I have no idea whether the observation that follows is in any way original and I advance it with temerity, not being a US citizen, but it is something that has struck me due to a book I am reading on the lead up to the English Civil War.https://www.historytoday.com/archive/review/blood-winter-jonathan-healey-review

It is notable that at the time it was the monarch who ran the government, appointed ministers and took or endorsed the decisions they made. Parliament's job was chiefly concerned with approving taxation. Watching the shocking ease with which Trump is able to turn the USA into an absolute, capricious monarchy, it occurred to me that the basics were perhaps already in place, due to the way the founders set up the President as the head of the government. France did something similar after the French Revolution. It is as if these early Republics moulded the office of President loosely on the monarchs they were intended to replace, with a lot of the same powers, though supposedly better controlled by a Legislature. In England - later Britain - after the Civil War, the power as head of government made a gradual transition away from the monarch and towards the chief minister, who by then was an elected member of Parliament, not really appointed by the monarch (though a fig leaf of monarchical "approval" was retained for the sake of tradition).

In the later republics, notably those brought into being after WW II, they opted instead for a symbolic role for the President as Head of State, while the head of the government was the leader of an elected parliamentary party, as in the UK.

So I wonder if this quasi-monarchical position of the President of the USA (and France) now looks something of an anachronism, mimicking the monarchs of 4 centuries ago to an undue degree.

As an aside, we in Britain are used to being teased about our quaint and old-fashioned monarchy. But actually I now wonder if our system is not more modern than that in the USA! This is a thought that would never have occurred to me until recent events.

Edited August 12Aug 12 by exchemist

2 hours ago, exchemist said:

due to the way the founders set up the President as the head of the government

But they made three co-equal branches. Over time the executive has consolidated power, with the de-facto consent of both congress and the judiciary, which became more pronounced in recent years. It wasn’t set up that way.

2 hours ago, exchemist said:

I have no idea whether the observation that follows is in any way original and I advance it with temerity, not being a US citizen, but it is something that has struck me due to a book I am reading on the lead up to the English Civil War.https://www.historytoday.com/archive/review/blood-winter-jonathan-healey-review

It is notable that at the time it was the monarch who ran the government, appointed ministers and took or endorsed the decisions they made. Parliament's job was chiefly concerned with approving taxation. Watching the shocking ease with which Trump is able to turn the USA into an absolute, capricious monarchy, it occurred to me that the basics were perhaps already in place, due to the way the founders set up the President as the head of the government. France did something similar after the French Revolution. It is as if these early Republics moulded the office of President loosely on the monarchs they were intended to replace, with a lot of the same powers, though supposedly better controlled by a Legislature. In England - later Britain - after the Civil War, the power as head of government made a gradual transition away from the monarch and towards the chief minister, who by then was an elected member of Parliament, not really appointed by the monarch (though a fig leaf of monarchical "approval" was retained for the sake of tradition).

In the later republics, notably those brought into being after WW II, they opted instead for a symbolic role for the President as Head of State, while the head of the government was the leader of an elected parliamentary party, as in the UK.

So I wonder if this quasi-monarchical position of the President of the USA (and France) now looks something of an anachronism, mimicking the monarchs of 4 centuries ago to an undue degree.

As an aside, we in Britain are used to being teased about our quaint and old-fashioned monarchy. But actually I now wonder if our system is not more modern than that in the USA! This is a thought that would never have occurred to me until recent events.

Looks to me as if you are having Oxford Don fireside discussions with your son.

All power to your elbow.

History and comparative history is an interesting subject.

But it is an incredibly vast and complex subject.

So I ask what the focus of this thread is please?

UK, US, or French or German constitutions ?

A couple of comments.

Whilst looking at Trump's antics, perhaps you should also look at Putin's.

The disinformation being fed to the Russian people is classic.

This is also what the Chinese did under Chairman Mao and continue to do today.

One of the interesting facts about the Magns Carta is that there were many copies made and deliberately distributed so that the monarch couldn't keep the only copy and spread disinformation about it.

