https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussi ... ent/977207
I am by nature apolitical. So, I observe current events in government as-if a back & forth football game, in which I have no allegiance to either side.Empowered by President Trump, Mr. Musk is waging a largely unchecked war against the federal bureaucracy — one that has already had far-reaching consequences.
Yet, it recently occurred to me that Trump is trying to return the federal US administration to its Spartan form under William McKinley. Until the Great Depression, and four terms of Franklin Roosevelt, the federal government was mostly limited to representing the federated states to the outside world, including military operations. So it had little to do with the average citizen, and no budget for social programs. That was left to churches and the individual states. Billionaire oligarchs & magnates seem to view themselves as basically self-sufficient independent entities (including tax evasion), so they can be expected to support a McKinley-type administration politically, if not financially.
Since FDR used back-channel federal powers to provide financial aid to individual citizens, and to prop-up failing banks, we have become addicted to a social-support system at the top. But spending federal money on common people instead of military was never intended by the Constitutional conventions, attended mostly by the 2% aristocracy. It was an emergency adaptation that became a feature of liberal government.
Those emergency powers were popular with the masses of common people, so unconstitutional programs like Social Security are almost impossible to terminate long after the emergency has been survived. And they were financially feasible only as long as the US was the top colonial super-power in the world. But now that the US is a debtor nation, the social services are being paid for with borrowed money.
Therefore, although I benefit from social security, I am appalled at Trumpsk heavy-handed axing. Yet, I must admit that something must be done to keep the nation solvent. And perhaps only an elected dictator, and an un-elected henchman, could be expected to mandate such an overhaul of federal finances. FDR's dictatorial policies were allowed only because even the oligarchs could see the hand-writing on the wall, foretelling the total failure of empire unless some "hero" could be found to do what was necessary. Do you see any other route to federal solvency?
William McKinley was the 25th president of the United States, serving from 1897 until his assassination in 1901. A member of the Republican Party, he led a realignment that made Republicans largely dominant in the industrial states and nationwide for decades. ___Wikipedia
