Hyperbolic Hyperbole
While I don’t plan on spending the next four years writing about Trump, Trump, Trump, for the moment, it does seem culturally relevant, to say the least. And these first weeks have not disappointed, at least in terms of the ratings. By all appearances, the second season of the Trump Administration is a bona fide hit. Everyone is watching. Everyone is talking about it.
Just to get this out of the way: I didn’t vote for Trump, and never would (or will, and please no comments about a Trump third term and failing to take that threat seriously). I don’t like the way he and his team seem to have adopted one of the worst Silicon Valley mantras of all time: “Move fast and break things,” though no small wonder given the centrality of Elon Musk in the administration. And from early signs, it seems his cohort is motivated as much by grievance and anger as by legitimate policy aims—rarely a good recipe for long-term progress.
That said, the hyperbole surrounding the new administration is also breathtaking: “Trump 2.0: The most damaging first two weeks in presidential history,” began a Washington Post column by Ruth Marcus. “This Isn’t reform; it’s sabotage” went one by David Wallace-Wells in the New York Times. Yuval Levin speaking on Ezra Klein’s show talked about the “breakage” of the Constitution. Law professors are having a high-time being quoted as saying that Trump is leading a “coup” and conducting a “blitzkrieg on the law” (Nazi analogies are never far from the front of mind, if not the front of war).
It is unquestionably true that the Trump administration is challenging the limits of executive branch authority over the employees and actions of the executive. The White House is implementing the long-held theory of the “unitary executive,” one of the pillars of which says that the president has sole authority to hire and fire employees of the federal government and that years of congressional constraints on that power, especially in the wake of Watergate, are unconstitutional. That theory has never been truly put to the test, and whether the courts or congress will successfully push back is an open question. Those are the laws that are being broken.
And some of the outrage is a bit much. Yes, the administration fired 17 independent agency watchdogs without giving Congress the required 30-day notice. But it could have still fired them afterward. That is breaking the law the same way that speeding is breaking the law, true but misleading as a statement. Other moves, such as removing one of the National Labor Relations Board commissioners, were more legally questionable, but mostly because no one has ever tested that presidential power.
A true constitutional crisis would arise if the Trump administration blatantly ignored congressional action or court rulings. And they’d have to do so in a spectacular way for it to reach the level of a systemic crisis—especially since past administrations have quietly circumvented similar laws and rulings.
This is not a defense of the administration’s actions. Even if legally or congressionally validated, either by action or inaction, that doesn’t make “move fast and break things” good policy.
The rapid dismantling of USAID as an independent agency and folding it into the State Department is the prime current example. USAID does invaluable “soft power” work for the United States, providing healthcare and poverty alleviation aid. This work stems from the Cold War with the Soviet Union, where winning hearts and minds was part of the contest. Buying global goodwill as well as working toward the elimination of global communicable diseases are clearly in the interest of the United States. Those programs open markets and offer a contrast with China, and there is also a powerful moral case for helping those with less.
It is also true that one of the reasons for creating a separate aid agency in the 1960s was to provide better cover for CIA covert operations and other forms of espionage. Let’s not over-romanticize the history of USAID, or the many democracy promotion programs that have skated the thin line between aid and covert action.
But the chaotic evisceration of an agency that now does serious good does serious harm. It saves a small amount of money in the short term, but Americans routinely and vastly overestimate how much the U.S. government spends on foreign aid.
The first weeks of Trumplandia have been dramatic. They are shaking up Washington more than Washington has been shaken up in living memory. This is the platform that Trump ran on. He won a fairly contested democratic election on that platform. The problems and challenges of what is now unfolding are the problems and challenges of a democracy, not a sign that it is imperiled.
The idea that democracy naturally produces good, kind, liberal outcomes is part of the current morass. It can produce those, but as the Founding Fathers understood, democracy can just as easily amplify disruptive, angry, and potentially destructive behavior—all while remaining fully and genuinely democratic.
The Trump administration is attempting to realign the balance of power. It is not at all clear that it will succeed. It is only clear that it is pursuing a novel and expansive understanding of executive power with an intensity and speed that is unique. Already, courts are pushing back – especially on halting federal spending. Congress is beginning to murmur. We simply don’t know who will win this contest, or what the result will then be. Presidents have been increasing their executive power for years and Congress has facilitated that. Testing the limits of executive authority is, whether unfortunately or not, a logical next step in the path presidents have followed since Carter.
So, buckle up for sure, but let’s try to keep the hyperbole in check.
I think you need to look into what USAID was actually paying for and where that money was going. People should be in prison over it. Period.
Yup. Democrats are drama queens who lie about nearly everything.
As for USAID, it was essentially operating as a liberal Democrat welfare program abroad and creating dependent classes of foreigners with dollars from the American taxpayer. Extreme human suffering should be alleviated where prudent but long term programs such as the ones aiding Hamas without end should be terminated with prejudice.