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Varn Vlog
Abandon all hope ye who subscribe here. Varn Vlog is the pod of C. Derick Varn. We combine the conversation on philosophy, political economy, art, history, culture, anthropology, and geopolitics from a left-wing and culturally informed perspective. We approach the world from a historical lens with an eye for hard truths and structural analysis.
Varn Vlog
Constitutional Crossroads: Examining Trump's Impact on American Democracy with Elijah Emery
What if the very pillars of American democracy are being shaken right before our eyes? Join me and our insightful guest, Elijah Emery, a law student with a keen eye for constitutional intricacies, as we explore the Trump administration's contentious policy decisions that challenge the core principles of U.S. constitutional law. We start with the audacious attempt to eliminate birthright citizenship, which stands in stark opposition to the 14th Amendment and established Supreme Court rulings.
The episode explores the constitutional implications of Trump's recent executive actions, focusing on birthright citizenship, impoundment issues, and the firing of civil servants. With concerns rising about a possible constitutional crisis, the discussion emphasizes the need for vigilance among citizens to uphold democratic norms.
• Exploring Trump's executive order on birthright citizenship
• Analyzing the constitutional challenges of impoundment
• Discussing firings of civil officials and their implications
• The role of the judiciary in maintaining constitutional integrity
• Reflections on historical parallels to previous political crises
• Concerns over labor rights and the impact of executive policies
• The importance of civic engagement in safeguarding democracy
As we move through the tumultuous landscape of executive power, we examine how the reliance on executive orders has reshaped U.S. politics since World War II. From DACA to marijuana legalization, the dynamic interplay between state and federal laws reveals a government grappling with its constitutional limits. Elijah and I scrutinize the Supreme Court's pivotal role in this arena, pondering whether ideological leanings sway judicial decisions. The conversation touches on potential executive overreach and the evolving balance of power, painting a picture of a nation at a constitutional crossroads.
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Hello and welcome to VAR blog. I'm here with Elijah Emery and we're doing a special. The reason why it's a special is anything I record that touches on any specifics Of Donald J Trump, the current president of the United States, or Doge Base, or whatever the fuck weird cabinet position. That's not a cabinet position that exists today. It's going to be out of date in a month, um, so maybe even sooner than that. Um, and I want to start this out saying a.
C. Derick Varn :I know this is dangerously close to punditry and we don't like to do that here, but we are going to talk about the constitutionality of at least three Trump major movements to.
C. Derick Varn :I want to do a mea culpa in that I said that Project 2025 was so incoherent that it was unlikely that anyone would actually take on most of it. While there are large elements of Project 2025 that no one seems to be really willing to do, like trying to return us to the gold standard, there's a lot more of it being done than I initially thought. And three, there's stuff that's being suggested or done that no one saw wasn't even in project 2025. And as just as weird although for this leads me to the fact that I think no matter how this plays out and elijah may disagree with me on this we're going to be in a political crisis because the democrats and the republicans and the quote deep state are the administrative state apparatus, despite knowing that all this was possible for up to two years, seem to be completely flat-footed, even though it's doing. It is doing the thing that we were told would be done, which is a blitz.
Elijah Emery :I'm going to say on the record that I agree with that and that I do not disagree with that at all. So we were talking. Thank you for having me. I'm Elijah. In case listeners don't remember me, I came on back in the day to talk about Lash mostly. I've since gone to law school and I'm a law student, which gives me no qualification. And yet here I am.
C. Derick Varn :Does anyone have any qualification for what's happening right now, since so much of it's never happened before?
Elijah Emery :Yeah, I mean that's a great point and certainly I'm more qualified, I think, to talk about these things than the 19 and 20-year-old staffers Elon has hired. To fire everyone in the federal government. To fire everyone in the federal government. So I think me and Warren were talking off air, that there's really three central issues which we want to touch on, or which I want to touch on, the first being the Trump executive order purporting to eliminate birthright citizenship. The second being the impoundment crisis, whereby the Trump administration has refused to utilize duly allocated funds appropriated by Congress and provide them to the programs that have been outlined by Congress. Last is the host of firings of civil officials, perhaps most notably one of the NLRB representatives, which seems to go against current constitutional protections for individuals within the administrative state.