2 hours ago, swansont said:

But they made three co-equal branches. Over time the executive has consolidated power, with the de-facto consent of both congress and the judiciary, which became more pronounced in recent years. It wasn’t set up that way.

Sure, but they invested tremendous power in one man. He seems able to hire and fire at will, with no reasons given, and to be able to make executive orders without any check. I realise the Legislature technically has to approve appointments to senior positions, so it's arguably their failure that Trump can appoint to the government people with no qualifications or experience. But he can appoint Supreme Court judges, so the Judiciary is not really independent - and the President controls the officers responsible for enforcing court orders.

9 hours ago, exchemist said:

Sure, but they invested tremendous power in one man. He seems able to hire and fire at will, with no reasons given, and to be able to make executive orders without any check. I realise the Legislature technically has to approve appointments to senior positions, so it's arguably their failure that Trump can appoint to the government people with no qualifications or experience. But he can appoint Supreme Court judges, so the Judiciary is not really independent - and the President controls the officers responsible for enforcing court orders.

He actually can’t hire and fire at will, other than some close advisors. A lot of positions require senate confirmation, including SCOTUS justices. Rank-and-file workers don’t work for the president. Most of the firings have come from various administrators and directors, who have ceded their independence and violated their oath to protect and defend the Constitution.

Executive orders don’t carry the weight of law, though people are acting like they do.

IOW a lot of what Trump is doing isn’t the result of legal authority, which is why a lot of court cases have gone against him.

The problem is that a majority of congress and SCOTUS are corrupt and complicit, which is what the founding fathers did not anticipate

1 hour ago, swansont said:

Executive orders don’t carry the weight of law, though people are acting like they do.

IOW a lot of what Trump is doing isn’t the result of legal authority, which is why a lot of court cases have gone against him.

The problem is that a majority of congress and SCOTUS are corrupt and complicit, which is what the founding fathers did not anticipate

Pretty much what I was going to reply. The founders envisioned a much smaller sort of presidency, where partisan coalitions wouldn't be complicit with a wannabe dick tater. Jefferson and Madison in particular advocated a weaker executive, which pitted them against Hamilton, who was the one who wanted the "unitary executive" with a lot of power and having EOs that would carry the force of law. MAGA is Hamilton's federalism gone totally apeshit.

2 hours ago, TheVat said:

Pretty much what I was going to reply. The founders envisioned a much smaller sort of presidency, where partisan coalitions wouldn't be complicit with a wannabe dick tater. Jefferson and Madison in particular advocated a weaker executive, which pitted them against Hamilton, who was the one who wanted the "unitary executive" with a lot of power and having EOs that would carry the force of law. MAGA is Hamilton's federalism gone totally apeshit.

Right.

Some of what Trump is doing is unconstitutional, so you can’t blame the Constitution for it.

Other things are from people violating their oath of office or otherwise abdicating their duty. I think the solution the FFs had to that was to vote them out.

7 hours ago, TheVat said:

Pretty much what I was going to reply. The founders envisioned a much smaller sort of presidency, where partisan coalitions wouldn't be complicit with a wannabe dick tater. Jefferson and Madison in particular advocated a weaker executive, which pitted them against Hamilton, who was the one who wanted the "unitary executive" with a lot of power and having EOs that would carry the force of law. MAGA is Hamilton's federalism gone totally apeshit.

That's very interesting. So there was debate about the degree of presidential power between them at the time.

I take @swansont 's point about the unforeseen complicity of both the Legislature and the top level of the Judiciary (though by no means the Judiciary as a whole). I suppose there's not much that one can do in a constitution to stop the former. The American people voted for the composition of Congress and they voted for, at the very least, running the risk of a dictatorship, despite ample warning from Trump's previous actions that that is what they would get.

