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Tuesday, Donald Trump did another of those little executive orders he’s so fond of, the kind where with some words written by aides and the stroke of a pen, he attempts to completely undo laws passed by Congress, how the US government works at a fundamental level, and from time to time the Constitution itself. This time, the ostensible topic of the order, how independent agencies work, sounds kind of boring, but as is so often the case, it sets up another constitutional crisis by declaring that there’s no such thing as an “independent” agency, only arms of the executive branch that exist to do Trump’s bidding, and which must take orders from the White House or else.
Yep, it’s one more stretch by Trump to make the entire government an extension of his almighty, unlimited authority under the bullshit dictatorial “unitary executive” theory advocated by fans of fascism who tell Trump he can do anything he wants. In what passes for Trump’s current brain trust, that vision of unchecked presidential power is most vociferously advanced by Russ Vought, Trump’s Heritage Foundation/Project 2025 pal, who now directs the Office of Management and Budget.
Trump, who has threatened to fire government workers who continue to work remotely, announced the New Order at his Florida trash palace, Mar-a-Lago, with some putz from the Justice Department (a fellow member of the Awkward Combover Club for Men) explaining that the order “reestablishes the longstanding norm that only the president or the attorney general can speak for the United States when stating an opinion as to what the law is.”
That has never, ever been a longstanding norm. Trump’s people pulled it entirely out of their asses and inserted it in Trump’s, so to speak. In what appears to be a serious oversight, the EO didn’t claim any power to determine laws for Copresident Elon Musk.
As Politico explains, this is some some dictator shit:
The theory was long considered fringe, and many mainstream legal scholars still believe it is illegal, given that Congress set the agencies up specifically to act independently, or semi-independently, from the president. These include the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Trade Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission, all of which enact regulations and can impose hefty fines on businesses that violate the rules.
For the most part, other presidents have made a point of not fucking with these agencies’ independence, because “good government” and “fair dealing” and other obsolete ideas that only wusses believe in. The agency heads often have, by law, terms that are meant to run longer than any single president’s time in office, because, again, Congress thought “independence” was a good thing. In Trump’s view, any government body that doesn’t do what he tells it to do isn’t independent, it’s a “rogue agency.”
Well the hell with that, says the EO, which proclaims that Donald Trump IS the American People, and so what he wants is what America wants:
For the Federal Government to be truly accountable to the American people, officials who wield vast executive power must be supervised and controlled by the people’s elected President.
To underline the point, a “fact sheet” on the executive order refers only to “so-called independent agencies,” because he makes the only laws that matter.
Again, totally not how the Constitution defines the president’s job, quaintly defined in the Article II as the provision that the president “shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,” not that he can make ‘em up on the fly.
The new executive order, by complete coincidence, puts OMB Director Russell Goddamned Vought in charge of overseeing all those agencies, at least if the executive order isn’t overruled by federal courts. Until the inevitable court challenges get to the Supreme Court, the administration will just go ahead and act like Vought is Trump’s agency boss of bosses.
The executive order directs all agencies to submit all proposed regulations to OMB, and Vought would also have the power to change agencies’ budgets “as necessary and appropriate, to advance the President’s policies and priorities,” regardless of what Congress may have appropriated for them.
Trump has already been a busy little fascist beaver, firing the heads of independent agencies, including more than a dozen inspectors general, and installing his people instead. Vought has installed himself as the head of the previously independent Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, so he can make sure it no longer protects consumers’ finances.
The latest insistence that Trump, and only Trump, makes all the rules has shown up in other venues too. Yesterday, at the same presser announcing the new executive order, Trump once again said that the Associated Press will be banned from White House press briefings and from Air Force One until it submits to his authorit-eh and calls the Gulf Of Mexico the name Trump made up for it. But he went a little further this time, insisting that in refusing to use his preferred proper noun for the Gulf,
“The Associated Press just refuses to go with what the law is, and what has taken place. It’s called the Gulf of America now. It’s not called the Gulf of Mexico any longer. I have the right to do it.”
We think it would be at least a little funny if thousands of geography teachers were to go turn themselves in to the FBI and demand to be prosecuted for disobeying that “law.” Or maybe it wouldn’t; Trump might order them deported.
Also, Evan, in the ChatCave, re the above Trump word salad: “For the fucking life of me I do not understand how people do not bust out laughing when he says things like this.” Fact check: true.
Also too, Copresident Elon Musk offered his very own interpretation of how America works, which we’ll call the Very Stupid Unitary Executive Theory. Appearing with Tump on State TV yesterday, Musk explained to Sean Hannity that all federal agencies pose a threat to democracy, because their employees aren’t even elected!
And any fool knows that because Trump won the election, democracy means agreeing with Trump. For one thing, Musk noted, DC voted overwhelmingly for Kamala Harris, proving that bureaucrats are disloyal to America, or that many live in Virginia or Maryland and Musk is a fucking idiot. For another,
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, we live in a bureaucracy.
And so I think what we’re seeing here is the sort of the thrashing of the the bureaucracy as we try to restore democracy and the will of the people.
Elon didn’t address whether that might mean that anyone who didn’t agree with Joe Biden when he was president was similarly not doing democracy. But that’s a silly question anyway, because Joe Biden didn’t win the 2020 election and was thus not carrying out the will of the people.
Also by the way, Trump has just declared himself the king, for ending congestion pricing in Manhattan.
Ayup.
The end.
OPEN THREAD
[Politico / WaPo / Deadline / Joe.My.God]
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