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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 17, 2025

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If it will empower a Democrat president, the Democrat president could have just passed a similar order. Not a big deal.

Trump passing this order is contigent on a very specific set of political circumstances-- including supreme court justices he personally appointed and a congress that's been influenced toward his ideology for eight years. Having a four-year gap in between his terms is proving to be a massive advantage in centralizing power. It's likely that if a democratic president (or any other republican president) had tried the same thing, they would have been impeached, or resisted by the courts. But now that pandora's box is opened, every subsequent president gets to benefit from this order.

That kind of reasoning legitimizes literally anything.

Perhaps.

Perhaps people have heard many years of fearmongering about Trump breaking norms while observing his opposition actually break norms "because Trump."

Trumps EO on so called "independent agencies" rests on solid constitutional footing, as the constitution does not contemplate such a thing. Congress, if it is upset with his EO, can repeal the acts creating said agencies OR file suit and petition the courts to declare them unconstitutional (which they very likely are).

Yes, it's called "democracy." Vox populi, vox dei. Or something.

Anything is legitimate if people believe it is.

Given the previous POTUS tried to change the constitution unilaterally, I think America is well past the point where this is a valid objection in practice.

The only question is whether it'll work.

I mean, his username is sulla.