C. Derick Varn :Go ahead. No, so go ahead. No, you go ahead. Well, I mean, to me, birthright citizenship is easy. It's an amendment. It's clear as day what the amendment means. It can be reversed, but it would require an amendment.
Elijah Emery :Yeah, and then it's also backed by one, kim Alararc, and other Supreme Court presidents. One thing which I think is useful to outline here and this is very simple is that at the time of the passage of the 14th Amendment, there were three groups who were exempted from birthright citizenship, two of which are still exempted and one of which no longer is. The first was members of Native American nations, who were not under the jurisdiction, at the time of the 14th Amendment, of the federal government. They now are. So if you're born on a Native American reservation, you're a citizen. The second are the children of diplomatic officials, and they remain exempt from American jurisdiction, so their children are not birthright citizens if both of the parents are diplomatic officials with diplomatic immunity. And then finally and this hasn't been tested children born to members of an invading army on US soil, which also has not been been tested but remains on the books.
Elijah Emery :And I think, one thing which I will stress about this for any listeners who are under the impression that illegal immigrants are not subject to American jurisdiction they very much are. If an illegal immigrant commits a crime, they will be tried in the American court system or have the ability to be tried in the American court system, and that's what jurisdiction means. And then also, I think what's worth emphasizing is that the amendment relates not to the parents but to the children. What matters is, you know, not. It's not a question of the rights of the parents to have their child be an American citizen. It's a question of the right of whatever child is born under American jurisdiction, on American soil, to have citizenship rights under the federal constitution. So this, I think, is the most blatantly unconstitutional order pursued so far by the Trump administration.
C. Derick Varn :And although, ironically, it's also the thing that Trump has pursued before, whereas the other things that we're talking about are new. Yeah, thing that Trump has pursued before, whereas the other things that we're talking about are new. Well, not entirely new. There was a little bit of attempts at impoundment at the end of the last Trump administration and he got told no by the courts, although right now we see JD Vance seemingly wanting to start a constitutional crisis, saying that the courts can't tell the president no about what is a legitimate authority, and my quote leftist unquote friends tell me that a legitimate authority is decided by quote the people, unquote, which I reminded them that, technically, then, that is the legislature, because the legislature is the legal voice of the people.
Elijah Emery :What I will say about that, to add to that, is that the representative of the people in the American context, under Republican with a small r theories, is the Constitution, because it was directly ratified by the American people in the when it was first written in the 1780s, and then subsequent amendment, is also representative of the people and more representative of the people than any immediately elected president or immediately elected legislature. And under that constitutional order, appropriations are given to the Congress. All bills of revenue, all tax and spending bills, must originate in the House of Representatives, which was originally understood to be the most democratic body within the federal government. And you're completely right that the people are supreme under the theory of the American system, and this may be distinct from practice, but under that theory their first articulation of their power, of their sovereignty, is the Constitution itself and then their second are their elected representatives. And in this case the Constitution is very clear that taxing and spending authority comes from the legislature and not from the executive.
C. Derick Varn :You can make the case.
C. Derick Varn :I think that also, at least the framers and we can talk about how much that does or does not matter particularly now thought that the legislature, even though it was only one of the branches of government and had checks and balances against it in a quasi-aristocratic way, even that specifically the executive, just like in Europe in the parliamentary system, was originally thought of as an extension of the legislature, since it was elected indirectly and had to deal with all kinds of fun stuff.
C. Derick Varn :And that has been addressed by either constitutional amendment and or local rule changes to elections. Because in the United States, while we're going to talk about the Constitution a lot today, I want people to know I know it's in the Constitution, so it means I'm not dumb enough to be a constitutional absolutist. But so don't come at me about that. There's some of this stuff I'm telling you because I want you guys to understand what the laws are, not because they necessarily believe that this is the best way to run the system, but that the executive, for example, in the parliamentary system, its existence was a historical accident. Walpole wasn't even like he's the first prime minister, but there is no like formal constitutional provision in England, which also doesn't really have a formal constitution.
