Seriously? You are going to make an argument like this after what the president himself has said and the way him and Musk are openly attacking the judicial branch.
This executive order says that any court order directing an agency is not valid unless the attorney general or president agrees with it. It’s not about controlling agencies, the president already does, this is about usurping the last check and balance on his power.
It is not the executive’s branch role to say what laws or regulations are valid under our constitution.
I've been seeing posts like this all over hacker news. They appear to be structured like rational arguments but really make no logical sense.
I have no doubt that these people know exactly what they are doing, and are intentionally lying and spreading these "very reasonable" arguments as a blueprint for others to copy.
Their goal is to fluster and confuse the situation.
It may be the case. I also genuinely think some people are not paying attention and think in a vacuum. They fail to see the malice and the words and writings from these people wanting to destroy the function of the government.
The problem with the CEO as president metaphor is that the CEO of a company is functionally a dictator. If the company is private, then there are no checks on the CEO at all.
Calling someone a dictator is an accusation, something every American was taught was wrong in school. Calling someone a CEO is a compliment, something our collective media has taught us to aspire to.
CEO is just a softer word that makes submission easier, or even logical, while it hides the truth of that power structure which is functionally the same for both.
"The CEO metaphor re-frames political rule as a business operation, which makes executive overreach appear logical rather than dangerous."
A large component of the right-wing media campaign for the last, well, all of my life has also been to normalize their actions by accusing The Other Side of doing it first. "Activist judges" was the most notable one.
> The operative portion I see is as follows: “The President and the Attorney General [...] shall provide authoritative interpretations of law for the executive branch" [...] This doesn’t touch the judicial branch in any way.
What? Trump has just asserted that the Judicial Branch's interpretation of federal law--almost its entire job under our US Constitution, and widely understood to include laws authorizing and controlling how government programs work--is entirely void in places where it's mattered for generations.
The correct response to that is: "That's an unprecedented assertion contrary to established principle, and arguably unconstitutional."
Not: "Gee golly willickers, I just can't see why you're all overreacting, it's not like the justices have to obey his interpretation of the law when they do things every day, so it's all fair-n-square!"
> [I]t seems clear to me that the prevailing narrative is both consistent and being constructed in bad faith.
The bad-faith here is your willful blindness, where you construct textual apologetics by dismissing the consequences of what's being said. (Compare: "He only said Big Mickey should wear concrete overshoes and sleep with the fishes, you people are all making bad-faith arguments against someone just trying to give honest lifestyle advice!")
You're misunderstanding the order. It's not saying these interpretations overrule any judicial interpretations. The context you're missing here is that before this order various departments under the executive branch of government interpreted the law in their own, sometimes 'creative' ways. These interpretations are now not only subject to judicial and legislative oversight, but also to executive oversight as well. In reality this was already the case, but this is making it where interpretations will need to be defacto approved beforehand, rather than 'adjusted' after the fact.
If the attorney general says this law says [x] and the judiciary disagrees with an action based on that interpretation, they still have the exact same powers to halt/block said action.
>"but the central point I’m trying to make here isn’t simple whataboutism"
Next sentence:
>"I want to point out that everything that the Left is breathlessly calling fascism has immediate and direct corollaries even in the most recent Democrat administration"
Could have fooled me.
As for your statement; no, you're wrong. Everything was (D)ifferent last admin, Biden didn't go for gutting the SEC's independence when they went for his billionaire right-hand man that's going around gutting other agencies with unchecked power.
This executive order says that any court order directing an agency is not valid unless the attorney general or president agrees with it. It’s not about controlling agencies, the president already does, this is about usurping the last check and balance on his power.
It is not the executive’s branch role to say what laws or regulations are valid under our constitution.
We are walking straight into dictatorship.