[mattgibson]

This looks horribly like failing to understand Chesterton's fence https://thoughtbot.com/blog/chestertons-fence

The agencies were democratically put in place for a reason. Removing them with no public discussion of the original reasoning is deeply undemocratic. At the very least, someone thought that the cost of having them in place was less than the cost to society of not having them there. Has that changed?

[steveoscaro]

Didn't a democracy vote in the people that are saying they want to remove some agencies? Isn't that also how the agencies came to be in the first place?

[gwurk]

You are right, but america use a two party system, there were only two options, and those options differed in many ways, it is difficult to say if "removing some agencies" was what the people that voted wanted, or if they just preferred that candidate despite them wanting to remove some agencies.

[bitshiftfaced]

You can apply this same argument to when the agencies were created in the first place.

[d35007]

This is a pretty weak argument. Blaming the two-party system might feel good, but I don't think it gives us a better understanding of what happened in this election. People voted for the guy at the top of the ticket, and he was pretty clear about wanting to get rid of some federal agencies. I think we have to conclude that people were receptive to his message.

My hot take is that the two-party system isn't anywhere near as bad as people think it is. In countries with multi-party systems, parties often have to form coalitions in order to govern. In countries with two-party systems, parties have to do most of that coalition forming before the election. That's why we see far-left and center-left politicians in the Democratic party instead of having viable left wing parties.

One way or another, we get a coalition government. Is it better for those coalitions to be formed before the election or after? If it happens before the election, the electorate can see the results in time to change their decision. If it happens after the election, the fringe parties' arguments probably get discussed more, but there's no guarantee those parties will be part of the governing coalition.

[gwurk]

you are right in it being a weak argument in this situation, and I'll refrain from arguing against a two party system in this comment.

What I should have said, is that as an outsider: I see lots of interviews with people who state that they are going to vote for trump (at time of interview), and they all seem to pick and choose from the things that trump says, some they take at face value, and others they consider to be just "the way he talk", campaign speech, or something along those lines.

Now, I don't know, maybe the majority of the people that voted for him actually want to dismantle institutions, maybe they don't and just saw it as an exaggerated way of saying that there should be some cutbacks. I don't know, I just don't think that it is an obvious conclusion from the result.

[ivewonyoung]

Doesn't happen on the other side as well? Did people make such arguments over the last 4 years?

[blackeyeblitzar]

> In countries with multi-party systems, parties often have to form coalitions in order to govern. In countries with two-party systems, parties have to do most of that coalition forming before the election.

Exactly. This is really obvious but no one seems to acknowledge it. I even think the coalition dynamic can become a huge distraction from governance on its own. Could we think of tweaks to the process to make things better? Sure. But a wholesale rethink or uncritical mimicry is unlikely to produce something better.

[Arnt]

Democracy isn't as simple as that. When you get 49.9% of the vote and can form a government, that isn't carte blanche to do anything and everything. A long-lived democracy depends on governments that take care not to offend the voters who voted against.

Angela Merkel was great at that — even when she had a majority anyway, she'd take care to act in such a fashion that ~half of the opposition voters approved.

[some_random]

Maybe I wasn't paying close enough attention but deleting agencies was not something I saw discussed at all prior to the election.

[dpkonofa]

For what it's worth, it was part of Project 2025 - something one of the candidates claimed to know nothing about...

[some_random]

I'm sorry but Project 2025 still strikes me as fanfiction

[dpkonofa]

What part of it makes it fanfiction to you? Multiple authors of the document are now in cabinet positions in the new administration.

[consteval]

Not sure how you can maintain this belief when you're acknowledging the destruction of agencies in accordance to Project 2025.

[kccoder]

Also hard to ignore him nominating several of the authors of, and people involved in, p2025 to his cabinet.

A lot of people who weren't paying attention are going to be saying "I didn't know", "How could've I known", "Why didn't anyone tell me", in the coming months and years.

It's unfortunate so many will suffer at the hands of the disengaged and the misinformed / poorly informed voters of this country.

I'd like to think they'll pay attention after this, but I thought the same thing last time around.

[mostlysimilar]

You're right, you weren't paying close enough attention.

[red-iron-pine]

they're literally talking about deleting agencies, which was explictly mentioned in the plan.

several of the authors have already received / been earmarked for appointments.

if someone says "i'm going to blow up a building", and then starts buying a ton of dynamite, it's pretty reasonable to assume they're gonna blow up that building.

