent]

As anyone familiar with Dr. Ed could probably guess, this is just a fabrication.

[Dr. Ed 2]

This is libel.

[David Nieporent]

It can't be libel because it's true: (1) your statement is a fabrication; and (2) anyone familiar with you could have guessed that.

[bernard11]

Reagan had been dead for about 20 years at the time the bill was under consideration.

[Roger S]

No, no one believes that the GOP killed a popular bipartisan immigration reform bill. They killed a Democrat bill that would have let in 5000 illegals a day.

[Randal]

A lot of us believe that Trump killed a popular bipartisan immigration reform bill, because we saw it happen.

Are you suggesting we not believe our lying eyes?

[Roger S]

Yes, you are lying. The bill was not popular, it was not bipartisan, and Trump did not kill it.

[bobsnort]

I'll just leave this here: https://apnews.com/article/congress-ukraine-aid-border-security-386dcc54b29a5491f8bd87b727a284f8

[Roger S]

You said the bill was "popular bipartisan", but the AP story says that only four Republican senators supported it. The bill was extremely unpopular.

[bobsnort]

> You said the bill
I said no such thing. I know that you are easily confused by people and things, so sorry if this is hard for you to grasp. I bet you confuse your family members with strangers a lot.
> "popular bipartisan"
The word "popular" comes from Latin popularis, meaning "belonging to the people." In English, it means well-liked by many people. That's true in this case: a majority of voters supported the bill.
I should also point out that many more Republican Senators supported it before Trump decided to kill it.

[Roger S]

So then you agree that Randal was lying about the bill. The bill would have let in 5000 illegal migrants a day, any very few Republicans were likely to support it, no matter what Trump said.

[Brett Bellmore]

Many more Republican Senators supported it before the details leaked and supporting it became politically suicidal.

We've seen this stupid ploy multiple times; McCain, and Bob Dole before him, used to specialize in it. Today that would be idiots like Lindsey Graham.

A few Republicans with outlier views on some topic like immigration or gun control, or SOME hot button issue, get together with the Democrats to negotiate in secret a grand 'compromise' bill. Everything looks good at first, because so many Republican Senators WANT to compromise on the issues their constituents care about.

Then the negotiations end, and the details inevitably leak before they can hold a rush vote on it, and the bill dies an ignominious death as soon as the public knows what's in it. Because what's in it is so politically toxic that the only hope it had of passage was to be voted on before the details could be leaked.

Maybe you should just stop pretending that bills secretly negotiated between a few Republicans and the Democrats are in any meaningful way "bipartisan". You'd never call a bill "bipartisan" if it had most Republicans and a couple Democrats supporting it.

[David Nieporent]

So then you agree that Randal was lying about the bill. The bill would have let in 5000 illegal migrants a day,

The bill would not have let in a single illegal immigrant.

[David Nieporent]

A few Republicans with outlier views on some topic like immigration or gun control, or SOME hot button issue, get together with the Democrats to negotiate in secret a grand 'compromise' bill. Everything looks good at first, because so many Republican Senators WANT to compromise on the issues their constituents care about.

I mean, this is Brett's usual fake narrative, but the last sentence is also telling: he insinuates that legislative compromise is inherently illegitimate.

[Brett Bellmore]

" he insinuates that legislative compromise is inherently illegitimate."

Compromises aren't necessarily illegitimate. Compromises that can only pass if they get voted on before the public knows what is in them? Yeah, THOSE are inherently illegitimate.

I repeat, we've seen this before, multiple times, it's gotten old by now. Nobody is really falling for it at this point, the moment we hear that a few Republicans are negotiating with Democrats we know what is coming.

[John Rohan]

The bill would not have let in a single illegal immigrant.

Semantics.

No one allowed in under the bill would be entering under tourist visas or under any immigration process. Instead, they are all making (bogus) claims of asylum. Asylum law was never intended to be part of the immigration process but that's what it's effectively been subverted into.