Elijah Emery :There's no written constitution in England, as you're saying.
C. Derick Varn :Yeah right, the the constitution is is in in in England is traditional and England is traditional. Maybe it's hard to say exactly what it would be.
Elijah Emery :We don't have an equivalent to it in US law, but it doesn't really exist, is my point. And what of it exists does establish that the who were very much sovereign and still may theoretically be under English law is that they did not have the authority to originate taxes, that that came from Parliament.
C. Derick Varn :And that is an understanding of the are state-based um, which means it requires either what is it Like? 70% of the legislature roughly, to agree to amend the constitution are but two thirds of the States.
Elijah Emery :Yeah, Um, yeah yeah. The the article, yeah, the article five amendment process I want to make sure the numbers are correct is that there's a two-thirds vote of both houses of Congress or a two-thirds convention, two-thirds of the states calling for a convention, and then three quarters of state legislatures or state conventions must support the amendment in order to make it part of the law.
C. Derick Varn :So it's an extremely high barrier, which is one reason why executive fiat is insufficient to to overturn the constitutional structure now I'm going to play devil's advocate here, which no one should like, but I actually know neo-confederate arguments well enough to to tell you.
C. Derick Varn :The argument against this um is that the 13th and 14th from now and I'm also going to say trump has not made this argument before people come at me um, but the 13th and 14th amendment, in particular as a civil war amendment, since and I'm also going to say Trump has not made this argument before people come at me but the 13th and 14th Amendment, in particular as a Civil War amendment, since the southern states were not sitting, are invalid because they were passed at a time when the southern states could not vote.
C. Derick Varn :Now, they're not going to mention the fact that they couldn't vote because they had tried to leave the union and were under reconstruction government. Um, uh, but that that's the. That is the Neo Confederate argument for getting rid of the 13th and 14th amendment. Now I will also say getting rid of the 13th and 14th amendment has a lot more ramifications than you even think. It would remove the bill of rights applicability to state law. Um, for those of you who don't know, it's the 13th and 14th amendment that means that the bill of rights actually applies to state governments.
Elijah Emery :Before the civil war, state governments could violate the bill of rights and it was legal um, yeah, though I will say that this was modified by the slaughterhouse cases in the late 1800s, which kind of ruled against incorporation on those lines. Incorporation meaning the incorporation of, uh, federal protections to state governments. Um, and then we're we're gradually read back in, using different readings of the 14th amendment. So it's, that's completely true. Uh, I just wanted to complicate the story a little bit so that, um, listeners get the, get the full picture.
C. Derick Varn :Yeah, Uh, I was about I I should have mentioned the slaughterhouse cases, because they that's a Supreme court ruling, that is like clearly, I feel like I know it's, I know it's technically still good law.
Elijah Emery :Yeah, but incidentially I think totally invalid.
C. Derick Varn :But it's terrible because it literally like we undid the clear reading of the law, but also in a way that doesn't even make sense, because it doesn't completely undo it, because, for example, states, even after the slaughterhouse cases couldn't restrict your freedom of speech, which they could actually before the civil war. Um, but yes, there's all kinds of modifications and I will say, uh and this is something that you may or may not agree with me on I will say we're learning some of the difficulties of over relying on the courts to settle social questions and of the legislature which has been abnegating its own responsibility, not just now, which it also clearly is, but also basically has been doing that since World War II.
Elijah Emery :Yeah, I mean, I would complicate that a little bit, because I think that the legislature has, at various times since World War II, been more or less reliable in a category of fields. So, for example, I think that the Great Society legislature was very reliable in passing domestic policy. But it used to be, for example, that when the appropriations for the national security apparatus came up, it was Senate custom to turn the sheet of paper over so that they couldn't see what they were appropriating money for and then vote in favor of it, and I think that's a clear abdication of their responsibilities too. These responsibilities one of them remained for most of the post-World War II period have clearly been less and less potent when Congress doesn't work. It barely scrapes together an appropriations bill every year and has generally proved unable or unwilling to make the type of large-scale reforms necessary for the maintenance of the republic, frankly, which has also been more and more reliant on the executive to set policy.
