If you are going to say that the Trump administration is unique in consolidating power in the Oval Office, you better check what former presidents, Democrat as well as Republican, have been doing.
Most of this is because of Congress's fecklessness. The Founding Fathers thought that Congress would be the most powerful branch. They designed the Constitution so the three branches would jealously safeguard their powers\prerogative's. Unfortunately Congress has become more interested in their personal perpetual reelection than the institution. Nature abhors a vacuum as the saying goes. Resulting in both the Judicial and Executive branch filling the vacuum.
I agree, but don't forget how many times Congress has voted -- literally passed legislation -- to allow the Executive to control and administer their powers on their behalf. Congress complains that the President has too much power, when they have voted to give the President most of it. Assuming they stick to their Constitutionally Enumerated Powers (Article I, Section 8), they could vote to take those powers back at any time.
Any federal authority not covered by Article I, Section 8 is, of course, invalid and cannot be taken back because it was never theirs to begin with.
Yes. Exactly. The old Republican gambit was to promise the moon: "Elect me and I will bring back school prayer, outlaw abortion, fillintheblank." They knew that the D's who were the overwhelming majority in the House and had been since the days of FDR, except briefly under Eisenhower would never pass any of that. They could promise anything and everything knowing they would never have to actual do it. Then Newt changed it. The MSM described it as the American Public throwing a fit. How dare they take away the D's God given right to control the House in perpetuity! Newt made a lot of changes that the D's hated. The R's hated them too but were quite about it. There is an old joke that when Hitler found out England had declared war over Poland he turned to the nearest person to him and said what do we do now? The R's had the same problem. When Newt got over the tips of his skis and left. Everything went back to normal. By passing that legislation Congress (and I think especially R's) can absolve them selves of any responsibility for anything that goes sideways. Blame the Courts, blame the Executive, just don't blame us. Unfortunately the public seems to fall for it, repeatedly. One problem is the R's usually have thin majorities so that means individual members in both the chambers have outsized power to influence legislation. "If you don't give me what I want" I will vote against it. If you have a large enough majority that doesn't work. If you are holding on to contra by a few votes it does.
"The old Republican gambit was to promise the moon: "Elect me and I will bring back school prayer, outlaw abortion, fillintheblank." They knew that the D's who were the overwhelming majority in the House and had been since the days of FDR, except briefly under Eisenhower would never pass any of that."
Or more recently, "Elect us and we will repeal the Affordable Care Act." While the Dems were in the majority, IIRC, 17 repeal bills introduced, and all voted down by the Dems. Then the GOP took majorities in both chambers, and we got ZERO repeal bills introduced, let alone voted on.
And yeah, Republicans seem to have an uncanny aversion to anything TOO radical, up to and including returning the federal government to something vaguely resembling Constitutional limits.
...
"One problem is the R's usually have thin majorities so that means individual members in both the chambers have outsized power to influence legislation."
^^THIS^^
Right now Lisa Murkowski (RINO-AK) and Susan Collins (RINO-ME) control the entire Republican agenda. The GOP doesn't have a large enough majority to pass anything without them, and they will side with the Democrats on anything more than 2 millimeters right of center.
So basically we agree. The D's think in terms of agendas. The R's tend to think in terms of their individual seats. On the one hand it makes sense because if you have the majority you can control the agenda, who gets appointed to the committees, who gets cabinet positions and so on. One problem is purity. Reagan use to say that someone who votes against you 20% of the time votes for you 80% of the time. He was right. As Harold Hill said: "You have to know the territory." If you live in a Purple District it's better to have a Purple R than a sold Blue D. Yet a lot of times the local R's would rather run an R with little or no chance of getting elected than having a Purple R. That is the case with Collins. It would be very difficult to Have a very Red R win in that state. Alaska is different because of rank choice voting, which the R's stupidly went along with. The R's also for too long ceded the Back vote to the D's. I think you saw that with the late Mia Love in Utah. She won, then when up for reelection the R's basically didn't give her much money or support. Politics is a ground game. It's won in terms of inches and feet, maybe yards if you are lucky. R's seem addicted to the Hail Mary Pass
The GOP does seem to love going for the Hail Mary Pass. It's good drama. (And "Project Hail Mary" is a great movie, if you haven't seen it.)
The problems, of course, are that drama doesn't matter, and the *reason* it's called a "Hail Mary Pass" is that you say a prayer while you're throwing it, because your only hope is that divine intervention will bring you the 'W'.
