There are some minimal expectations that the American people ought to have for how the federal government should be run that the Trump Administration isn't living up to:
* Appoint political appointees whom, however partisan they may be, have a basic level of competence in the area for which they are appointed and who don't want to actively undermine the laws that they are charged with faithfully executing.
* Don't appoint people to political appointments without doing a background check to determine if they have good character, and don't appoint them if there are serious concerns about their character or competence.
* Don't violate the law in the course of governing, even if it may be hard for someone to vindicate your violation of the law in court.
* Don't threaten illegal or improper conduct, whether or not you actually carry out the threats.
* Don't tolerate conflicts of interest, corruption, emoluments, insider trading, or illegal or improper conduct by people in your administration, or your political allies. Do not attempt to profit personally from public office.
* Don't abdicate overall decision-making authority at the top level to anyone other than legitimately U.S. Senate approved political appointees.
* Don't issue Executive Orders that are contrary to settled law.
* Don't impound Congressionally appropriated funds.
* Don't look for loopholes by which you can violate people's constitutional rights.
* Use Congressional legislation rather than Executive Orders to implement policies that the President doesn't have the authority to impose unilaterally.
* Don't use Executive Orders to circumvent the requirements of notice and hearing and judicial review of proposed regulations under the Administrative Procedure Act.
* Have lawyers with considerable professional independence vet your proposed Executive Orders for legality, authority, constitutionality, and the Administrative Procedure Act, before issuing those Executive Orders and honor the advice you are given on those issues.
* Do not violate collective bargaining agreements with unions of federal government employees.
* Do not exercise executive branch authority arbitrarily or without considering it on a case by case basis. Consider the consequences of your actions before acting.
* Do not micromanage decisions that are made by civil servants.
* Don't threaten to conquer territory in the sovereign control of other countries just because you want that territory. This is the war crime of aggression.
* Respect treaties to which the U.S. is a party until such time as it lawfully withdraws from those treaties.
* Don't use the federal government as a tool for personal revenge against people you have disagreed with, or who have been involved in litigation with you in the past.
* Don't put recently convicted felons in positions of trust in our government.
* Don't put people who have led insurrections against the U.S. government in public office.
* Don't lie to the American people or use lies to advance your policy agenda, and do not tolerate this conduct in your subordinates.
* Obey court orders and legal obligations in litigation.
* Don't threaten or vilify the press for doing its job or expressing opinions different from you own, although you may civilly point out disagreements over the factual accuracy of particular reports.
* Confer with your own appointees and advisors at length, take their input seriously, and come up with a plan that thinks a move or two ahead, before impulsively taking action.
* Don't lightly abandon long term, bipartisan alliances.
* Don't deny or censor scientific facts.
* Admit when you have made mistakes and remedy your mistakes.
* Admit that you have made misstatements of fact when you have done so and correct your inaccurate past statements.
* Dress appropriately for funerals.
* Speak in complete sentences with structured thoughts.
* If you are the President or another public official, don't make posts on social media without vetting them with you advisors and make them in a tone that appropriate for the dignity of the office.
* Give the public fair warning of your intended policy changes whenever possible.
* Don't purge civil servants and military officers for lack of personal loyalty to you.
* Don't try to circumvent laws related to government contracting so long as they remain on the books.
* Don't pardon people or commute their sentences, merely because they are your political allies.
* Don't try to intimidate judges, or law firms that are just doing their jobs, or media outlets, or colleges and universities.
None of this says that you can't advance a policy that your political party agrees with while the opposite disagrees with, through regular legislative and regulatory channels, and respectable means. But the expectations above should be points of universal consensus.
2 comments:
Sigh... not downplaying the current shitstorm, which iritiates the stuffing out of me. But what if you believe that the other party (your enemy as they have revealed via their clear actions) has spent the last 50 years cleverly engineering the processes of the government to be interlocking and inter supporting? How do you undo 50 years of clever, intentional, machination? With a sledge hammer of course.
#1 You do it with Congress, which has more authority than you do to make big changes.
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