[piva00]

What do you mean? There are people who wrote parts of Project 2025 who will be in the next government, or do you think the Heritage Foundation has no ties to the future Trump government at all?

[ryandvm]

"I never thought leopards would eat MY face"

[letmevoteplease]

The Republican Party Platform says: "We are going to close the Department of Education in Washington, D.C. and send it back to the States, where it belongs, and let the States run our educational system as it should be run."

https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/2024-republican-pa...

Trump also mentioned it frequently in his speeches: " 'I say it all the time, I’m dying to get back to do this. We will ultimately eliminate the federal Department of Education,' he said in September during a rally in Wisconsin. "

https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/20/politics/department-of-educat...

[tzs]

That platform has some puzzling things in it, like saying that if they win the White House and majorities in Congress they will quickly "Fight for and protect Social Security and Medicare with no cuts, including no changes to the retirement age".

That's puzzling because every time in the past few years that anyone in Congress has tried to take up addressing the projected insolvency of the Social Security trust fund in ~2033 Republicans have rejected any approach other than raising the retirement age.

[piva00]

As a non-American I didn't see it in public discussion in US's media but it was very clearly outlined on Project 2025 when I read it.

[mattgibson]

Democracy isn't just blind voting. The votes mean nothing if people don't know what the candidates stand for. Manifestos outlining intent and reasoning are part of the process but so is explaining what a policy is intended to achieve as it is being enacted. Without knowing the intended outcome, how can people judge whether it succeeded or not and whether to vote for this candidate again next time?

[igetspam]

No. Nobody voted for a non government agency, run by Musk and Ramaswamy, to be part of the decision making process for the government.

[krapp]

Yes, a democracy voted for authoritarianism. That is one of the risks of a democratic system.

[cherry_tree]

Assuming you’re genuinely asking, this is a tweet from Vivek Ramaswamy who was not on any ballot this election, but was since appointed to a position that the elected candidate Donald Trump created as part of a net new agency he plans to create during his presidency.

“Deleting entire agencies” was not part of Donald trumps campaign afaict, his platform page is still live: https://www.donaldjtrump.com/platform

[kamaal]

>>The agencies were democratically put in place for a reason.

>>Has that changed?

'that' 'reason' for any government is to ensure its own survival till eternity. Though eternity might not be possible. Its really more on the lines that governments exist to ensure their own survival, and the survival of their interests. Its often a misunderstanding that Government work for the people, they just work for themselves. To that extent, unless the government is going down due to this very reason, Im guessing it doesn't make any sense to chop departments whole sale this way.

Another factor is budgets just don't work the way these people imagine, its not that budgets would reduce or that they would return some money back to the treasury. These sort of actions just mean that budgeting just goes on as is, the money that now is saved will be used up by the other departments. Im guessing the armed forces.

[SideburnsOfDoom]

> This looks horribly like failing to understand Chesterton's fence

I think they know very well that the fences of democracy are in their way. That's why they want to dismantle the guardrails.

[mistrial9]

keyword search "spoils system"

[9999px]

"Democratically"

[xenospn]

These people don’t want to understand anything. They also don’t want to change anything. They just want the appearance of a steamroller so they can raise more money. Rinse and repeat.

[pavel_lishin]

Which people are you referring to?

[xenospn]

Fairly obvious, no?

[trolleski]

I believe that the agencies have lost the trust of the people. This is what happens under bad and corrupt leadership, e.g. forever wars based on a lie, a person with dementia at the top, a candidate for President with no primaries.

The danger in this situation is that the DOGE will dismantle the safety mechanisms of the state, some of which depend on the state inertia, i.e. it's much harder to execute a coup when there are 4 agencies with overlapping duties.

Time will tell, but it is an end of something for sure IMHO.

[hkpack]

The trust is attacked by the same people who about to reap the benefit of the lost of it.

[trolleski]

I think they are using the already existing potential, you can cause some effects, sure, but not of this magnitude. No one is ever held responsible, even after truly astonishing and costly failures. At the same time there's that alienating gibberish coming from the other side. It's a natural reaction to reject it, only amplified by opportunistic actors. But hell, we might be looking at the fall of the Republic and the rise of an Empire, perhaps with a Civil War in between, not sure what to make of it yet.