As the man said, "Hope isn't a strategy." Especially in politics and war, if you're basing your whole campaign on hope and prayer, you've already lost.
"Fascism " is doing a lot of work when it comes to calling Trump one. The other side is using projection when it should be looking in a mirror every time they accuse Trump of doing what they do.
Sort of interesting for Yuri Makedonov to post about compromise when “my” Senators will never even attempt to not only work with this Administration, they specifically work against it, try to impeach using made up info from a known traitor (Swalwell) and almost never compromise with Republicans in Congress, with Trump in office or not. Lovely “whataboutism” to imply Trump isn’t into compromising when Dems will not no matter what.
"the presidency itself, has been accumulating power for a very long time, starting with JFK"
Started way before that. Some would say as far back as Lincoln. I'd say it really started in earnest with FDR. JFK's primary claim to fame in that respect is in consolidating presidential power in international relations. Domestically, that process was well underway before his time.
Regarding your "friend's" comment...this part was pure gold:
"Trump, and his cronies are actively trying to jail anyone who disagrees with them."
Classic case of projection.
I'm not going to go through the litany of clearly illegal acts taken in an effort to hamstring Trump during his first presidency and then jail him during the Auto-Pen presidency to prevent him from running again. You covered at least some of that in your reply.
The point is: the left clearly, repeatedly and brazenly break the law to stop someone "who disagrees with them", and then has the audacity to try to claim holding those lawbreakers to account are "trying to jail anyone who disagrees with them."
As a rational, thinking, reasonably intelligent human being, the mental gymnastics that the left has to go through to rationalize their clearly insane positions truly causes amazement in me.
How do you rationally argue against positions that are based so much on utterly irrational beliefs?
True. Wilson and FDR were even worse, but I thought even JFK was stretching it for those ignorant of history. I was just trying to contemporize it for the younglings.
It did start under Lincoln; he sent the Federal Army down south to force the southern states back into the Union @ the point of a bayonet. People get hung up over the slavery argument, but Lincoln was clear about that. He stated his unequivocal intent to "preserve the union" ("Stronger Together" anybody?). The Emancipation Proclamation wasn't issued until the latter part of 1862 (after the Battle of Antietam) to simply forestall France & Britain coming into the war on the side of the South. Their economies were heavily dependent on Southern cotton.
Also Lincoln suspended The Writ of Habeus Corpus; that's very dangerous territory right there.
Agreed with all the above. It's really just a question of degree...which President abused their power the worst.
At least Lincoln can be said to have "preserved the union". Whether it was the right thing to do or the constitutional thing to do...I don't think the US would be the powerhouse it is had it ended up two (or more) separate countries due to secession. Of course, the war was completely unnecessary as technology and society were well on the way to eradicating slavery in the western world either way. I think Lincoln believed that as well...to the point that he basically vowed that slavery could continue in the south under his presidency as long as the southern states didn't secede.
They did anyway and the rest is history. That's the reason I don't believe slavery was THE reason the South seceded. Of course it was a big part of it due to the economic consequences, but there were plenty of smart people in the South that could surely read the writing on the wall; and after Lincoln's assurances that it could continue under him, I think the main reason the South seceded is because they felt powerless. Every Southern state voted against Lincoln and he won anyway (of course it doesn't help that the Southern vote was split three ways). They felt that their interests were no longer being represented.
At any rate, I can't argue that his policies usurped power that wasn't his to claim; I still contend that FDR is the grand champion of seizing power he shouldn't have had...but Lincoln undoubtedly set the groundwork that led us here.
"Trump has repeatedly ignored any oversight. From attacking sovereign nations, the takeover of the Kennedy Center, the tearing down of the ballroom, the list goes on and on."
Wow, this is unhinged on several levels, not the least of which is ... the tearing down of the *what*, now?
They're criticizing Trump for "ignoring oversight" by "tearing down the ballroom." Do they mean the ballroom ... that never existed ... that Trump is trying to BUILD ... and is repeatedly judicially blocked from building? Which he then appeals and FOLLOWS THE JUDICIAL OVERSIGHT PROCESS to resume building?
When you talk about Presidents consolidating power, i am surprised you did not mention Andrew Jackson. I just read "American Lion" and Jackson was the prototype for Trump 200 years ago.
Most of this is because of Congress's fecklessness. The Founding Fathers thought that Congress would be the most powerful branch. They designed the Constitution so the three branches would jealously safeguard their powers\prerogative's. Unfortunately Congress has become more interested in their personal perpetual reelection than the institution. Nature abhors a vacuum as the saying goes. Resulting in both the Judicial and Executive branch filling the vacuum.