And btw, they are still illegal because it's illegal to lie about your reasons for asylum. However no penalties are enforced for doing so, so there is no downside for migrants to try their luck. This creates a massive pull incentive, which to people like you is a feature, not a bug.

[Randal]

Many more Republican Senators supported it before the details leaked and supporting it became politically suicidal.

Like DN said, nice (fake) narrative.

Bills are public, they don't "leak." And we all saw what turned those Senators -- and MAGA (which is clearly what you mean by "the public" since everyone else still liked it) -- against the bill. Trump.

And he said why. Not policy. Politics.

[David Nieporent]

No one allowed in under the bill would be entering under tourist visas or under any immigration process. Instead, they are all making (bogus) claims of asylum. Asylum law was never intended to be part of the immigration process but that's what it's effectively been subverted into.

Trying to unpack the flailing around here, your complaint is apparently that the bill wouldn't have stopped asylum seekers from seeking asylum. Okay, but that has nothing to do with illegal immigration, which is what the bill was about. And "wouldn't have prevented" != "allowed in." The bill would not have made a single person's presence in the country legal that wasn't before the bill.

[John Rohan]

your complaint is apparently that the bill wouldn't have stopped asylum seekers from seeking asylum. Okay, but that has nothing to do with illegal immigration, which is what the bill was about. And "wouldn't have prevented" != "allowed in." The bill would not have made a single person's presence in the country legal that wasn't before the bill.

Again, it's still illegal immigration if they are lying about their reasons for asylum.

Anyway, so you are admitting that the bill would not have been effective in stopping the flow of migrants and so would have done little to relieve the burdens of cities that could not handle the massive number of migrants coming in. Glad we agree on something.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Four RINO senators.

[Roger S]

Yes, and a bill does not become a popular bipartisan bill just because four rino senators support it. The terms of the bill were broadly opposed before Trump said anything about it.

[Supremacy Claus]

That act fast tracked the shithole people to citizenship and to voting Democrat all over the country to shithole our nation.

[Armchair]

"Brett, it's true."

Bernard...it's not.

Here's a fun chart from Axios. The truth. The "law" really hasn't changed over those years from 2020 to 2025. It's simply the choices made about enforcement and interpretation of the law that have changed.

https://www.axios.com/2025/03/04/illegal-border-crossings-february-decline-trump

[Randal]

That and situational factors like economies, pandemics, and rhetoric.

Biden finally stopped the bleeding with his (again probably illegal) EO like bernard and I have been saying.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Biden finally stopped the bleeding with his (again probably illegal) EO like bernard and I have been saying."

Which magically only started working when Trump took office?

[Randal]

No, you can see from the numbers that illegal immigration was at a four-year low (and probably more if you look back further) when Biden left office and trending lower.

[Brett Bellmore]

It's really hard to attribute good motives to a lie that big.

"Randal clearly believes, as do I, that the GOP killed a popular bipartisan immigration reform bill at Trump's behest because he wanted to retain immigration as a campaign issue."

Ok, that's a stupid belief, and inaccurate, but I was actually talking about this: "In fact it was Biden's (probably illegal) executive order that got the ball rolling!"

[bernard11]

that's a stupid belief, and inaccurate,

It's exactly what happened. You don't want to believe it, so you make up one of your fanciful tales.

[John Rohan]

The big lie in this case is that the Biden border bill would have done anything to control the border. It would still let in up to 5000 migrants per day, or 1.8 million per year. That's almost double the number of legal immigrants each year. And even that limit was waiverable at the discretion of the president!

It was also introduced very late in his presidency and only because Biden was worried because the immigration issue was killing his chances of winning the upcoming election.

On top of all that, groups like the ACLU said they would file lawsuits if it passed. Many prominent Democrats opposed it as well.

[Randal]

It would still let in up to 5000 migrants per day, or 1.8 million per year.

This, of course, is a lie. Biden had shut the southern border down completely by the end of his term using an EO patterned after the failed bill.

[John Rohan]

Math doesn't lie. 4999 x 365 = 1,824,635. And again, the president could waive even that limit.

