@house*of*paws wrote:
Hey @stuff4divas
We’ve never been in a situation like this before … not knowing whether the people in charge have any inkling (or concern) about the consequences of their decisions. We can only watch and see … and maybe pray.
@house*of*paws
Here in the USA, every four years, at least half of the US voting-age population worries about what comes next.
This is a relatively new phenomenon, by the way, reflecting the complete breakdown of political consensus on the major existential issues faced by our great nation -- debate over which has been completely reshaped by the proliferation of internet and social media.
The emergence in the USA of a sharply polarized tribal politics -- which is not our tradition -- means that the checks and balances on the executive provided by Congress and the judiciary are all the more critical.
I'm sure you know that the history of the USA is replete with examples of successive elected leaderships -- from both of our main political parties -- acting without any inkling or concern about the consequences of their decisions.
Historically this has been especially true in the realm of US foreign policy, in whose reckless execution millions of people outside our borders have lost their lives... because a few eggheads in Washington DC thought that US could reshape the landscape of this or that foreign territory (choose one) simply by dropping millions of tons of Curtis LeMay stoneware.
In terms of domestic policy, it seems pretty clear that what we are seeing now from the current administration is a pre-planned, well thought out effort to test the boundaries of executive power by throwing as much *hit against the wall as possible and seeing what sticks. (As I noted upthread, USPS is specifically exempt from this "experiment.")
Four days ago, we saw the first serious reaction to this effort by the White House... whose current occupant seeks a SCOTUS ruling on precisely how much power the Constitution does in fact provide the occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Recall that the framers of the Constitution left those pesky details intentionally vague. The reason: the framers imagined that only intelligent, contemplative, and self-aware citizens of the USA would ever be elected President and thus would engage in civilized, patrician debate with the other two branches of government over what was best for the American people.
There have of course been several dozen court challenges to administration actions over the last two months. And the good news -- if you can call it that -- is that thus far, the administration is appealing and / or mostly complying with court rulings that have demanded that it amend or reverse those unilateral actions that it took to dismantle this or that USG bureaucracy.
Ultimately SCOTUS will have to make a determination... which I suspect will be that, as the Constitution ordains, there can be no precise definition of the scope of executive powers, and that lower courts will simply have to adjudicate those matters that do not rise to the level of individual SCOTUS attention.
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