C. Derick Varn :Right, we can see from FDR to Reagan and from Reagan to George W Bush and from George W Bush to Trump, won, and I see these in broad swaths here, admittedly, but there is an increase of the use of executive orders, starting with in world war ii and amping up more and more until nixon, and then amping up a ton under reagan, and then amping up a ton again under george w bush, and then amping up even more frankly under obama. Um, I mean, donka was an executive order, for example right and I was.
C. Derick Varn :I I made a very unpopular argument back in the day when daca was on the thing, that I actually thought that donka was the right policy but that it was unconstitutional. So, uh and uh, the supreme court kind of agreed with me, kind of so daca was sort of uh, it was upheld, but it was um.
Elijah Emery :an equivalent uh policy for the parents was not upheld and the Supreme Court instead basically asked the government to utilize prosecutorial discretion rather than the wholesale granting of green cards.
C. Derick Varn :essentially, One thing I will say is Obama's, where prosecutorial discretion really became a bigger and bigger issue, and not just on on daca, also on federal weed laws, because for whatever reason, they didn't want to try to run a marijuana legalization through to get the states in line with the federal government. So instead you've had this now Obama through Biden and through Trump. I mean I don't see this changing.
Elijah Emery :But Patchwork system whereby there's a reliance on the federal government abstaining from certain constitutional responsibilities it has. However, unwise, those responsibilities are as a means of maintaining a status quo rather than changing the law, when that's the most reasonable course of action.
C. Derick Varn :So I just wanted to give this a context, because I don't think what we're talking about applies to the birthright citizens. I agree with you. I think it's not just that. The amendment is clear, stare decisis is clear and, quite frankly, I'm not usually willing to predict what supreme court justices are going to do. But the only two justices that I would predict that would even pretend to agree with trump's argument on this would be, ironically, the two conservatives he didn't appoint, alito and Thomas Thomas, who actively and proudly do not have a jurisprudential theory anymore. Thomas has given his up now that Scalia is dead and there's no more originalism, and Alito just actually flaunts the fact that he doesn't have a constitutional jurisprudence.
Elijah Emery :I will say that I believe it was Sotomayor it might have been Kagan who said we're all originalists now when originalism dominates the understanding of the Constitution. But it doesn't result necessarily in just conservative policy if you do it correctly in just conservative policy if you do it correctly. For example, on birthright citizenship, an originalist understanding of the 14th Amendment could only be read to guarantee birthright citizenship to every person born under US jurisdiction within the United States. There's no originalist argument for Donald Trump's executive order. No states. There's no originalist argument for Donald Trump's executive order, and I agree with you that. I think it's almost inconceivable for the court to rule in favor of it.
C. Derick Varn :So let me expand upon the wackadoo theory that they may try to use to argue this. That they may try to use to argue this they're going to use War on Terror-level Patriot Act provisions to declare all immigrants from South America an invading army and then try to use that provision to ban. Now here's the issue. I still don't see how it would be pertinent, because you can't declare there's there's still under american jurisdiction.
Elijah Emery :You can declare an invasion, but if it's not an occupying force, it it doesn't matter. They could be invaders, uh, I don't think they are, uh, but they could be understood to be an invading force, but they're not an occupying force and therefore the exemptions to the 14th Amendment do not apply. So I'm agreeing with you. It's a total. That's the theory they're going to use and it's completely insane and any person with any understanding of how the law works and any shred of decency would rule against that theory if it was advocated in the federal court.