But I'm glad you are admitting that Biden could have gotten control of the border at any time without that legislation. He chose not to (until the issue was sinking his chances for reelection)

[Randal]

It was an illegal EO. I find that at least mildly irritating. You guys of course seem fine with illegal presidential actions.

Also, 0 × 365 = 0, is the math you're looking for.

[John Rohan]

Here is the actual text from the bill. The number is not 0.

“(B) MANDATORY ACTIVATION.—The Secretary shall activate the border emergency authority if—

“(i) during a period of 7 consecutive calendar days, there is an average of 5,000 or more aliens who are encountered each day; or

“(ii) on any 1 calendar day, a combined total of 8,500 or more aliens are encountered.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/4361/text

[Randal]

And when it's activated, which it would've been, the number of asylum requests drops to zero.

[John Rohan]

Not when the number is 4999, which is the number I used above.

But let's be generous and say the number is only 4000 a day. That would still be 1.46 million per year, still higher than all the legal immigration to this country combined - and we are the most generous country in terms of legal immigration.

[Bruce Hayden]

The big “bipartisan” immigration bill would have, essentially legalized the level of illegal immigration that we saw throughout the Biden Administration. It was never supported by very many Republicans, but rather some squishes in the Senate who were willing to go along to get along. Just enough to call it “bipartisan”. Instead, with that open borders immigration bill going nowhere, the Republicans got what they wanted, after the 2024 elections - an end to open borders and a significant number of illegals either self deporting or being deported by INS.

[Randal]

The big “bipartisan” immigration bill would have, essentially legalized the level of illegal immigration that we saw throughout the Biden Administration.

This is such a dumb talking point that will convince no one except the MAGA cultists who'll believe anything.

The bill lowered the threshold of asylum seekers from infinity down to 5000. That means, by John's math at least:

(infinity - 5000) × 365 = infinity

Infinity less asylum seekers had the bill passed.

[Kazinski]

"You seem to have forgotten that Republicans consistently thwarted Biden's efforts at border control because they wanted to preserve the issue."

Yes, I think you have it Biden was the victim in all of this.

Of course even a Joe Biden of 10 or 15 years ago would have known what to do to get out of the Republican trap: enforce the laws on the books.

But confused old man Biden did himself no favors and fell into the evil Republican trap, then they pounced.

[bobsnort]

> One of Trump's greatest strengths is his ability to not care what elites think.

Is that a strength, or is it just being reckless and ignorant?

Typically, presidents have strategies that consider the consequences of their actions. Trump doesn't have an attention span, so he just rules by vibe. Annoyed with the EU today? Let's increase their tariffs! One week later let's decrease them! What was accomplished? "I don't care what elites think."

Is there value in having three independent branches of government that apply checks on each others' power? "Sounds like some elite liberal nonsense. The Constitution says the president can do anything he wants!"

> They got away with it because they were trying to do the "right" thing.

So you concede that Trump is using his unchecked executive power to do "wrong" things, but you still defend him, because you're willing to sacrifice the Constitution in order to "own the libs."

[Incunabulum]

What was accomplished? The EU 'elites' are discombobulated and more likely to negotiate because the disruption makes their populace rowdy and threatens their hold on domestic power.

[bobsnort]

> What was accomplished? The EU 'elites' are discombobulated and more likely to negotiate because the disruption makes their populace rowdy and threatens their hold on domestic power.

Negotiate what? Trump hasn't made any coherent demands. EU tariffs on non-agricultural US goods are about 1%. Trump could have asked for negotiation at any time, but he hasn't; the EU has not refused negotiation. The EU isn't North Korea: it's not hard to get them to the negotiating table. But what's the negotiation if Trump can't even express what he wants?

Instead, Trump is just swinging tariffs around like a blunt instrument and without a plan.

The only one "discombobulated" is the senior citizen in the Oval Office.

[Commenter_XY]

And yet, POTUS Trump sits in the Oval Office.

Not to worry, you only have 42 more months to go. Forty two.

