Thanks for this clear and concise overview. Absolutely loved the Demonstrative Athlete analogy, which, as an amateur basketball player, I can confirm has become standard for young kids who think the celebration after the basket is as important as the basket itself. There's plenty of parallels with Trump in that analogy.
What do I think? I think Musk and Trump are threatening characters in and of themselves because in creating chaos they can create confusion and do whatever their grubby lonely hands do when nobody's watching. My biggest concern, and here's where I suspect we'll stand in a few months, is that a real or imagined violent event will trigger some legitimate threat to constitutional order in the name of "national security" and then we've got the fascist playbook playing itself out exactly as it did back in 1930s Germany (see: Reichstag Fire) or 1920s Italy (see: Matteoti Crisis).
But I'm a novelist who tends to believe history repeats itself and so reads history with a view towards the contemporary moment. So I have no idea. But it's nice to read someone who's thoughtful and not name-calling. Thanks for the wisdom.
Samuel--thank you! Appreciate the thoughtful comment. You're certainly not alone in your view of Musk and Trump. It would be hard to deny that they do tend to create chaos (for better or worse).
As far as the threat to the constitutional order, it's hard to say (and hard to say with specificity how that would manifest in practice). I think people would do well to remember not just what happened in Germany and Italy, but in the U.S. at the same time: as significant as the New Deal legislation was, the original proposed version of the National Industrial Recovery Act (I believe--writing based off my memory from law school) would have afforded the executive branch a much more significant grant of what is effectively legislative power than what it eventually ended up with. FDR was certainly not Hitler or Mussolini, but the reaction of the American people to the Great Depression was big enough, and FDR's aim high enough, that even the pared down version of the legislation (which was pared down not because of Congress, but because of the Supreme Court) had a massive impact on our system of government (whether for better or worse is a matter of perspective). It's a question I hope everyone asks whenever they don't like whoever is currently leading the government: do you really dislike how things are happening, or just what is happening?
I remain very bullish on our democracy and the transfer of power, but I remain concerned by--and will continue to write about--the degree of the governing burden that has fallen to, or been given to, the president. It was concerning under Biden, concerning under Trump 1.0, concerning under Obama, and on down the line. Whether Congress does conservative or liberal things, I think the country just works a lot better--and trust in institutions goes higher--when Congress takes a much more clear lead.
Thanks for the wisdom re: FDR and the National Industrial Recovery Act, I wasn't familiar. And I agree that the general shift towards Top-Down governing via the president is concerning regardless of who's at the helm ... it seems to me to be directly correlated to the rise of identitarian consumerism and cult of personality/popularity that tells everyone to become a celebrity / a partner / a CEO / [insert extreme version of will to power]. The more democratic a system, the more democratic a people. What we're seeing now is a challenge to the very belief, to your point about what's happening, that the average voter finds democracy preferable to authoritarianism
Mr. Hagen, we must remember that the constitution is an enabling document. The government has no power that is not specified in it. That is why so many must make up meanings in it. All of the actions by elected leaders from our founding to the present that ignore that sovereignty resides in the individual, not government, are illegitimate. So, along with both Roosevelt's, Truman, Johnson, Nixon, Obama, and Biden, Trump's actions undermine the intention of the Constitution. And I was disappointed way back in the 1980's when Reagan did the same. Take care.
Only Mays and McCovey could hit a Homer with my appreciation.
Well. Steve Garvey. Of course he has his problems, but as a boy I admired his wholesome image. Story time. A few years back, when my boys were grown and married we all met in Las Vegas for a weekend. My wife and me and my two boys and their wives were walking from casino to casino through a mall type thing, you know, and I was walking behind everyone when I spied in the window of a memorabilia store--STEVE GARVEY. I pushed my family aside as I rushed to the window and pressed my nose against it shouting "There's Steve Garvey." My oldest boy, God bless him, took me by the hand into the store and he bought me an autograph ball and we were the only ones there, I could not believe it, so I got to talk to him for a few minutes. We laugh about that often. Boy, that took up a lot of your time!
OK. If the government only took 10% of the product of my life, they could do what they want with it. (I say half joking) Take care.
Incredible! That's a great story. Garvey was actually the first name I was going to guess. Believe it or not, I actually met him too at some point probably 25 years ago, I believe also in a similar, memorabilia-signing context. I wish I could remember the store where that happened, but of all the former MLBers I could have met, funny today that it was him.
