Kyle HughesWe are presently living through the worst-case scenario of the administrative state given to a bad actor. It gives me great pause. Is there any way forward without dismantling it?
If hardening our democratic institutions meant becoming a Pocket Constitution person and advocating for the rights of gun ownership, could you do it?
I am really grappling with the administrative state right now. I believed that it was not possible for the American public to elect someone that would actually weaponize it in the way that was often feared. My threat model was wrong.
Was everything it gave us just a phenomenon of being helmed by philosopher kings? Do we have anything if it is not durable?
Democracy has to be first. If delegated power can be turned into a weapon then the complexity that delegation seeks to solve is irrelevant.
Jake Grant@kyle I remember learning that the other branches of government would keep bad behavior in check. But they failed to teach what would happen if those other branches were cool with it.
@jakegrant for what it’s worth, the administrative state does inherently blur those lines and imbue a tremendous level of cross-branch power with the Executive
Kaito* Congress just wants to keep their jobs. They vote away their power so they can shrug and say, "There's nothing we can do!"
* The Supreme Court is more interested in keeping the power of lower courts in check than preserving democracy.
* We made Jimmy Carter sell his peanut farm to avoid a conflict of interest.
🤪
Jose@kyle Some of us were already there before all this started :P
ETA: And *dismantling it* is the goal of the current administration, so saying that's the default is essentially admitting defeat, no?
@j_s_j No, dismantling the administrative state was the goal of the majority of American conservatives pre-MAGA, advocating that this exact scenario could happen (and was in the process of happening to them, so not always right). The current administration pays lip service to that but their actions say they want to maximally leverage the administrative state (see: FCC leaning on ABC). This is exactly what those conservatives, who knows where they are now, were talking about.
@kyle It might be semantics. Whether or not the "administrative state" exists is secondary. So-called conservatives want their modus operandi and if leveraging the state gets them there, that's what matters.
@j_s_j If the FCC didn’t exist and the power went back to Congress there would be no leverage for the Executive, in the example I gave. I think that is fundamentally different.
Another way to phrase what I am saying: if the benefits we got through the FCC required a philosopher king at the helm of our administrative state then maybe we didn’t have anything at all except a phenomenon.
@kyle That "phenomenon" was called the rule of law. Long before 45, but Emoluments really drove it home. Then the impeachments. Aileen Cannon.
Now he has his own cryptocurrency.
So while your point is valid and well received, it's predicated on something that looks like laws and the observance of laws according to the actual definitions of the words in those laws.
It feels rather academic. We're past that.
@kyle We're talking about the power of something moving from the Executive to Congress while the Executive has essentially annexed entire swaths of Congressional authority, to say nothing of the overreach of DOJ.
Matt Massicotte@kyle I see no point
@mattiem which part, for what reason?
@kyle I see no point in making concessions with a group that will not cooperate, to defend a document that has proven to be insufficient
Jamie Blumberg@jamie_blumberg @kyle I think it’s educational that the US constitution is not used as a blueprint for any fledgling democracy (as far as I understand)
@jamie_blumberg @mattiem No offense, but I personally do not wish to entertain the idea of replacing the Constitution at this time.
@kyle @jamie_blumberg While I believe it is effectively non-functional, I do see that you are saying.
@jamie_blumberg @mattiem I don’t want to entertain it because (1) I am advocating for an extreme level of focus on the present and (2) I don’t believe I have the perspective to advocate for dissolving the world’s oldest constitutional democracy.
Personally, I think that would be a mistake in line with what the Lord Ruler did prior to the events of the Mistborn trilogy.
I don’t mean to disparage that viewpoint. I just can’t be part of these conversations.
@kyle @jamie_blumberg Honestly, I find it quite encouraging that people believe the current system is salvageable. I can’t see the future - it’s absolutely possible!
Ralph Waldo Pickle Chips@mattiem @kyle @jamie_blumberg I think the constitution is effectively nonfunctional, and I think it would still be a mistake to try and replace it wholesale. It should be amended so heavily as to be fundamentally different, but an explicit rewrite is unhelpful at best and harmful at worst.
It useful for myth making and nation building—and fundamentally that is what rewriting the constitution would be—to preserve the thread of continuity.
@mattiem Hmm. I am looking at it from the perspective of needing to find the strongest lowest-common-denominator origin story to unite people through that doesn't need new buy-in. The American Revolution × Constitution × Amendments are the best ones we have. If we decide we need to align around a new concept of freedom in this moment, and concede that the Constitution should not be honored, we are cooked. It is a classic progressive stumble to only accept perfection, which is why I asked yes/no.
@mattiem The question wasn’t—do you think this is possible, which we likely disagree on—but would you do it if this is what it would take? Which is purposefully challenging for my audience, I know.
@kyle If I had some kind of assurance that it would make meaningful progress: definitely.
@mattiem Thank you for participating in the thought experiment 🫡
I grew up exclusively in conservative environments and this has always been the hole I have had my eye on that we can thread the needle through. I really believe it, and unfortunately may live to see it tested.
Kirk van Gorkom@kyle I was that person as a young man. While I don’t miss that version of myself, he wasn’t wrong about everything and I could do it again if necessary.
However, electing a functional congress willing to do their job of legislating and thereby re-establish balance of powers seems like a much more tractable solution to executive overreach.
@kvangork How do we eradicate this threat long-term? We have proven that we are willing to hand the administrative state to a bad actor–how do we change our incentives so we never do that again?
Personally, I don't think we can without giving up other liberties. This is now in my threat model.
FWIW, a Congress that can legislate also reduces the need for the administrative state, and that may feed into a flywheel of incentivizing focus on Congressional elections because they have effect.
@kyle pocket constitution copies for everyone will fix it forever! 😉
My theory (wildly implausible) is that having now seen evidence of the potential for administrative state abuses, we’ll dismantle it and choose to accept the tradeoffs of necessarily slower-moving legislative solutions.
@kvangork for whatever it’s worth, that is exactly where I have landed