[bernard11]

More likely to negotiate? We haven't seen a lot of that.

What happened to Trump's 90 deals in 90 days?

And who wants to negotiate anything with a habitual liar who can't be trusted to live up to his side of a deal for 48 hours?

[ReaderY]

But that’s the purpose. Trump wants to disconnect the United States from Europe, and indeed from the kind of European thinking that led to the very idea of constitutional government with a limited national executive. He doesn’t want any of that, and disconnecting Americans from Europe and European thought is an effective way to that.

Persuading Europeans that the United States is totally unreliable as a trading partner is an extremely effective way of starting the disconnction process. He’s accomplished that quite effectively. Like it or not it’s a feature, not a bug.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Its an end to reconstruction. We want to go back to 1965 when this was America. Nixon won 49 states in 1972 with a mandate to do that, something the nyt neglects to mention.

[bobsnort]

Nixon, like Trump, was also a criminal.

[David Nieporent]

The phrase "dog whistle" is way overused, but this isn't a dog whistle so much as a foghorn. "Go back to 1965" means that they want to erase the Voting Rights Act and Hart Cellar, meaning they want a time back when black people didn't get to be so uppity and we didn't let non-Europeans immigrate.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Trump doesn't have an attention span, so he just rules by vibe. "

I've remarked on this sort of trash talk before, and how self-owning it is. The worse you claim Trump is, the worse the Democrats must be, because they got beat by that.

So, go ahead and claim Trump is a hot mess, you're confessing to be a hotter mess.

[Commenter_XY]

They don't get that part, Brett. It is hilarious.

[bobsnort]

> Despite all the outrage, illegal immigration at the southern border has basically trickled to a halt.

Is there outrage about that? I would say not. The outrage is about *how* illegal immigration has been reduced. If you have to discard the basic civil liberties enshrined in the Constitution in order to protect the border, you are cutting your nose off to spite your face. "We had to destroy the country in order to save it."

[Incunabulum]

What base civil liberties have been discarded here? 'Due process'? Most of these people already had deportation orders and those that don't are going to get a hearing before an immigration judge.

Keep in mind that Trump effectively stopped illegal immigration *before* the current immigration raids. No new illegals are coming in and the raids are to get those still here out.

[bernard11]

What base civil liberties have been discarded here? 'Due process'?

Yes.

Do you think arresting asylum seekers on their way to their hearings is due process? Do you think Abrego Garcia got due process? Or the he is the only one who was denied it?

[Dr. Ed 2]

Due process is them not being shot.

[bobsnort]

> Due process is them not being shot.

Brilliant response. Tell me again how Republicans really aren't modern-day Nazis, for realsies.

[Dr. Ed 2]

The nazis went after LAW ABIDING people.

[bobsnort]

> The nazis went after LAW ABIDING people.
Wrong. The Nazis changed the law to make being a Socialist, a Jew, or a homosexual punishable.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Citation?

[bobsnort]

A serious question: Are you so mentally crippled that you somehow both missed a basic education on twentieth century history AND are unable to google for an answer to your reductive and asinine question? Here, I'll save you the apparently exhausting labor, but there are plenty of similar sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Laws

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/anti-jewish-legislation-in-prewar-germany

Some key excerpts:

> These "Nuremberg Laws" excluded German Jews from Reich citizenship and prohibited them from marrying or having sexual relations with persons of "German or German-related blood."

In other words, a Jew married to a German was living legally one day, and the next day they were a criminal.

The Nazis were literally the government. They passed laws that supported their agenda. Their awful acts were fully consistent with German law. Keep that in mind next time you lock a good person in a cage and say "Sorry, but you broke the law." The law should reflect justice, not give evil men permission to violate justice.

