Call It What it is, a Silent Coup

Why am I getting the feeling this exercise in taking over is more serious than Watergate?

A series of partial commentaries on the seizure of power by Musk with a rather sedate President Trump looking at Musk’s son in the Oval Office. What a change of events from Biden who was called too old to be the president to Donald Trump who is also of a similar age, sitting there, and letting Musk run the nation. Is he drugged or has he experienced a seizure?

BY no stretch of the imagination is Vance capable of taking over . . . which leaves Musk. I believe it is time to revoke his citizenship and deport him to South Africa.

A series of pieces by the Washington Post, The American Bar, Associated Press, and Civil Discourse by Joyce Vance. All of whom find the silence, deafening.

Why DOGE is unconstitutional? Washington Post, Alan Charles Raul

President Donald Trump, his appointees, acting officials and quasi-official outsiders are in the midst of a radical restructuring or termination of government employees, agencies and programs. Whether this is in all, many or some regards desirable is debatable. Also debatable is whether the 49.8 percent of the electorate who elected Trump want all of this, and whether the 50.2 percent who voted for Kamala Harris or a third-party candidate want any of it.

What is not debatable, however, is that Congress has not authorized this radical overhaul, and the protocols of the Constitution do not permit statutorily mandated agencies and programs to be transformed — or reorganized out of existence — without congressional authorization.

The Constitution is well known to interpose meaningful checks and balances and a separation of powers among the responsibilities of the executive, legislative and judicial branches. It is also well understood that the respective branches’ powers and duties intersect and overlap. Fundamentally, however, all legislative power belongs to Congress, and executive power to the president. The judiciary steps in when the parameters of shared authority get complicated or confusing and constitutional lines are crossed.

The radical reorganization now underway is not just footfaulting over procedural lines; it is shattering the fundamental checks and balances of our constitutional order. The DOGE process, if that is what it is, mocks two basic tenets of our government: that we are a nation of laws, not men, and that it is Congress which controls spending and passes legislation. The president must faithfully execute Congress’s laws and manage the executive agencies consistent with the Constitution and lawmakers’ appropriations — not by any divine right or absolute power.

The American Bar Association. The ABA supports the rule of law, William R. Bay

It has been three weeks since Inauguration Day. Most Americans recognize that newly elected leaders bring change. That is expected. But most Americans also expect that changes will take place in accordance with the rule of law and in an orderly manner that respects the lives of affected individuals and the work they have been asked to perform.  

Instead, we see wide-scale affronts to the rule of law itself, such as attacks on constitutionally protected birthright citizenship, the dismantling of USAID and the attempts to criminalize those who support lawful programs to eliminate bias and enhance diversity.

We have seen attempts at wholesale dismantling of departments and entities created by Congress without seeking the required congressional approval to change the law. There are efforts to dismiss employees with little regard for the law and protections they merit, and social media announcements that disparage and appear to be motivated by a desire to inflame without any stated factual basis. This is chaotic. It may appeal to a few. But it is wrong. And most Americans recognize it is wrong. It is also contrary to the rule of law. 

The American Bar Association supports the rule of law. That means holding governments, including our own, accountable under law. We stand for a legal process that is orderly and fair. We have consistently urged the administrations of both parties to adhere to the rule of law. We stand in that familiar place again today. And we do not stand alone. Our courts stand for the rule of law as well.

Associated Press, Natasha Bertrand

“Today we were informed by the White House that if AP did not align its editorial standards with President Donald Trump’s executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, AP would be barred from accessing an event in the Oval Office.“

“This afternoon AP’s reporter was blocked from attending an executive order signing.” www.ap.org/the-definiti…

Call It What it is, Civil Discourse, Joyce Vance

A week ago, I wrote a piece here called “Is It Really a Coup?” My answer, based on the evidence in front of us, was yes. Since then, life has gone on and DOGE has mostly gone on (despite what they seem to view as the inconvenience of a few temporary restraining orders), committed to nothing less than the radical transformation of government by a small band of unelected, quasi-official people, who are operating outside of government transparency rules. It has all the characteristics of a non-military transformation of a democratic government into something entirely different.

In a statement that made me proud to be a lawyer yet again, the American Bar Association (ABA) all but called it a coup, but without actually using that word: “No American can be proud of a govt that carries out change in this way. Neither can these actions be rationalized by discussion of past grievances or appeals to efficiency. Everything can be more efficient, but adherence to the rule of law is paramount.”

This morning in the Washington Post, Alan Charles Raul wrote an excellent piece on DOGE. Mr. Raul served as the associate White House Counsel under President Ronald Reagan and went on to serve as general counsel of the Office of Management and Budget under Reagan and President George H.W. Bush. He is a lecturer at Harvard Law School. Not exactly a liberal.

In his piece, titled, Why DOGE is unconstitutional, he writes, “What is not debatable, however, is that Congress has not authorized this radical overhaul, and the protocols of the Constitution do not permit statutorily mandated agencies and programs to be transformed — or reorganized out of existence — without congressional authorization.”

It’s such a polite way of saying it’s a coup without saying it.

Maybe now that the Reagan Republican guys have shown up, we can all agree we are living through the quietest of coups. If we don’t start calling it what it is and putting a stop to it, it stands a fair chance of succeeding. The lawyers are hard at work, but that will not be enough alone. They are holding the ground until the public catches up. It would be nice if Congress and the Supreme Court did their jobs too. But for starters, let’s call the coup a coup—while we still can.

Lest you think that’s hyperbolic, yesterday, the Associated Press reported that they “were informed by the White House that if AP did not align its editorial standards with President Donald Trump’s executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, AP would be barred from accessing an event in the Oval Office.“ Later in the day, they were refused access. It’s a clear and also an extremely petty, violation of the First Amendment, which prevents the government from imposing prior restraints on anyone’s speech, let alone the press.

Apparently, it’s easy to ignore such a ridiculous moment, and most people seem to have. But this is a form of Newspeak, the Orwellian construct of language that a government insists people use in order to narrow people’s range of thought. Sure, it was only over what we call the Gulf of Mexico, but this was not trivial buffoonery; it was a significant moment, a testing of the waters to see if this new White House could get away with stepping on the First Amendment without causing a furor.

Raul started his piece by questioning whether “the 49.8 percent of the electorate who elected Trump want all of this, and whether the 50.2 percent who voted for Kamala Harris or a third-party candidate want any of it.” My question is, who voted for a coup? And if we didn’t, why are we staying silent (or being excessively polite about it) now?

It’s a good sign that people are beginning to describe what’s happening in the language of a coup, even if they are doing everything but calling it one. But we can’t stop there, afraid to call it a coup, as though using the word itself is somehow a bridge too far, too frightening. Hiding from a problem doesn’t make it any better.

We’re in this together,

Joyce