But I do think there is an advantage in having senior judicial appointments made, not by the Executive or the Legislature, but by a panel composed largely of their peers. I also think that what has happened in the US reveals the advantage in the British system of having the senior executives in government departments (i.e. ministers in the UK system) being required to report to Parliament to justify their decisions. They have to be members of Parliament to do that. The PM can't just appoint favourite TV personalities to run the government.

But on the flip side the British constitution is not even written down, but has evolved piecemeal by largely unwritten convention. There is in principle little to stop a malevolent Prime Minister from overthrowing the conventions (we had a little taste of that with Bozo).

I guess in the end, whether it is written or not, what ultimately matters is whether the people are sufficiently shocked by departures from the previously understood arrangements to object, in the media, in the streets and at the ballot box. It's the US people that have to wake up and vote, if they care enough about not living in an authoritarian future.

Edited August 13Aug 13 by exchemist

5 hours ago, exchemist said:

It's the US people that have to wake up and vote, if they care enough about not living in an authoritarian future.

Hear hear. And I would only add "fight gerrymandering and voter suppression in their state" to "wake up and vote." So it's a matter of awakening also to what happens in state legislatures - something Americans are notably poor at. Voter turnout for state elections is often abysmal. Which is ironic, given that state legislators are much closer to and more accessible to their constituents. And it's worthwhile for voters to know that federal Constitutional amendments are ratified by state legislators.

6 hours ago, exchemist said:

American people voted for the composition of Congress and they voted for, at the very least, running the risk of a dictatorship, despite ample warning from Trump's previous actions that that is what they would get.

For some of the MAGA base, dictatorship isn't a bug it's a feature. They embrace the old adage, you want to cook an omelette you gotta break eggs.

Edited August 13Aug 13 by TheVat
Bznifke

One problem is that gerrymandering isn’t the only tactic being used. They also put barriers in place to registering and voting. “Just vote” is harder when they take away early voting days, make the lines long and put polling places in inconvenient locations in areas where the opposition is in higher numbers. e.g. eliminating or restricting mail-in ballots, or removing polling places from campuses and disallowing use of student IDs for voter ID depresses the votes of college students, who tend to vote for democrats.

If it took an hour or less to go vote more people could vote. But make it a three- or four-hour chunk of your day and that’s different. Not everyone can do that.

17 hours ago, swansont said:

He actually can’t hire and fire at will, other than some close advisors. A lot of positions require senate confirmation, including SCOTUS justices. Rank-and-file workers don’t work for the president. Most of the firings have come from various administrators and directors, who have ceded their independence and violated their oath to protect and defend the Constitution.

From what I understand the role is mostly outlined in the Appointments Clause (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appointments_Clause) where there is a distinction between "Principal Officers of the United states" which includes SCOTUS, public ministers, ambassadors etc., which require senate confirmation, and "inferior officers" which typically are appointed by principal officers. The latter can be appointed within the executive branch and under presidential authority.

Also from what I understand, under the duty of faithful execution of the law (which is freaking ironic in this presidency) the President has the authority to remove any officials without congress, except when there is a law stating otherwise. So that makes independence of agencies in the US really shaky.

In Canada, our 'Head of State' is a Monarch from another country, through a representative, the GG, in ours.
As is the British Monarchy, the office is purely symbolic and serves mainly to rubber stamp Parliamentary decisions.
But it seems to work pretty well.

I suspect there will be increased emphasis on gerrymandering and voter suppression during the next year.
If D Trump loses the support of a majority of sycophants in the House and Senate after the mid-terms, his powers will be greatly curtailed.

He will essentially be a 'lame duck', and it can't come soon enough.

3 hours ago, CharonY said:

From what I understand the role is mostly outlined in the Appointments Clause (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appointments_Clause) where there is a distinction between "Principal Officers of the United states" which includes SCOTUS, public ministers, ambassadors etc., which require senate confirmation, and "inferior officers" which typically are appointed by principal officers. The latter can be appointed within the executive branch and under presidential authority.

Also from what I understand, under the duty of faithful execution of the law (which is freaking ironic in this presidency) the President has the authority to remove any officials without congress, except when there is a law stating otherwise. So that makes independence of agencies in the US really shaky.