C. Derick Varn :Now, I'm not going to predict how willing the Supreme Court is to stand up to Donald Trump, but I will say that even before he went into office, he took two losses from the Supreme Court, before he even was sitting this second administration, before he even was sitting this second administration. And, interestingly enough, despite what liberals said, his own appointees are more likely to deviate than the other conservatives on his mess. Well, I shouldn't say not just his. I guess Gorsuch is not him, but Gorsuch Gorsuch was him. Okay, gorsuch Amy Coney, barrett and Kavanaugh and, to a lesser degree, roberts. Roberts is easier to predict because you can say is it going to cause a problem for his theory of conservative action being slow? But I do find it hilarious right now watching conservatives on twitter picking jd vance up and talking about judicial activists when they're talking about judges that the conservatives appointed. I mean the bible is down.
Elijah Emery :Birthright citizenship was a reagan appointee, you know like, are not. These are not liberal people. Okay, these are not activists. Liberal judges? Uh, they're. They're following their, their constitutional duty.
Elijah Emery :And the birthright citizenship case, uh, and an impoundment. And in firing to say this is illegal, um, in, in terms of, uh, impoundment, uh, I. I think it is also unlikely that the Supreme Court would bless impoundment in the way it's currently being utilized, example being that I just don't see it being constitutional under any theory to, for example, eliminate USAID, which is a congressionally established department, basically, and I imagine that, when push comes to shove, the judiciary will rule in favor of maintaining it in some form. On the other hand, I don't know if they'll move fast enough to prevent the damage from being done. And this is, I, virtue of the vesting clause of Article Two, which relates to the executive, vests all executive power in the position of the executive and grants them broad latitude to conduct themselves basically as they see fit within the ambit of the executive department. This does not include impoundment, because this is a responsibility to execute the laws that Congress has passed, but, taken to its logical conclusion, it would place very few limitations on firing executive officials Under the current understanding of the Constitution, there are some constraints on firing.
Elijah Emery :So the two basic precedents which govern protections for civil officials from being fired good cause protections are these decisions called Murphy and another decision called Humphrey's Executor, and what they establish is a situation whereby a purely political appointee can be fired at will. An appointee who is a member of a multi-member nonpartisan board an example being the NLRB should not be fired at will, has to be fired for malfeasance of duty or corruption or you know things that would get one fired Were they an ordinary employee, basically in a non-at-will position. And then, finally, for semi-legislative and semi-judicial appointees. So an example of this would be, for example, appointees. So an example of this would be, for example, a chief administrative judge. Possibly there's the same protection, where you are allowed to have protections for these employees to prevent them from being fired immediately fired immediately.
Elijah Emery :And something that the Trump administration is doing is seeking to pose a moment of judicial clash with these decisions, with the hope of overturning them, and I think it's not unlikely that these decisions could be further cabined than they are, meaning the limitations on them could be made stronger, but under current law, it's very, very obvious that a whole host of these firings are completely unconstitutional. It should be added to that that the firing of ordinary civil service workers is also, for most of them, unconstitutional because they're employees and as employees they're considered to have the ability to have insulation from the political you know, the political firing, basically so that they can carry out their jobs the same same same way an ordinary employee could.
C. Derick Varn :Although just just I'm agreeing with you here that I could easily see this being constitutionally reinterpreted away, whereas the other two things impoundment, because it has to do with the disbursement of funds as allocated by congress is clearly a violation of separative powers um, something that conservatives used to give a shit about, um and uh, birthright citizenship is clearly a violation of a goddamn amendment um, and, but my one of my favorite ones personally.
Elijah Emery :uh like, two of the best things about the Constitution are strong freedom of speech protections and the fact that I think it's it's, it's. You know, the Constitution has a host of problems, but it's great and we should keep it that if you're born here, under US law, you're a citizen and you get to help decide the future of this country. You know this is like one of the best things the American Republic ever did, so it's. It really sucks that they're going after this rather than something stupid that's in the Constitution.
C. Derick Varn :One of the things I think this leads us to, though we've hinted at what my theory you know my theory of what is happening and some of my theory, I'm actually gonna admit, sounds a little bit like Christopher Codwell the uber reactionary, but I want to spell it out.
