Category Archives: Public Policy and Governance

A Confederacy Of Dunces

As regular readers of this blog know, I rarely address foreign policy issues. Mostly, my reluctance to do comes from prudence; I’m painfully aware that my lack of familiarity with the vagaries of international relations makes it likely that any such observations will be flawed. (Most of my experience and virtually all of my scholarship has focused on domestic policy.)

That said, anyone who reads or listens to the news cannot avoid recognizing the immense damage our idiot President has done to America’s stature in the world. As Simon Rosenberg recently wrote, “Our adversaries have been emboldened by Trump’s idiocy, buffoonery, cowardice, greed and self-sabotage – as they should be. For America is already a shadow of what it was even a year ago, far weaker, isolated, despised, clearly led by a confederacy of dunces and now hurdling towards rapid decline as a global power. Fox News viewers may see a viral strongman when they look at the Trump but the rest of the world sees an imbecilic fool.”

There has long been speculation that Putin “has something” on Trump. Whether or not that’s the case, Trump has long been dependent upon Russian money. Well before our would-be King entered politics, Eric Trump was quoted as saying that the unwillingness of U.S. banks to continue lending to the Trump organization wasn’t a problem, because their funding came primarily from Russia. (Most American banks had been burned by Trump’s multiple financial failures by that time, and had declined further funding.) Trump’s embarrassing, slavish fawning over Putin and other autocrats might simply be another facet of his desperate desire to align himself with “strong” leaders, or it may reflect something more sinister, but the end result is the same–our precipitous decline as a world power.

Trump’s animosity toward Ukraine and his shabby treatment of Zelenskyy has been unforgivable. He has done significant damage to NATO, imperilling not just the United States, but the Western alliance. His “friendship” and support for Israel’s Netanyahu (aka Israel’s Trump, albeit with brains) has allowed that country to commit war crimes with impunity. Destroying USAID and withholding international relief funds has been both inhumane and wildly contrary to American interests. Failing to keep the nation’s promises to battle climate change has added to the conviction that America simply cannot be trusted. And Trump’s frequent praise of autocrats and dictators–coupled with his disparagements of leaders of our democratic allies– has badly damaged the country’s relationships with our traditional partners.

Withdrawing the U.S. from the UN Human Rights Council and from the Open Skies Treaty underlined both America’s diminished concern for human rights and our further lack of reliability.

And of course, firing hundreds of respected experts in foreign affairs and replacing them with clowns and dunces has undermined American effectiveness across the board. His misnamed “America First” policies and actions have actually damaged alliances, alienated partners, and disregarded human rights–consequences that have hardly advanced American interests.

It is unlikely that the MAGA base either knows or cares. Trump’s voters are fixated on culture war issues and the recovery of White male privilege. I doubt that many of them will “connect the dots” between Trump’s insane tariffs and the rising cost of groceries, or recognize the other domestic economic effects of America’s lost international stature.

What struck me about the quote I shared from Simon Rosenberg was his description of America’s current government as “a confederacy of dunces.” There’s a book with that title, but it was funny.

There’s nothing funny about the dunces who are tanking the economy, undermining civic equality, and making America internationally irrelevant.

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A Constitutional Crisis

A few days ago, I participated in an Indiana Lawyer podcast investigating the question “Is America experiencing a Constitutional Crisis?”

Unfortunately, I was paired with Jim Bopp on the recording, which was a test of my ability to keep my cool. Bopp, for those of you who don’t know, was the lawyer who brought us Citizen United, and he’s never met a ‘librul’ who was right about anything. He also apparently resides in an alternate reality, where every lower court judge who’s ruled against Trump is a far-left liberal appointed by a Democrat, Trump’s daily insane Executive Orders are merely an example of the way past Presidents have tried to “push the envelope,” and voting by mail is an invitation to ballot theft…

There was more, but the stiff drink I imbibed when I got home helped.

When I got the call requesting that I participate in the podcast, I was told the questions would revolve around whether the country is currently experiencing a constitutional crisis. I think the answer is yes.

Of course, whether we are currently experiencing such a crisis depends upon your preferred definition. One line of thinking defines a Constitutional Crisis as a situation in which a President defies a clear mandate by the Surpreme Court. I think that is far too restrictive a definition; instead, I would argue that the loss of a fundamental basis of constitutional functioning qualifies–and I think it is beyond argument that we are witnessing such a loss.

America’s constitutional structure is based upon the Separation of Powers. The Founders who crafted the Constitution were greatly influenced by Enlightenment philosophy, especially the philosophy of Baron de Montesquieu, who wrote The Spirit of Laws. Montesquieu argued that, in order for liberty to thrive, government authority must be divided into three distinct branches—legislative, executive, and judicial—each with independent powers and responsibilities. That division, he argued, would prevent the concentration of power leading to autocracy, and would provide a system of checks and balances.

The Founders embraced that structure, expecting that each branch–jealous of its prerogatives–would check excesses attempted by the others. Despite some unfortunate missteps, It has basically worked that way.

Until now.