“Congress may by law invest the appointment of "inferior" officers to the President alone, or to courts of law or heads of departments.”

So there has to be a law that congress has created allowing the president to do this. One might assume that any appointments previously had been done in accordance with the law, so if the president didn't hire them, then s/he can’t fire them.

i.e. if congress has not invested the power in the president, the president does not have that power.

(until SCOTUS again rules that this means the president can do whatever he wants)

Democracy is a transitional state to dictatorship.

And dictatorship is a transitional state to democracy.

Between them, you have transitional states called civil war.

Thank you for your attention!

ps. Now figure out which state each country is in.

ps2. As long as there were no weapons of mass destruction, it somehow worked.. but now it's complete chaos..

2 hours ago, swansont said:

So there has to be a law that congress has created allowing the president to do this. One might assume that any appointments previously had been done in accordance with the law, so if the president didn't hire them, then s/he can’t fire them.

So the way it was explained to me is that if congress passes a law to establish an agency to be put under the president, they would have implicit power to appoint inferior officers. However, this provision does not establish how firing is done and in fact SCOTUS has established in the past that even if they did not hire them, they are able to fire them. It was originally interpreted very broadly until a SCOTUS ruling (Humphreys executor) has limited it. It involved a member of the FTC and it was decided that it was not an arm of the executive and the President cannot fire them.

Apparently there was also a later attempt at reconciling the power of removal via a slew of SCOTUS decisions but we ran low on coffee and time, and the summary was that congress would need to protect positions explicitly. And I think power was further diminished recently (I think it was Sailor Law or something, cannot recall).

3 minutes ago, CharonY said:

So the way it was explained to me is that if congress passes a law to establish an agency to be put under the president, they would have implicit power to appoint inferior officers. However, this provision does not establish how firing is done and in fact SCOTUS has established in the past that even if they did not hire them, they are able to fire them. It was originally interpreted very broadly until a SCOTUS ruling (Humphreys executor) has limited it. It involved a member of the FTC and it was decided that it was not an arm of the executive and the President cannot fire them.

Apparently there was also a later attempt at reconciling the power of removal via a slew of SCOTUS decisions but we ran low on coffee and time, and the summary was that congress would need to protect positions explicitly. And I think power was further diminished recently (I think it was Sailor Law or something, cannot recall).

But these are high-level positions - upper-level management - not rank-and-file employees or even lower management.

But it’s moot, since the people who do have authority are carrying out Trump’s wishes anyway.

11 minutes ago, swansont said:

But these are high-level positions - upper-level management - not rank-and-file employees or even lower management.

But it’s moot, since the people who do have authority are carrying out Trump’s wishes anyway.

So I think this is where the distinction between inferior and principal officers come in. The former can be removed when certain minimal conditions are met.

In the absence of specific legislative provision to the contrary, the President may at his discretion remove an inferior officer whose term is limited by statute, or one appointed with the consent of the Senate.

However, Seila Law (not Sailor... I had to look it up, oops) is even more explicit, concluding that the power of removal is unrestricted with only two exceptions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seila_Law_LLC_v._Consumer_Financial_Protection_Bureau

But essentially this was used to fire the Inspector Generals.

But you are right, if all the various checks are off the very limited restrictions to the presidency are gone.

Seila is another affirmation of Federalism and the unitary executive. And the guy who got that stupid ball rolling is the much lionized Hamilton. And the guy who shot him seems to have been smeared by popular history, in spite of his progressive views some quite ahead of their time. Burr defended immigrant rights, the equality of women, and the limitation of executive power, as well as setting high standards for conduct in the Senate and crafting the procedures of impeachment. If he'd fired his dueling pistol into a tree and mustered a bit more charm, he would probably have gotten the hit Broadway musical.

43 minutes ago, CharonY said:

So I think this is where the distinction between inferior and principal officers come in. The former can be removed when certain minimal conditions are met.