C. Derick Varn :Because of the social conflicts in the legislature in the 1960s, we have in general seen not I'm going to say it has not been linearly so, but we have in general scene an acceleration of Congress abrogating its traditional powers to other parts of the government, either to the executive or to the administrative state directly, which puts us in a precarious situation, which means highly contentious social conflict, gay marriage most of the Civil Rights Act was thus removed from the legislature where there was progress being made on these issues until the middle 60s to the Supreme Court and in general, liberals and even some leftists I had a Marxist friend of mine in Germany make this argument that the most progressive elements of the US state was the courts, which then has led liberals not really to worry that much until very recently, not really to worry that much until very recently about over relying on court precedent for this, for establishing US law.
C. Derick Varn :Now there are a lot of leftists, who point out that this basically made this vision of constitutional review does mean that SCOTUS has near dictatorial powers over the law, so long as the legislature listens to them.
C. Derick Varn :Right which, unfortunately for us, the Democrats, decided that precedent was worth, I don't know having someone come in and undo all the precedent later, thus not really trying to do anything about the courts. Legally, they could have passed, uh, reforms. I'm not sure the reforms would have passed unless they were constitutional, but uh, which would require them to, you know, get along with the gop on something well I mean, I I think a good example of this is the contrast between gay marriage and abortion.
Elijah Emery :Uh, both, you know, as of five years ago, so no longer true both gay marriage and abortion were guaranteed by the courts. And on the issue of gay marriage, uh, after Roe v Wade was overturned in the Dobbs decision, the bipartisan coalition uh passed a law maintaining gay marriage as a right in you know kind of a cabin form, where it's more about the recognition of state marriage licenses by other states, but it's the. It's an example of a stronger statutory protection which doubles up with a still existing Supreme Court precedent to show that you're not putting all of your eggs in one basket. Whereas with abortion, this was not a possibility, or was not a choice if it was a possibility on the part of Congress and, as a result, abortion rights were eliminated in one fell swoop by a majority of the Supreme Court. And it's one reason why it's a bad idea to count on courts alone to guarantee constitutional or so-called constitutional rights when there's a debate over the extent of those rights.
C. Derick Varn :Right. One thing we'll see with abortion rights is that they still exist, which makes them sort of a catchy thing electorally, because they still exist in the places that really care about them for Democrats, because they still exist in the places that really care about them for Democrats, and that was a Democratic advantage until this last go-around. Thank you inflation and Biden's general incompetence in the last year. But I want to spell out some of what this may mean. One thing that is happening very quickly Elon Musk is becoming one of the most unpopular people on the planet incredibly quickly. He is way more unpopular than Trump. Part of me wonders if that's part of why Trump is letting this happen so that the blame can go on Elon later. But that is pure punditry and we should be careful about such things. I do not know the mind of Donald Trump, and I don't think anyone else does either.
Elijah Emery :Whenever he's signing these executive orders, he's signing an order to prosecute the Hamburglar and force Andrew Led Weber to make a new musical, and then, wouldn't you know it, in his hand, these executive orders turn into an order for an invasion of Greenland.
C. Derick Varn :Who could say?
C. Derick Varn :Yeah, it's, he's an incomprehensible figure um, um, yeah, it's, it's being he's, he's an incomprehensible figure, um, but we have seen, and I want to talk about the three reasons at play here. So, one, this is the part that I agree with chris ricadro, but for the for almost the opposite reason, the social contestation around getting civil rights issues through the legislature got higher and higher into the 1960s. We relied on the courts. We've already talked about why that was not a great idea, um, and this became the dominant mode of liberal activism until the middle of the obama administration, and I do want to point that out. Um and what. It is not that, despite the fact that democrats have controlled the presidency a good deal of the 20th century, that is not why, um, the supreme court was was primarily liberal. In the past, it was harder to gauge the actual political alignment of uh, justice period is a perfect example of this right right um, yeah, I, I mean there were, there was definitely more
Elijah Emery :andrew connor's another one, like another one. Yeah, uh, kennedy is another one, um, where it's a complicated story, because kennedy retained uh kind of a libertarian bent when it came to economics, but also a genuine libertarian bent when it came to social issues. For example, he was the deciding factor in a Birchfield v Hodges of an individual of justice who could shift over the course of their tenure and often wound up shifting to a more civil, libertarian perspective as a result because of social change and alterations in the world around them. And then I think also it's worth mentioning that most of the really ambitious civil rights decisions came out of the Warren court and immediately after, after a period of pretty strong democratic control of the presidency, gradually became less activist but still had this underlying bent, especially because of the recency of the precedents upholding liberal interpretations of what rights were guaranteed under the Constitution.
