- Very, very bad news…
- Can’t Trump hire and fire who he wants?…
- April 15 is getting close. Before you file, you need to learn about one key loophole in the tax code that can LEGALLY save you thousands in taxes this year.
Dear Reader,
Today, alas, I bear the direst of news.
The United States may soon drop from the ranks of Earth’s democratic nations.
It may plunge instead into the nightmare category of “electoral autocracy.”
This is the claim of Sweden’s University of Gothenburg Varieties of Democracy project, so-called.
This dispassionate referee of democracy, in its own telling:
- Distinguishes between five high-level principles of democracy: electoral, liberal, participatory, deliberative, and egalitarian, and collects data to measure these principles.
The august gentlemen and ladies of the Varieties of Democracy project concede the United States sorts presently into the sainted “Liberal Democracy” file.
Yet owing to Herr Hitler’s election — my apologies, to Mr. Trump’s election — the United States careens towards electoral autocracy.
On the Fast Track to Autocratization
Thus reports the Varieties of Democracy project:
- The scale of what is happening in the US is unprecedented and prompts a closer look at what seems to be the fastest evolving episode of autocratization the USA has been through in modern history…
- President Trump operates openly and acts rapidly to the extent that even cautious analysts… say the regime is now some type of authoritarianism.
- Trump ran an openly authoritarian campaign in 2024, pledging to prosecute his rivals, punish critical media, and deploy the army to repress protests…
- The speed with which American democracy is coming under strain has taken many observers by surprise.
- The expansion of executive power, undermining of Congress’ power of the purse, offensives on independent and counter-veiling institutions and the media, as well as purging and dismantling of state institutions — classic strategies of autocratizers — seem to be in action.
Just so. Yet certain questions spring immediately to mind.
Isn’t It Democracy in Action?
President Trump was elected through legitimate democratic processes, by all accounts.
The American people — collectively — elected the fellow precisely to “drain the swamp.”
Such drainage, naturally, requires the termination of federal employees, the limitation of funding, and at times the firm application of executive muscle.
If the American people democratically voted for it… and the elected president does it… how is it against democracy?
My legal experts inform me that the president has acted — largely at least — within his lawful powers under Section II of the United States Constitution.
Very many agencies of the United States government fall within the executive authority.
They are not manifestations of the legislative or judicial branches.
And so the executive — the president — can boss them as he pleases.
Article II
The president can take executive agency employees aboard as he pleases… or heave them overboard as he pleases.
Thus Article II, Section I of the United States Constitution reads:
“The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.”
Yet the Varieties of Democracy project sobs that the president and his Department of Government Efficiency have:
- Already fired tens of thousands of government employees. Among them are United States Agency for International Development (USAID) officers, effectively closing an agency instituted by a Congressional act. That will have grave and enduring consequences not only for the US, but also for democracy globally since USAID was by far the largest actor in the international democracy support community.
Yet my agents inform me that the United States Agency for International Development often subverted democracy rather than kindle it.
I could cite examples — even examples of a uniquely disturbing aspect.
Yet I am a faithful and loyal subject of the United States government.
As such, I do not wish to bring that same government into contempt, disrespect or ridicule.
Thus I keep the details dark.
I state merely my belief that the United States Agency for International Development’s shuttering is in fact lovely for democracy.
Trump Doesn’t Need Congressional Approval to End USAID
I must correct the Varieties of Democracy project.
It claims the United States Agency for International Development was a congressional creation.
Yet it was not. It was instead the creation of executive order — President John Fitzpatrick Kennedy’s executive order.
If an executive order can sire a thing… why cannot an executive order murder the thing?
And where does the judicial authority derive its power to superintend the executive’s management of its own branch?
I concede it at once: I am not a constitutional authority.
I take words very literally. I believe, for example, that the word “is” means is.
And so the “penumbras and emanations” glowing from the constitutional text are invisible to me.
Thus I am disqualified from service upon the Supreme Court of the United States.
Yet even my constitutional experts side with me. They agree the president — within certain prescribed limits — is king of the executive branch.
Both judicial and legislative branches lack the constitutional imprimatur to superintend him.
If they had it the executive branch would no longer be an independent, equal branch of the United States government.
It would be a subordinate, unequal branch of the United States government.
And such an arrangement would run contrary to the spirit and letter of the United States Constitution.
Hypocrites!
Meantime, the Varieties of Democracy project trembles over Mr. Trump’s assaults upon “the rule of law.”
Yet many Americans voted for the fellow precisely because they believed the rule of law was denied him.
They believed — with some justification — he himself was the unjust victim of “lawfare.”
Learned constitutional scholars, including Democrats who disapproved of Mr. Trump politically, agreed with them.
The Varieties of Democracy project likewise laments the president’s raids upon free speech.
Yet does it not recall the previous administration’s massacres of free speech?
I refer primarily to its vast censorship operations during the plague.
They are very heavily documented.
Yet the Varieties of Democracy project fails to cite them.
The organization files additional torts against the president. Yet you have the flavor of it.
DINO — Democracy in Name Only
The Varieties of Democracy project claims to be heart and soul for “Liberal Democracy.”
Yet I believe it sports a false face.
I believe it is rather heart and soul for “Managerial Democracy.”
That is, heart and soul for the society with democratic flavoring… with cosmetic elections, for example.
Yet the important business of government is to be run by ruling elites — noun, not adjective — who know best.
Thus they believe not in democracy, but bureaucracy.
They in fact abhor democracy. That is because they fear democracy may spill forth a President Trump.
I myself harbor grave reservations about the nature of democracy. I often poke holes in it.
And I am fully for maintaining a watchful eye on President Trump — and on every president.
Yet I am not an organization that professes to cherish democracy… yet inwardly loathes democracy.
Ultimately, the Varieties of Democracy project would have you believe that rule by unelected bureaucracy is democracy itself.
Mr. Orwell would be proud.
Brian Maher
for Freedom Financial News