But the bulk of federal employees are not officers of any sort. Hired (competitive) rather than appointed.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Officer_of_the_United_States

an officer is

“a position to which is delegated by legal authority a portion of the sovereign power of the federal government and that is 'continuing' in a federal office subject to the Constitution's Appointment Clause. A person who would hold such a position must be properly made an 'officer of the United States' by being appointed pursuant to the procedures specified in the Appointments Clause.”

I think it boils down to this: if Trump replaced someone, they’re an officer. If they were simply fired (DOGE or other actions) they aren’t

16 hours ago, swansont said:

But the bulk of federal employees are not officers of any sort. Hired (competitive) rather than appointed.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Officer_of_the_United_States

an officer is

“a position to which is delegated by legal authority a portion of the sovereign power of the federal government and that is 'continuing' in a federal office subject to the Constitution's Appointment Clause. A person who would hold such a position must be properly made an 'officer of the United States' by being appointed pursuant to the procedures specified in the Appointments Clause.”

I think it boils down to this: if Trump replaced someone, they’re an officer. If they were simply fired (DOGE or other actions) they aren’t

Oh I see what you mean. I was focusing more on the higher positions, but obviously the it would be fairly simple to remove the remaining staff and/or or replace those with hiring authority. But as already mentioned there has been a confluence of decisions, including congress basically giving up their power of the purse as well as rubber-stamping appointees, which makes these details rater superfluous. The fact of the matter is that it turns out that it is rather simple to violate the spirit of the constitution by using the magic power of not caring (and stacking SCOTUS).

21 hours ago, swansont said:

“Congress may by law invest the appointment of "inferior" officers to the President alone, or to courts of law or heads of departments.”

So there has to be a law that congress has created allowing the president to do this. One might assume that any appointments previously had been done in accordance with the law, so if the president didn't hire them, then s/he can’t fire them.

i.e. if congress has not invested the power in the president, the president does not have that power.

(until SCOTUS again rules that this means the president can do whatever he wants)

What then would be Trump's authority for firing the head of the bureau of labour statistics, as he just has because he didn't like the numbers?

So after Seila Law, it seems that there are really only two limits:

Specifically, the Court held that Article II of the Constitution gives the president the power to remove principal officers at will except for two exceptions recognized under case law.^[11][12] The first exception was based on Humphrey's Executor v. United States.^[11] Roberts narrowly construed Humphrey's Executor^[13] to stand for the proposition that the president's removal power may be constrained by Congress if the officer in question was a member of an agency that shared the same characteristics as the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in 1935.^[11] In Humphrey's, the FTC was described as "exercis[ing] no part of the executive power" and as "an administrative body ... that perform[ed] ... specified duties as a legislative or as a judicial aid".^[11] Because the CFPB was dissimilar from that description, the Court held that the exception did not apply.^[14]

The second exception to the president's at-will removal power came from Morrison v. Olson which held that Congress could constrain the president's removal power over "inferior officers with limited duties and no policymaking" role.^[11] Because the CFPB director was not an inferior officer, the Court held that this exception did not apply.^[14]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seila_Law_LLC_v._Consumer_Financial_Protection_Bureau

From there I suspect that head of the bureau of labour statistics would not fall under these exceptions.

1 hour ago, exchemist said:

What then would be Trump's authority for firing the head of the bureau of labour statistics, as he just has because he didn't like the numbers?

Dept of Labor is in the executive branch. Trump’s pick has to be confirmed by the senate, but is this in doubt? (even as a few senators express concern and one possibly votes against)

13 minutes ago, swansont said:

Dept of Labor is in the executive branch. Trump’s pick has to be confirmed by the senate, but is this in doubt? (even as a few senators express concern and one possibly votes against)

No my question is what authority Trump has for firing the existing incumbent. Can the president just do that, if he feels like it?

As mentioned above, yes. SCOTUS basically declared (Seila Law vs CFBP) that there are only two limits to the powers of the President to fire folks. Based on the criteria they lay out, firing her was entirely legal.