Posted on 10/02/2024 5:56:48 AM PDT by MtnClimber
Back in July, I had a two posts (here and here) comparing the then candidates for President, Biden and Trump, on the issue of who is the greater “threat to democracy.” The posts reviewed actions of each candidate that may be viewed as such threats. For Trump, those things included J6, plus seeking legal advice and then bringing litigation as to what he claimed was fraudulent conduct in the 2020 election; for Biden, the things included having the prosecutors bring phony criminal charges against political adversaries, engaging in a systematic effort with social media platforms to suppress the opposition’s speech, extra-constitutional expansion of the regulatory state, hundreds of billions of federal dollars to fund the political Left, the student-loan-forgiveness vote buying program, and opening the southern border. Whew — quite a list! Obviously, the contest wasn’t close.
But now comes to my attention another whole category of threat to democracy emanating from the Biden-Harris Administration. This is one I have been somewhat aware of, but I have not been fully aware of the vast extent and systematic nature of the effort. Likely, this category is the worst of all the threats discussed in the extent to which it represents fundamental attack on the constitutional structure. The subject is systematic efforts within the bureaucracy to make it so that an incoming administration after an election is disabled from making changes to the policies or personnel of the outgoing administration.
If “our democracy” means one thing, it means that the people get to choose the President, who then gets to govern in accordance with the principles and policies that got him elected. The main constitutional provision is Article II, Section 1, which states that “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.” Every federal executive department employee must take an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States.” For an executive branch employee, the most important meaning of the oath is that the employee must recognize that the “executive power” is held by the elected President, and the employee must follow the legal direction of the President. For every employee in the executive branch, the elected President is the boss.
And yet recent months have seen numerous reports — and by numerous I mean dozens — of members of the Biden-Harris Administration taking actions to undermine the authority of Trump should he get elected, and to insulate the bureaucracy from the policies that got him elected. In other words, these are steps to completely thwart the will of the voters. I’ll start with a couple of examples today, and will have more in days to come.
Here is a May 27 piece from Politico, with the headline “Biden’s got a plan to protect science from Trump.” Great spin, Politico. “Protect science from Trump” is code for making it such that unelected fascist pseudo-scientists like Fauci can impose their will on the people completely outside the control of voters or elections. From Politico:
The White House fears Trump could try to advance an ideological agenda at the National Institutes of Health, like the ones he’s suggested on everything from vaccines to diversity policies. In an effort to Trump-proof, NIH has designated an official to identify political meddling in the agency’s work and is tasking a soon-to-be-established scientific integrity council with reviewing those cases. . . . The NIH gives out . . . more than $40 billion a year — and, other than a Senate-confirmed director, has long been able to operate relatively free of politics.
The phrase “political meddling in the agency’s work” means any control whatsoever from the elected boss. $40 billion per year with no accountability of any kind. That’s bureaucratic nirvana!
But then, NIH is very small potatoes compared to the EPA. EPA claims the authority — not from any statute, mind you, but rather from their “scientific expertise” in environmental matters — to force a multi-trillion dollar transformation of the entire energy economy of the country. Recent extra-constitutional EPA initiatives include multiple rules finalized in May 2024 to force the closure of electric power plants using hydrocarbon fuels, and other final rules announced in April and June to force manufacturers to make and consumers to buy mostly electric vehicles within a few years. Trump clearly opposes these rules, and for good reason. If he gets elected by the voters, he intends to undo these rules. Can the bureaucracy actually stop him?
Check out this piece from the Huffington Post on May 29, headline “Preparing For A Trump Return, EPA Workers Secure 'Scientific Integrity' Protections.” Here’s the strategy: the EPA workers, via a labor union, have “negotiated” a collusive contract with the corrupt Biden-Harris Administration whereby workers can report “abuses” of “scientific integrity”:
The union representing 8,000 workers at the Environmental Protection Agency just bargained a contract that includes what it calls “groundbreaking” protections for “scientific integrity.” The agreement assures that workers can report any abuses without fear of “retribution, reprisal, or retaliation,” and sends related disputes to an independent arbitrator rather than a political appointee. . . . “The agency agreed the goal was to empower management and staff to prevent inappropriate interference in scientific work,” said Powell. . . . “Scientific Integrity was one of several articles the parties agreed to include in the new [contract] for the first time,” the spokesperson said in an email. “This new article clarifies for AFGE [union] employees EPA’s commitment to a culture of scientific integrity.”