I agree, but don't forget how many times Congress has voted -- literally passed legislation -- to allow the Executive to control and administer their powers on their behalf. Congress complains that the President has too much power, when they have voted to give the President most of it. Assuming they stick to their Constitutionally Enumerated Powers (Article I, Section 8), they could vote to take those powers back at any time.
Any federal authority not covered by Article I, Section 8 is, of course, invalid and cannot be taken back because it was never theirs to begin with.
Yes. Exactly. The old Republican gambit was to promise the moon: "Elect me and I will bring back school prayer, outlaw abortion, fillintheblank." They knew that the D's who were the overwhelming majority in the House and had been since the days of FDR, except briefly under Eisenhower would never pass any of that. They could promise anything and everything knowing they would never have to actual do it. Then Newt changed it. The MSM described it as the American Public throwing a fit. How dare they take away the D's God given right to control the House in perpetuity! Newt made a lot of changes that the D's hated. The R's hated them too but were quite about it. There is an old joke that when Hitler found out England had declared war over Poland he turned to the nearest person to him and said what do we do now? The R's had the same problem. When Newt got over the tips of his skis and left. Everything went back to normal. By passing that legislation Congress (and I think especially R's) can absolve them selves of any responsibility for anything that goes sideways. Blame the Courts, blame the Executive, just don't blame us. Unfortunately the public seems to fall for it, repeatedly. One problem is the R's usually have thin majorities so that means individual members in both the chambers have outsized power to influence legislation. "If you don't give me what I want" I will vote against it. If you have a large enough majority that doesn't work. If you are holding on to contra by a few votes it does.
"The old Republican gambit was to promise the moon: "Elect me and I will bring back school prayer, outlaw abortion, fillintheblank." They knew that the D's who were the overwhelming majority in the House and had been since the days of FDR, except briefly under Eisenhower would never pass any of that."
Or more recently, "Elect us and we will repeal the Affordable Care Act." While the Dems were in the majority, IIRC, 17 repeal bills introduced, and all voted down by the Dems. Then the GOP took majorities in both chambers, and we got ZERO repeal bills introduced, let alone voted on.
And yeah, Republicans seem to have an uncanny aversion to anything TOO radical, up to and including returning the federal government to something vaguely resembling Constitutional limits.
...
"One problem is the R's usually have thin majorities so that means individual members in both the chambers have outsized power to influence legislation."
^^THIS^^
Right now Lisa Murkowski (RINO-AK) and Susan Collins (RINO-ME) control the entire Republican agenda. The GOP doesn't have a large enough majority to pass anything without them, and they will side with the Democrats on anything more than 2 millimeters right of center.
So basically we agree. The D's think in terms of agendas. The R's tend to think in terms of their individual seats. On the one hand it makes sense because if you have the majority you can control the agenda, who gets appointed to the committees, who gets cabinet positions and so on. One problem is purity. Reagan use to say that someone who votes against you 20% of the time votes for you 80% of the time. He was right. As Harold Hill said: "You have to know the territory." If you live in a Purple District it's better to have a Purple R than a sold Blue D. Yet a lot of times the local R's would rather run an R with little or no chance of getting elected than having a Purple R. That is the case with Collins. It would be very difficult to Have a very Red R win in that state. Alaska is different because of rank choice voting, which the R's stupidly went along with. The R's also for too long ceded the Back vote to the D's. I think you saw that with the late Mia Love in Utah. She won, then when up for reelection the R's basically didn't give her much money or support. Politics is a ground game. It's won in terms of inches and feet, maybe yards if you are lucky. R's seem addicted to the Hail Mary Pass
I believe we do agree.
The GOP does seem to love going for the Hail Mary Pass. It's good drama. (And "Project Hail Mary" is a great movie, if you haven't seen it.)
The problems, of course, are that drama doesn't matter, and the *reason* it's called a "Hail Mary Pass" is that you say a prayer while you're throwing it, because your only hope is that divine intervention will bring you the 'W'.
As the man said, "Hope isn't a strategy." Especially in politics and war, if you're basing your whole campaign on hope and prayer, you've already lost.
"Fascism " is doing a lot of work when it comes to calling Trump one. The other side is using projection when it should be looking in a mirror every time they accuse Trump of doing what they do.
If it weren't for double standards, the Left would have no standards at all.