[Frank Drackman]

They’re not Socialists to start with, Stew-pid

[Social Justice is neither]

After 4 years of you Marxists dancing on the grave of Ashley Babbitt and burning cities anytime you don't get your way? Your idiotic name calling does 't mean much stacked against your actions

[bobsnort]

> After 4 years of you Marxists dancing on the grave of Ashley Babbitt

Ashley Babbitt was a victim, just like you are. You've both been brainwashed by the Trump kool-aid. You've been trained by billionaires to hate your fellow Americans and to hate American principles. You hate fairness, you hate equality. you hate freedom. That hate brings you to where you are now: sitting in a basement, your fingers covered in dried semen and cheeto dust, spreading lies on the internet. That hate brought Ashley to where she died: violently entering a government building with an armed crowd, disobeying police orders, attempting to subvert the election process. I feel sorry for her, but not because she got shot.

[bernard11]

Oh fuck you.

You are a blight on the VC, and the country.

[Commenter_XY]

Yes, St Abrego received due process.

He is due to be processed and then shipped out to South Sudan. Can't happen to that wife beating, human traficking, MS-13 gangbanger pos fast enough.

[David Nieporent]

You sound racist.

[Bruce Hayden]

Why? He is very likely just that - a wife beating, human trafficking, MS-13 gang member. Are we supposed to ignore that just because he is Hispanic?

[David Nieporent]

I think calling someone an "MS-13 gangbanger" for no reason other than his ethnicity is pretty racist.

[JasonT20]

It isn't Abrego's ethnicity that is leading them to call him an "MS-13 gangbanger". Trump said he was. Their identity depends on Trump being right about that, so it must be true.

[bobsnort]

> What base civil liberties have been discarded here? 'Due process'?

Well, yes, that's one of them. Also equal protection. Also freedom from unlawful searches and seizures. Also freedom of speech, since evidently Republicans are cool with people getting visas revoked for writing op-ed pieces in the colleges newspaper. Freedom from cruel and unusual punishments.

> Most of these people already had deportation orders and those that don't are going to get a hearing before an immigration judge.

We've already seen many people deported without a hearing, to countries where they are likely to be killed or tortured. People who have never been convicted of a crime. People who are in the country *legally* but get their visa revoked for taking to criticize Dear Leader.

[bernard11]

Mr. Trump seems to be standing athwart history yelling, "Go back!"

To what? A pre-vaccine era? A time of trade wars? A time of general ignorance, as he tries to gut American universities?

When they accuse a conservative of trying to hurt poor people or roll back progress, he caves. When they charge a conservative with standing on the wrong side of the arc of history, he switches sides. Not Trump.

All the worse. Is hurting poor people desirable? Something Josh approves of?

And in Trump's defense, some (but not all) of his actions are seeking to restore the original meaning of the Constitution, wheres the same could not be said for FDR and LBJ.

Trump doesn't give a rat's ass about the Constitution, and has not thought for two seconds about restoring the "original meaning," which would be a terrible idea, especially if by "original meaning" we mean Josh's interpretation.

Is Blackman in some sort of toadying contest?

[bobsnort]

> Is Blackman in some sort of toadying contest?

Yes. He's way behind Tucker Carlson, but I'd say he's in the lead among the Reason crowd. The winner gets a brown nose!

I've read many of Blackman's pieces and I always wonder how could someone so intellectually inept graduate law school.

[Frank Drackman]

I don’t know how Kagrungy Jackson Brown graduated either

[bobsnort]

I don't know how you managed to graduate kindergarten.

[Frank Drackman]

I didn’t

[bobsnort]

> I didn’t

Well, that certainly explains a lot.

[Dr. Ed 2]

GO BACK TO 1965 WHEN THIS WAS AMERICA!

[Kazinski]

He wants to go back to "Morning in America".

[I Callahan]

Rrreeeeeeee!!!

-the regulars around here…

[Sarcastr0]

Why do you post outside of 4chan if you're just going to post 4chan slop?

[I Callahan]

Yup. I was right…

[Frank Drackman]

Just wait until his 3rd term

[Judge Magney]

So Josh Blackman is in the process of committing a fantasy trilogy.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Trump very much cares what the "elites" think.

It depends on the elite. He cares what Putin thinks, for instance.