Thanks for this clear and concise overview. Absolutely loved the Demonstrative Athlete analogy, which, as an amateur basketball player, I can confirm has become standard for young kids who think the celebration after the basket is as important as the basket itself. There's plenty of parallels with Trump in that analogy.
What do I think? I think Musk and Trump are threatening characters in and of themselves because in creating chaos they can create confusion and do whatever their grubby lonely hands do when nobody's watching. My biggest concern, and here's where I suspect we'll stand in a few months, is that a real or imagined violent event will trigger some legitimate threat to constitutional order in the name of "national security" and then we've got the fascist playbook playing itself out exactly as it did back in 1930s Germany (see: Reichstag Fire) or 1920s Italy (see: Matteoti Crisis).
But I'm a novelist who tends to believe history repeats itself and so reads history with a view towards the contemporary moment. So I have no idea. But it's nice to read someone who's thoughtful and not name-calling. Thanks for the wisdom.
Samuel--thank you! Appreciate the thoughtful comment. You're certainly not alone in your view of Musk and Trump. It would be hard to deny that they do tend to create chaos (for better or worse).
As far as the threat to the constitutional order, it's hard to say (and hard to say with specificity how that would manifest in practice). I think people would do well to remember not just what happened in Germany and Italy, but in the U.S. at the same time: as significant as the New Deal legislation was, the original proposed version of the National Industrial Recovery Act (I believe--writing based off my memory from law school) would have afforded the executive branch a much more significant grant of what is effectively legislative power than what it eventually ended up with. FDR was certainly not Hitler or Mussolini, but the reaction of the American people to the Great Depression was big enough, and FDR's aim high enough, that even the pared down version of the legislation (which was pared down not because of Congress, but because of the Supreme Court) had a massive impact on our system of government (whether for better or worse is a matter of perspective). It's a question I hope everyone asks whenever they don't like whoever is currently leading the government: do you really dislike how things are happening, or just what is happening?
I remain very bullish on our democracy and the transfer of power, but I remain concerned by--and will continue to write about--the degree of the governing burden that has fallen to, or been given to, the president. It was concerning under Biden, concerning under Trump 1.0, concerning under Obama, and on down the line. Whether Congress does conservative or liberal things, I think the country just works a lot better--and trust in institutions goes higher--when Congress takes a much more clear lead.
Thanks for the wisdom re: FDR and the National Industrial Recovery Act, I wasn't familiar. And I agree that the general shift towards Top-Down governing via the president is concerning regardless of who's at the helm ... it seems to me to be directly correlated to the rise of identitarian consumerism and cult of personality/popularity that tells everyone to become a celebrity / a partner / a CEO / [insert extreme version of will to power]. The more democratic a system, the more democratic a people. What we're seeing now is a challenge to the very belief, to your point about what's happening, that the average voter finds democracy preferable to authoritarianism
Interesting point about the rise of identitarian consumerism/celebrity. I’m going to have to think about that a bit.
Mr. Hagen, we must remember that the constitution is an enabling document. The government has no power that is not specified in it. That is why so many must make up meanings in it. All of the actions by elected leaders from our founding to the present that ignore that sovereignty resides in the individual, not government, are illegitimate. So, along with both Roosevelt's, Truman, Johnson, Nixon, Obama, and Biden, Trump's actions undermine the intention of the Constitution. And I was disappointed way back in the 1980's when Reagan did the same. Take care.
Only Mays and McCovey could hit a Homer with my appreciation.
Very interesting—would you have an issue if Congress changed the way we do foreign aid?
Did you have a favorite Dodgers hitter growing up?
Well. Steve Garvey. Of course he has his problems, but as a boy I admired his wholesome image. Story time. A few years back, when my boys were grown and married we all met in Las Vegas for a weekend. My wife and me and my two boys and their wives were walking from casino to casino through a mall type thing, you know, and I was walking behind everyone when I spied in the window of a memorabilia store--STEVE GARVEY. I pushed my family aside as I rushed to the window and pressed my nose against it shouting "There's Steve Garvey." My oldest boy, God bless him, took me by the hand into the store and he bought me an autograph ball and we were the only ones there, I could not believe it, so I got to talk to him for a few minutes. We laugh about that often. Boy, that took up a lot of your time!
OK. If the government only took 10% of the product of my life, they could do what they want with it. (I say half joking) Take care.
Incredible! That's a great story. Garvey was actually the first name I was going to guess. Believe it or not, I actually met him too at some point probably 25 years ago, I believe also in a similar, memorabilia-signing context. I wish I could remember the store where that happened, but of all the former MLBers I could have met, funny today that it was him.