Because after all, “The Science” requires EPA to force you to drive an electric vehicle and to get your electricity from intermittent wind and solar generators.
Do the voters get any say in these matters? Not if the Biden-Harris Administration and the bureaucrats can do anything about it. Could there be any more fundamental “threat to our democracy”? If so, I can’t think of what it is.
A suggestion to Trump for a counter-strategy should he get elected. For any bureaucrat (for example, at EPA) who resists direction from above, first transfer that bureaucrat to the Utah office; and then prosecute that bureaucrat criminally in Utah for violation of oath of office.
Trump needs to avoid the assassination attempts first.
Manhattan Contrarian ping.
This is true in England and France. Conservatives voted but because they split parties the communists are still in control. In France they gave one party 49% and they still are being run by a party with 15% of the popular vote. Watch for that kind of thing here. The left will not give up quietly. They will openly steal the vote even more brazenly this time. And if you question it you will be thrown in jail.
“A suggestion to Trump for a counter-strategy should he get elected. For any bureaucrat . . . .”
Trump is one person. The bureaucracy has hundreds of thousands of politicized activist leftist employees legally protected from being easily fired. In addition the national media is poised to make an issue of any attempt to remove disruptive bureaucrats from their assignments.
A key lesson from the first Trump term was Trump’s failure to staff the cabinet and key executive branch appointed positions with capable and talented individuals committed to his agenda. He was slow in staffing the administration, using Obama holdovers for months, and many of his most critical cabinet level appointees - Sessions at Justice, Preibus and Kelly as WH chief of staff, Mattis at Defense, Tillerson at State actively opposed him.
If Trump is to take on the bureaucracy he needs to have an administration of capable fighters ready to go to work on Inauguration Day. Can Donald Trump attract, vet and appoint an A level team of warriors capable of taking on the entrenched bureaucracy? He can’t do it by himself.
Mitch McConnell, as beholden to the Chinese, made clear he would not move Trump's nominees without his direct assent.
bkmk
I’ve made a similar comment here. When the Democrats win they smile because they’re in charge again. When the Republicans win the Democrats smile because they’re still in charge.
To restore a constitutional republic as more than just a facade will require dismantling and eliminating the anti-democratic power centers that currently holds sway. That means removing a great many bad actors from positions at all levels in the bureaucracy of the federal regime and making it clear that the bureaucracy is subservient to the will of the elected representatives of the people, with no power of their own. And longer term but just as necessary, the lockhold leftists have on the media and academia needs to be shattered, with no taxpayer funding going to support them or institutions they control.
I hope when DJT gets to be 47 he has a chat with the speaker and straighten his a$$ out.
“Mitch McConnell, as beholden to the Chinese, made clear he would not move Trump’s nominees without his direct assent.”
If Trump wins either Chuck Schumer or a RINO Republican senator will control the Senate. Few presidents are blessed with a Senate that rubber stamps every appointment. If Trump can’t get appointments through the Senate, the results are predictable.
There are 4000 executive appointments the president makes who do not face Senate approval. The White House Chief of staff, arguably one of the most important people in the executive branch, does not require Senate approval. Trump had two failures - Reince Priebus and John Kelly, Trump’s first two picks for the job, ended up being fired by him. Remember Anthony Scaramucci, another key hire of Trump who did not require Senate approval.
Trump could have used the bully pulpit against McConnell. He had the ability to go to the people and ask them to tell their Senators to approve any appointment McConnell was sitting on. Alternatively, he could have privately told McConnell if McConnell didn’t play ball on appointments he (Trump) would openly support a challenger to McConnell’s reelection in 2020.
If Trump is incapable of identifying, vetting, and securing appointment of great people to help him, he will fail.
IOW “personnel is policy.”
I’m thinking Vivek might make an interesting Chief of Staff.
Agree that Vivek might be a good Chief of Staff. He likely can attract some intelligent, capable, results driven, and high energy executives to the executive branch.
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