One after another, Trump’s Executive Orders have claimed authority that the Constitution explicitly gives to the other branches–primarily, Congress. (Interestingly, the Founders conceived of Congress as the “first among equals”–the legislative branch, in their conception, would be the branch exercising the greatest authority.) These attempts would not, in themselves, constitute a constitutional crisis–the crisis comes from the cowardly, arguably treasonous refusal of the Republicans who dominate the legislative branch to assert their constitutional prerogatives. And that crisis has been amplified–shamefully–by the Supreme Court. Despite the valiant efforts of the lower federal courts to constrain Trump, our rogue Supreme Court has used its Shadow Docket to summarily overturn the considered and thoughtful decisions of Judges who–contrary to Jim Bopp’s fond misconceptions–were nominated by Presidents of both parties, and include judges named by Trump. That rogue Court has weakened the rule of law by failing to follow its own precedents and by distorting settled constitutional jurisprudence.

The one observation by Bopp with which I agreed  was his statement that personnel reflects policy. Any reasonable evaluation of the clowns, drunkards, conspiracy theorists and assorted grifters installed by Trump will reflect the utter lack of policy–not to mention competence– that permeates this administration. (Corruption and grifting aren’t policy.)

If we aren’t having a constitutional crisis, I don’t know what one would look like…

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The Scalpel Versus The Blunderbuss

Every day, we see another headline reporting another example of Trump’s continuing–and often random– assault on federal governance and scientific expertise. A recent example, and not even one of the most consequential, was a decision scrapping satellite observations of Earth. Administration officials decided that those satellites “go beyond the essential task of predicting the weather.” In Trumpworld, only weather forecasts warrant government investment — not instruments that monitor climate, and–horrors!– might confirm the reality of climate change.

As the Washington Post reported,

Language in a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration budget calls for preserving funding for the National Weather Service while slashing anything tied to climate change, limiting government investment to “research that is more directly related to the NOAA mission.” It echoed a call in the Republican policy playbook Project 2025 to dismantle climate research, which the report said drives “the climate change alarm industry,” while continuing to improve weather forecasting accuracy.

But scientists said there is no such division between weather and climate — and that losing climate data will actually hurt weather forecasting.

The article explains the fallacy at the root of this particular decision, but it is representative of the incompetence–and increasing insanity– of the entire administration.  It’s just one example of what happens when decisions about governance are dictated by ideology rather than science or evidence. (Then, of course, there are the decisions that simply reflect Trump’s pique and uninformed tantrums…)

I count myself among the many critics who can point to areas of American government clearly requiring reform and reconsideration. But as any rational adult understands–and as the damage inflicted by Elon Musk and his band of DOGE children amply demonstrated– effective reform is considerably different from uninformed destruction.

It’s the difference between the scalpel and the blunderbuss.

Thoughtful reform begins with basic questions: is this activity a proper function of government, or might it better be left to the private sector? If it is something that we should expect government to do, should it be done “in house,” by public servants, or is it something that should be contracted out while being monitored by government? if the latter, does government have the capacity and resources to do that monitoring?

Once we have answered those questions, and decided that–yes, this is an activity that is appropriately governmental–the exercise moves to the next step. What is this activity accomplishing? How well is it performing? If we discontinue or materially change it, what are the likely consequences? Are those consequences acceptable?

Answering such questions requires–at a minimum–an understanding of what the activity entails, the reasons it is being conducted, the reason government is doing it, the identity of businesses and citizens who rely upon it, and the consequences to them and the public of altering or discontinuing it. Once in possession of that information, a cost/benefit analysis can be conducted and a considered decision can be made.

Forgive me for belaboring the obvious, but this process bears absolutely no relationship to the wholesale blunderbuss being taken to our governing structures by the uninformed, incompetent buffoons and cranks who occupy positions of authority in the current administration. As the linked article concludes,

Satellite data might prove impossible to replace once cut off, scientists said.

More than ever, accurate weather prediction depends on climate science, said Riishojgaard, whose center works with government satellite agencies on data algorithms. Meteorology and climate science depend on the same data, and to a large extent, the same computer models, which are informed by a record of satellite data that now goes back nearly 50 years, he said.

“You now cannot do weather prediction without understanding the climate,” Riishojgaard said. “If you ignore the past, it’s like you’re looking out the window in the morning and saying, ‘What’s going to happen?’”

What, indeed?

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FloraDUH Again

Following in RFK, Jr.’s demented footsteps, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo has announced that the state will no longer require any vaccinations. That includes the longstanding requirements that children entering public school classrooms receive inoculations that have long been required to protect themselves and–importantly– their classmates. 

Ladapo also acknowledged that his team had not conducted any studies on the effects of removing state vaccine mandates, because, he claimed, it is an “issue of right and wrong in terms of whether parents should be able to control, have ultimate authority over what happens to their kids’ bodies.”

I will leave it to medical experts (a category that clearly does not include either RFK, Jr. or Ladapo) to explain the likely real-world consequences of this insane decision to reject decades of scientific and medical evidence. But I do want to point to a statement by Ladapo illustrating that his ignorance of the law and constitution are equal–if not superior–to his disdain for history and medical science.