Some conservatives care about not being racist. Trump doesn't. This is seen as a good thing by Josh Blackman and some other people.

I don't think the New Deal as a whole is unconstitutional. I think Japanese internment was. FDR getting away with it apparently requires Trump to have the power to do something comparable.

We should be on constant guard. Josh Blackmans (or people he respects) have a lot of power these days.

[NvEric]

The last 113 years have been unConstitutional.

[David Nieporent]

Trump very much cares what the "elites" think.

It depends on the elite.

It doesn't, really. Trump is what Ayn Rand called a second-hander: he derives his entire sense of self-worth from what others think of him. He is desperate to be respected by the NYT. That's why he invented fake publicists to praise himself to them, all those years ago. It's why he's always falsely bragging about how respected the U.S. is in the world when he's president; he's desperate to think that's true.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

I am fine with a general reference about Trump being concerned about how elites respect him.

I was specifically concerned with a certain sort of respect of the type JB seemed to be thinking about.

Either way, media elites would be of special concern for Trump, whose career (and self-worth) rests on branding and so on.

[Brett Bellmore]

"I don't think the New Deal as a whole is unconstitutional."

There may have been a bit here and there of the New Deal that wasn't unconstitutional, but most of it absolutely was, absent constitutional amendments they didn't even bother attempting to get ratified. Centrally controlled economies were very much the "in thing" at the time, everybody wanted one, and nobody more than FDR.

But the Constitution didn't permit one, it didn't create a government with that sort of power, and there was basically no chance the states would ratify an amendment giving the federal government such power. So FDR subverted the Constitution, doubtless with the best of intentions. It's stayed subverted ever since, because nobody wants to give that illegitimate power up again.

They're having a symposium over at Balkinization about Richard Primus' latest book, and as you'd expect, all the participants are wholeheartedly in favor of a hugely powerful federal government, and any legal sophistry needed to accomplish that. But even so, they at least KNOW it's sophistry: "I try to explain these things to the foreign LLM class every year and always get a room full of puzzled expressions. These readings of the constitutional text are flagrantly implausible ways to understand the language of 1787; they seem natural only after several years of expensive postgraduate education."

At least these guys understand that the Emperor is naked. It's just that they're nudists, they're OK with that.

[Will Nonya]

This piece seems intent on asserting that the ends justify the means while ignoring the steep rise in executive power and the corresponding reducuons in the power of the other branches of government.

There are many of Trump's stated aims that I could support if he actually did them. Still more that I'd be pleased with if he only did them competently or within the limts of the executive power.

What Trump's show us is how easily and how easily the Constitution can be bent even if it isn't quite broken.

[NvEric]

Don't you want progress ?

Obama built on Bush jr.'s Imperial presidency, and so too we now have the progressive embodiment of our system's value.

[Kazinski]

I have always considered myself a Reagan* Republican since the 80's, I especially admired his ability to focus on issues rather than making things personal, hardly on of Trump's attributes.

But I don't think Reagan would have caviled at a rather modest decimation of the federal workforce especially at a time where they are often in open opposition not only to the Administration, but the voters. After all he didn't hesitate when the Air Traffic Controllers decided on a test of wills between their interest and the nations.

*I still remember first hearing about Ronald Reagan (although I might have watched death valley days reruns), my mother was reading the Sunday Chronicle while I and my brothers were scrapping on the carpet for the best Sunday comics, when she said "Hah, Ronald Reagan is running for Governor", I asked her who Reagan was, little knowing that 18 years later he'd be the first Republican I'd ever vote for. My mother never understood, but I don't think she's held it against me.

[thesafesurfer]

President Trump is simply the vehicle that most Americans used to reclaim their vision of democracy from the conceited, narcissistic, unelected bureaucrats and institutionalists that feel it is their right to rule over the ignorant masses.

[ReaderY]

The difficulty with this argument is that the bureaus these bureaucrats work for were all created by Congress, who appropriated the funds to pay them and passed laws giving them the authority to act as they did. Simply because a democratically elected majority of Congress disagrees with you does not make its actions undemocratic.

