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Have you ever worked in or alongside the U.S. Federal Government? I have. It's pretty easy to pin all these unprincipled actions/inactions on deliberate lies and manipulation in service of power grabs. As several replies to you suggest, the reality is likely a lot less scurrilous. There are very few truly principled people in Government. By this, I mean people willing to make big changes to hew to some "objectively right" principle even if it raises perceived risk, or causes any sort of new economic harm to some group, regardless of how short-term any of these may be[^]. On the other hand, if there is ongoing harm to some group, that doesn't typically generate enough support for change until you hit some inflection point in the zeitgeist, like what led to the "justice reforms" passed in the last administration. Big changes that cause any kind of harm or perceived harm to a group need overwhelming levels of support, especially in political circles, to overcome the media seeding and political grandstanding that exact an inevitable toll. Obama was a profound disappointment to anyone hoping for any kind of structural reforms out of him, but the fantasy-driven ferociousness of the political headwinds he faced in office shouldn't be ignored. He was damned if he did or didn't. Imagine you're in Obama's shoes and some Serious Intel Community Leader swears in classified briefings that if you undo any of what they're currently doing, there's high risk of "the next 9/11". Do you make a principled stand about the sanctity of the 4th Amendment despite their near-assurances that "Americans will likely be harmed on your watch if you do"? Probably not, because in the moment, you feel the ends are so overwhelming they justify the means. In the current Republican-leaning political environment, you don't want to risk feeding the claims that "by weakening the Intelligence Community, Democrats undermined America's safety, as they always do!". It's easy to talk about principles until you have to pay the costs of being true to them. [^] If you counterargue this using radical Trump administration actions, most of them cannot be categorized as "principled" or without ultimately fatal-to-the-administration consequences. |