🤜🏻🤛🏻
Sort of interesting for Yuri Makedonov to post about compromise when “my” Senators will never even attempt to not only work with this Administration, they specifically work against it, try to impeach using made up info from a known traitor (Swalwell) and almost never compromise with Republicans in Congress, with Trump in office or not. Lovely “whataboutism” to imply Trump isn’t into compromising when Dems will not no matter what.
Point of order: I don't think Yuri posted that; it sounds to me more like Yuri found it and passed it along.
But that's just my reading; I could be mistaken.
Gotcha. I didn’t read it that way and if not Yuri then whoever. Thank you for the likely explanation.
Gotcha. I didn’t read it that way and if not Yuri then whoever. Thank you for the likely explanation.
"Lawyers, Guns and Money" is one of the greatest songs ever, on so many levels.
One quibble:
"the presidency itself, has been accumulating power for a very long time, starting with JFK"
Started way before that. Some would say as far back as Lincoln. I'd say it really started in earnest with FDR. JFK's primary claim to fame in that respect is in consolidating presidential power in international relations. Domestically, that process was well underway before his time.
Regarding your "friend's" comment...this part was pure gold:
"Trump, and his cronies are actively trying to jail anyone who disagrees with them."
Classic case of projection.
I'm not going to go through the litany of clearly illegal acts taken in an effort to hamstring Trump during his first presidency and then jail him during the Auto-Pen presidency to prevent him from running again. You covered at least some of that in your reply.
The point is: the left clearly, repeatedly and brazenly break the law to stop someone "who disagrees with them", and then has the audacity to try to claim holding those lawbreakers to account are "trying to jail anyone who disagrees with them."
As a rational, thinking, reasonably intelligent human being, the mental gymnastics that the left has to go through to rationalize their clearly insane positions truly causes amazement in me.
How do you rationally argue against positions that are based so much on utterly irrational beliefs?
True. Wilson and FDR were even worse, but I thought even JFK was stretching it for those ignorant of history. I was just trying to contemporize it for the younglings.
It did start under Lincoln; he sent the Federal Army down south to force the southern states back into the Union @ the point of a bayonet. People get hung up over the slavery argument, but Lincoln was clear about that. He stated his unequivocal intent to "preserve the union" ("Stronger Together" anybody?). The Emancipation Proclamation wasn't issued until the latter part of 1862 (after the Battle of Antietam) to simply forestall France & Britain coming into the war on the side of the South. Their economies were heavily dependent on Southern cotton.
Also Lincoln suspended The Writ of Habeus Corpus; that's very dangerous territory right there.
Agreed with all the above. It's really just a question of degree...which President abused their power the worst.
At least Lincoln can be said to have "preserved the union". Whether it was the right thing to do or the constitutional thing to do...I don't think the US would be the powerhouse it is had it ended up two (or more) separate countries due to secession. Of course, the war was completely unnecessary as technology and society were well on the way to eradicating slavery in the western world either way. I think Lincoln believed that as well...to the point that he basically vowed that slavery could continue in the south under his presidency as long as the southern states didn't secede.
They did anyway and the rest is history. That's the reason I don't believe slavery was THE reason the South seceded. Of course it was a big part of it due to the economic consequences, but there were plenty of smart people in the South that could surely read the writing on the wall; and after Lincoln's assurances that it could continue under him, I think the main reason the South seceded is because they felt powerless. Every Southern state voted against Lincoln and he won anyway (of course it doesn't help that the Southern vote was split three ways). They felt that their interests were no longer being represented.
At any rate, I can't argue that his policies usurped power that wasn't his to claim; I still contend that FDR is the grand champion of seizing power he shouldn't have had...but Lincoln undoubtedly set the groundwork that led us here.
"Trump has repeatedly ignored any oversight. From attacking sovereign nations, the takeover of the Kennedy Center, the tearing down of the ballroom, the list goes on and on."
Wow, this is unhinged on several levels, not the least of which is ... the tearing down of the *what*, now?
They're criticizing Trump for "ignoring oversight" by "tearing down the ballroom." Do they mean the ballroom ... that never existed ... that Trump is trying to BUILD ... and is repeatedly judicially blocked from building? Which he then appeals and FOLLOWS THE JUDICIAL OVERSIGHT PROCESS to resume building?
That ballroom?
the hallmark of fascism and narcissism in general, is to accuse others of that which you have done...
When you talk about Presidents consolidating power, i am surprised you did not mention Andrew Jackson. I just read "American Lion" and Jackson was the prototype for Trump 200 years ago.