A number of media reports have included Ladapo’s statement that government has no right to dictate to citizens what they should put in their bodies. He actually said “You have sovereignty over your body.”

If your first reaction to that rather astonishing claim was something to the effect of “then how can government force women to give birth? If women have sovereignty over their bodies, abortion bans are clearly illegal” you’d have a lot of company. 

But that incredible hypocrisy isn’t even the worst of it.

If government didn’t have the right to require certain behaviors, including health measures, there would be no reason to appoint Surgeon Generals. The proper question is: when and under what circumstances does government have the right to mandate such behaviors–and the answer to that requires a basic understanding of the underlying libertarian premise of America’s constitution, which does indeed accord sovereignty over an individual’s decisions to that individual until and unless those decisions harm people who have not consented to that harm.

Remember smallpox? As far back as 1777, George Washington faced a smallpox epidemic that was devastating his army, and he ordered the compulsory variolation (the forerunner of vaccinations) of all his troops. Washington’s edict is considered the first mass immunization policy in American history, but it certainly wasn’t the last. In 1813, President James Madison signed “An Act to Encourage Vaccination,” which established the United States Vaccine Agency and allowed free postal delivery of vaccine materials. And in 1905, the Supreme Court affirmed states’ authority to pass and enforce compulsory vaccination laws “for the common welfare” in Jacobson v. Massachusetts. 

The U.S. Constitution allows us to destroy our own bodies by indulging in unhealthy habits, or refusing medical care. It does not allow us to endanger our fellow citizens. Despite the selfish complaints of people who didn’t want to abide by masking rules during the pandemic, our legal system does not permit us to wilfully engage in behaviors that are highly likely to endanger others. The issue is not whether we retain complete authority over our bodies, no matter what the circumstances. That question has been answered–we don’t. The correct question is: under what circumstances can the government require us to take measures that protect other members of the public?

If FloraDUH goes through with this truly insane measure, it is likely to accelerate the state’s already-substantial exodus of educated citizens–an exodus initiated by Governor DeSantis’ assault on higher education. It’s also likely to put a significant dent in the tourism that supports FloriDUH’s economy. (I certainly wouldn’t take children or grandchildren to a Disneyland where they are likely to mingle with unvaccinated Florida natives.)

I can see the tourism slogans now. “Come to Florida, where the sun doesn’t shine on rainbow crosswalks, where our universities are staffed only with instructors who can’t find jobs elsewhere, and where our unvaccinated children infect both other children and medically-vulnerable oldsters.”

FloriDUh–a perfect example of a Red state.

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I’ll Just Leave This Here…

Just in case you haven’t been following the chaos at Health and Human Services–or haven’t recognized the probable effects of placing a demented conspiracy theorist at its head– nine former CDC Directors published a joint op-ed in the New York Times, titled “We Ran The CDC: Kennedy Is Endangering Every American’s Health.”

An excerpt will convey their concerns, which are informed by that hated thing called expertise. (You know that in this administration, it’s disqualifying to actually know what you are talking about..)

Mr. Kennedy has fired thousands of federal health workers and severely weakened programs designed to protect Americans from cancer, heart attacks, strokes, lead poisoning, injury, violence and more. Amid the largest measles outbreak in the United States in a generation, he’s focused on unproven treatments while downplaying vaccines. He canceled investments in promising medical research that will leave us ill prepared for future health emergencies. He replacedexperts on federal health advisory committees with unqualified individuals who share his dangerous and unscientific views. He announced the end of U.S. support for global vaccination programs that protect millions of children and keep Americans safe, citing flawed research and making inaccurate statements. And he championedfederal legislation that will cause millions of people with health insurance through Medicaid to lose their coverage. Firing Dr. Monarez — which led to the resignations of top C.D.C. officials — adds considerable fuel to this raging fire.

We are worried about the wide-ranging impact that all these decisions will have on America’s health security. Residents of rural communities and people with disabilities will have even more limited access to health care. Families with low incomes who rely most heavily on community health clinics and support from state and local health departments will have fewer resources available to them. Children risk losing access to lifesaving vaccines because of the cost.

This is unacceptable, and it should alarm every American, regardless of political leanings.

It is really difficult to get one’s head around the extent of the damage–not to mention havoc– being wrought daily by the proudly ignorant, intellectually-limited and thoroughly repulsive creature who inexplicably occupies the Oval Office. America’s stature in the world has cratered; domestically, we are slipping into fascism; economically we’re heading toward recession; and the cretins Trump has put in charge of our governing agencies are waging war against science, knowledge and expertise. (And history, culture, art and architecture, education…)

It’s not much comfort to recognize that the health of the racist, know-nothing MAGA base will decline with that of the rest of us.

I keep thinking about a meme making the rounds on social media: our best hope is that Trump is getting his medical advice from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

If the online speculation about his health caused by the sudden non-appearance of our publicity-hound President turns out to be accurate, perhaps there’s something to that…

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