Halls of Shrewd'm / US Policy❤
No. of Recommendations: 12
Another of Trump’s campaign aides, who supposedly spoke to the president on a daily basis, wrote in an email: “When our research and campaign legal team can’t back up any of the claims made by our Elite Strike Force Legal Team, you can see why we’re 0-32 on our cases. I’ll obviously hustle to help on all fronts, but it’s tough to own any of this when it’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.”
Here is what I don’t understand: Why was this person willing to “hustle” and “help on all fronts” when he/she understood it was all “conspiracy shit”?
It’s nice that a couple people resigned from the Trump administration after January 6. But why weren’t there resignations before January 6 from people on the inside, who saw that he was trying to overturn a lawful election?
Why were so many of those people happy to “hustle” and “help” with what they knew to be an illegitimate attempt to subvert the democratic process?
The answer, of course, is that “guardrails” aren’t inanimate, incorruptible pieces of machinery.
Guardrails are just people. People who need jobs. Who have kids and mortgages, friend groups and professional networks.
One of the things we never really considered before Trump was the extent to which being a guardrail would require sacrifice. We would say, “Oh, there are checks and balances and the guardrails will keep him from doing anything too terrible.”
But we didn’t really play that scenario all the way through, did we?
No. of Recommendations: 3
But we didn’t really play that scenario all the way through, did we?
One of the disturbing things from Trump & Co's assault on government and democracy is just how much depends on "norms". We are disturbingly vulnerable there.
No. of Recommendations: 4
One of the disturbing things from Trump & Co's assault on government and democracy is just how much depends on "norms". We are disturbingly vulnerable there.
We’ve relied on the idea that our government was staffed, by in large, by honorable people.
And in those instances when someone acted in a dishonorable fashion, there were enough honorable people around to act as guardrails.
“I’ll always pick the best people!” he said.
Well, we saw what that got us.
When loyalty to a person becomes the prime criterion for hiring…. that’s exactly what you get.
Government service has been so demonized that we shouldn’t be surprised when only the demons apply for the job.
No. of Recommendations: 4
Government service has been so demonized that we shouldn’t be surprised when only the demons apply for the job.
Republicans are constantly telling us that government doesn't work. Then every time they get into power they do their best to make sure it continues to not work.
--Peter
No. of Recommendations: 2
When loyalty to a person becomes the prime criterion for hiring…. that’s exactly what you get.
Yes, but I was surprised at the people already in place too. I was mostly surprised that there wasn't more of a rigid structure where the person "had to do this", instead it was just a norm that could be dispensed with at will and no repercussions. It made me wonder - I think there's more norms than I can think of in the government. I hadn't really thought too much about how the government ran on norms and that someone like Trump could change a lot with no repercussions because it isn't illegal or against the regs. All those memorandums can have no force behind them. Now it's writ large. I don't know how much of the guard rails depends on that, and I think it's more than I can think of.
