- Joined
- Aug 18, 2009
- Messages
- 48,419
- Reaction score
- 23,969
He fired more IGs than anyone else. But the authority to fire IGs is a lawful authority. Exercising lawful authority isn't a rejection of independent agencies or checks and balances. If the office has the authority to do something then doing it isn't an end run around checks and balances.
Frustration at bureaucracy isn't a uniquely Republican, Democrat, left wing or right wing issue.
A POTUS cannot consolidate power that has not been granted to him. The failure of prior administrations to centralize their authority is not an indictment of the present administration when they do.
Imagine that I give my secretary the authority to buy office supplies without financial limit and she usually keeps the spending under $300. Then one day she spends $30,000 on office supplies. Has she violated her duties and responsibilities as my secretary? Or did I fuck up by not putting a spending cap in place.
What Trump has done, via the right wing intelligentsia, is find all of the power Congress has granted the POTUS over the last 100 years and actually started using it. I don't agree with how he's using it but Congress is the one who gave it to him. He's pushing the boundaries and lawsuits get filed when he pushes too far.
But most of the current public gripe is about how he's using the power. It's coupled with a desire to label his usage illegitimate because we don't agree with it but there have been very few instances where he has outright exercised power Congress didn't give the office itself.
