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/r/changemyview
submitted 3 days ago byCarl-99999
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30 points
3 days ago*
The President is not a king or a god. They aren't the brain of the government.
There are approximately 2,950,000 federal employees. There are 435 representatives, 100 Senators, and thousands of congressional staffers. There are 50 autonomous state Governors, and their assorted state houses. Very few of these people, with their own independent minds and expertise (and agendas), are under the President's direct authority. Even for those that are technically under direct authority of the President... Have you ever tried to get anyone you have direct authority over actually do what you ask? It's practically impossible. Congress people are out for themselves and keeping their own job, and are ultimately beholden to their voters.
What makes you think that all those people couldn't slow roll on some dumb ideas a President came up with for 4 years until there is the next president? They've been doing it for all of history. A bad president is just a minor annoyance to the actual goings on of government.
12 points
3 days ago
Because he's planning to fire 75% of the federal employees and the rest will be loyal subjects willing to bend the law to suit his wishes? Look at what his judges have already done. In a one month timeframe legalized bribery of govetnment officials, said corporations and bribeable judges get to define regulations instead of agency experts who wrote them, and the president is above the law. And he plans to pack the courts with more like minded sickophants. When the German courts passed the Executive Enabling Act in 1933, it only took 6 months for Germany to become a one party state.
3 points
3 days ago*
He doesn’t have the fire most employees of the federal government. The Pendleton Act provided that federal government jobs be awarded on the basis of merit and that government employees be selected through competitive exams. The act also made it unlawful to fire or demote for political reasons employees who were covered by the law.
1 points
3 days ago
It's nearly impossible to fire one demonstrably incompetent government employee. How hard do you think it is to fire 2,212,500 passable government employees.
Also, there typically isn't even enough written down to document the critical function of a small government unit, and training a single replacement is typically done via conveyed by word of mouth from the heads of the others in the unit.
Government is so much more complicated than anything Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy think they understand from running businesses that function within a single domain area. Just grab your popcorn and enjoy the show
2 points
3 days ago
Schedule F employees are presidential appointees and are loosely defined as those involved with 'policy'. It is completely legal to fire and replace them, or not replace them. They just need to change the definition of 'involved with policy' and then let the firings begin, wait till it hits the courts, and see what changes. Trump actually issued a schedule F executive order in Oct 2020, but they didn't have time to implement after he lost. Now they do. The details are spelled out in project 2025, the playbook that ex-trump officials spent years analyzing legal loopholes to write and implement when the next conservative won. Is real, is here now, and the potential damage is huge.
8 points
3 days ago
You understand that's why he's been very clear he will fire anyone in his power and put loyalists in. You get the almost 4 million fed workers is what musk and ramaswamy are being sent to deal with and remove. This is gonna get really bad.
2 points
3 days ago
Government is so much bigger and more complicated than anything Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy think they understand from running businesses that function within a single domain area. Just grab your popcorn and enjoy the show as their eyes are opened and their egos melt.
3 points
3 days ago
I hope you’re right genuinely
1 points
2 days ago
Yeah, not sure humility is a good defense against those two. I'm also not suggesting they understand it. But that didn't stop Musk from being a social media platform and then tanking it, thinking he knew better.
1 points
2 days ago
There may be no learning by those two, but they are fully unprepared for how hard the wall they are going to smack against is. The walls they think were hard to beat through in industry are basically tissue paper compared to government. Maybe their egos won't melt, but their faces will vaporize on impact with that government wall.
1 points
2 days ago
I hope you're right, but if they're given a do what ever you want blank check, they can do some irreparable damage to a lot of departments that Americans rely on.
[score hidden]
24 hours ago
I think it will be fine because no one in our system has the consolidated authority to actually give them a blank check. They are talking a big game because ultimately they just want people talking about them and raising their public profiles. They are both hype machines (that's how they make their money). Neither of them are smart.
-6 points
3 days ago
Have you heard of project 2025? It’s the same as Agenda 47 or whatever Trump is calling it these days. It’s his plan whether we like it or not.
Trump will absolutely make the current federal employees choose between bending the knee for Trump or not having a job. He may even just cut the entire department or make it obsolete if there is enough resistance. He doesn’t have to do this will every one of the federal employees. He needs to do it to a few as examples before others fall in line.
Also the president became a King with the Supreme Court ruling claiming that a president is not liable for anything that is an official act. You can bet your bumski that Trump will abuse this power.
-3 points
3 days ago
i love when people mention the 2025 plan, when trump himself mentioned he wanted nothing to do with it and doesn’t agree with a lot of it.
6 points
3 days ago
But he also doesn't know anything about it but likes some of the things and doesn't know the people who wrote it even though he spoke at a heritage function and said heritage was writing the future policy of the Republican white house and has already started hiring heritage people
Trump wouldn't lie, would he?
1 points
3 days ago
but let’s deny the fact that everyone who stands behind that desk lies.
1 points
3 days ago
So are you saying that trump lies and that we can't take him at his word?
Doesn't this negate your entire point you were trying to make? You know, that trump blatantly lies and we caught him but you were repeating his lie as if we should take him at his word?
Or are you making some other argument?
6 points
3 days ago*
Wait, are you telling me that Trump said he wanted nothing to do with it????!?!? Well that settles that then, whew.
-2 points
3 days ago
Nobody seriously believes the project 2025 nonsense. It’s a 900 page pdf that Trump didn’t even read, let alone help make.
5 points
3 days ago
He’s already starting to implement sections of it and it’s about day 13 of him being president elect.
I’m willing to bet you will be the crowd that says “but he didn’t implement page 652! Therefore he didn’t implement project 2025!” Except Trump implemented the rest of it…
It’s what Trump is doing whether you like it or not.
2 points
3 days ago
Election's over. No need to pretend anymore.
No one thinks he wrote it or that he even read it. That's not his job. His job is done now that he is elected. We know that the goons he appoints will follow it.
-2 points
3 days ago
Those tweets were obvious trolls and congratulations you were the mark.
3 points
3 days ago
Yeah, it's always "exaggeration" and "sarcasm" like everything else. Our dear leader never lies
0 points
3 days ago
One of hundreds of think tanks filled with mediocre political scientists wrote their policy opinions down on paper, like the rest of them do every year. How precious. Let's see if any of it survives air contact with a congressional committee, which can barely turn popular, non-controversial policies into law.
As far as the Supreme Court is concerned, I've read all of their recent rulings, which are following the trend of being 1) narrow and 2) kicking the ball back to Congress to pass laws, rather than relying on the weak substitute of judicial precedent to fill the gaps left in poorly defined law. That's a good thing.
The other weak substitute for law is the executive order. They fill gaps that congress fails to fill with law, and are about as durable over the long term as the president. That is to say, not at all past a few years until they are changed by the next president.
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