Further, it remains to be seen whether “most Americans” approve of actions like dismantling the alliance and trade networks that had been sources of bipartisan consensus for decades, dismantling emergency response, and other actions President Trump has taken. Getting all riled up over bathrooms and the like goes only so far.

[ReaderY]

Both the United States and Germany underwent extraordinary transformations in the 1930s. It remains to be seen whether this transformation will last as long as the United States’, or if its duration will more resenble Germany’s.

[Commenter_XY]

You'll need to argue a little more persuasively to make the American Reich case. Are you still flying your No Kings flag? 😉

[Brett Bellmore]

The difference is that while in both the US and Germany an executive subverted the constitutional order in order to create a much more powerful centralized state, the one in Germany was a bit uglier, he built death camps, not just internment camps. And then he got overthrown by outside forces.

So Germany reformed their constitution (Not entirely voluntarily...) to restore regular constitutional order, and make a repeat more difficult, while in the US that subversion of the constitutional order got institutionalized and normalized, and endures to this day.

[Krayt]

transformational

In a be careful what you wish for way. We saw Biden expand on Trump's term 1 excesses, exactly as predicted, right on schedule.

AT, After Trump should, sadly, be interesting.

[JasonT20]

Indeed, although Mr. Reagan vowed during his 1980 campaign to abolish the Department of Education, which had been created the year before over the objections of conservatives who considered it an intrusion on local control over schools, he never really tried to follow through as president, because Democrats controlled the House.

Continuing the revisionist history of the Department of Education, I see. Whatever rhetoric Reagan and other Republicans used at the time, the Department of Education Organization Act, signed by President Jimmy Carter in 1979, did not create new federal "intrusion on local control" of public schools. It took existing programs and executive agencies that fell under other cabinet-level departments and moved them into its own cabinet-level department. The Department of Health, Education, and Welfare ended up renamed as the Department of Health and Human Services as part of that reorganization, by the way.

If you want to know what the Department of Education does and doesn't do, so that you'd have an understanding of what would happen if it was abolished, you can always start by looking at its website and seeing what it says it does.

[JamesMarkels]

Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems like Blackman is quick to pound the table as to what the law is whenever we are talking about Democrats, but when it's Trump suddenly who cares about LAW when we are being "transformational!"

I'll note that all of the SCOTUS opinions had nothing to do with Trump. Yes, he nominated the justices in the majority and was in the right place at the right time to do it, but it was the Federalist Society that picked the nominees with practically no input from Trump other than to rubber stamp them. He always (incorrectly) assumed that whoever he nominated would be in thrall to him anyway. Leonard Leo (who Trump has since slagged) and his crew were the ones doing the vetting and who cared.

And of course, Blackman has little to say about tariffs, ICE raids, shipping people to foreign jails and lying to the courts about it, and all sorts of other "transformational" things. "Shifting the Overton window" is not, in itself a good thing, you know.

[neurodoc]

Is any body here sanguine about the effects of RFK, Jr. as Secretary of HHS? Pete Hegseth as Sec Defense (see War if Trump has his way)? Cash Patel and Dan Bongino at FBI? And so many other wonderful Trump choices? neurodoc is VERY much not.

And have others noticed that Josh let most or all of Peter Baker's point go unrebutted?

[JasonT20]

Having super-loyal incompetents in these positions is not a bug. Trump needs people that won't be so good at their jobs that they even could claim success for themselves instead of Trump on the off chance that things work. (They have to just accept whatever public praise Trump gives them as part of his, "See, I always pick the best people," line.) But, they also need to be people to blame when things go wrong that won't return the favor when he throws them under the bus.

[neurodoc]

Thanks for the reply. I will try again with next open thread because I really would like to hear more peoples' thinking, especially that of the pro-Trump crowd like Josh. They aren't perturbed (scared sh*tless like me) to see what damage is being done to our public health with RFK Jr. in place as Sec HHS? That isn't a matter of political ideology, it is about straight up medical science!