C. Derick Varn :So I'm going to tell you another controversial opinion that I have. So I'm going to tell you another controversial opinion that I have and this brings us to the Dobbs case. But now we're talking about law. I have always thought that Roe v Wade, even as modified by Casey, frankly the right it protected was worth protecting, but the legal grounds on which it protected it was frankly dumb. I completely agree. Like the idea of an implied right to privacy off leading to an implied right to bodily autonomy off of gender discrimination, as opposed to just arguing for bodily autonomy, off of gender discrimination as opposed to just arguing for bodily autonomy um was kind of nutty as a way to get that law. Now for many, many years, uh, I would talk to like my liberal lawyer friends and even some left-wing lawyer friends and they would quietly agree with me, but they would never say it out loud Like, yeah, it won't be hard to really take apart Roe v Wade because it's a weirdly argued law and stare decisis on that is basically the only thing that's holding it together.
Elijah Emery :For those of you who don't know, stare decisis is just it's precedent In the Dobbs decision. Their stare decisis analysis was awful. They said that there was no reliance interest on the decision because there was nobody currently, at the moment that the decision was overturned really having an abortion and so because you weren't going to immediately stop people mid-abortion. Therefore, there was no reliance and trust, which is ludicrous but does not fundamentally alter the thing you're talking about, which is that the decision was pretty poorly argued, and I would distinguish that from something like the gay marriage decision or Bostock, which extends discrimination protections to transgender and non-binary employees, which are premised on an equal protection argument. Basically, if it would be permitted for a man and a woman to marry each other and then you're having two men or two women do it instead, that's sex discrimination because if the genders were reversed on either party, it would be legal. So this is a much more straightforward argument and it's one reason I think it's a stronger precedent and less likely to be struck down. So, knowing this court, quite possible, go ahead.
C. Derick Varn :Well, yeah, this is one of the things I was going to ask you, though. I mean, it seems to me like we just don't know what this court is going to do, because we talked about the four Trump appointees. But I'll be particular. I do not know, outside of Amy Coney Barrett's decisions on abortion, and I do not know decide of Gorsuch's weird love of indigenous people, which I actually like, but it's completely out of the blue, considering the rest of his jurisprudential decision making, how they are going to um decide on this clearly. What we do know clearly is there is a tendency now in supreme court to buy the unitary executive uh theory. Now, the unitary executive theory, we should be quite clear on, is a relatively new theory in the history of american politics this emerged during the reagan administration, despite the fact that so dominant only became huge during the bush administration.
C. Derick Varn :The second bush administration I was about to say. It's like I remember, john, you arguing it and me going like, oh, this is a reagan thing. That's like picked up from stuff, kind of sort of begun under nixon, but neither reagan nor nixon pursued it that vigorously and, um, it has been consolidated under trump. Uh, although we can also say for reasons of opportunism in many ways, the democrats will never endorsing the unitary executive theory, didn't do much about it either, because, well, they liked having the power and the presidency when congress can't do shit anyway. Um, but when we add all this together, I do think we have a perfect storm for a constitutional crisis. Um, and the three things we talked about, and there's way more. I mean doge seems to be on its face, transparently unconstitutional.
Elijah Emery :It's about empowerment with people who are not civil officers we're not civil officers, yeah, like I mean, they're political appointees, basically right they're political appointees, which means that there's a host of constraints on their powers. There's a reason why cabinet officials have to go through the advice and consent feature of the Senate, and this current Senate might be willing to permit the appointment of a bunch of patently unqualified people See Pete Hagseff, maybe RFK, maybe Tulsi Gabbard we'll see. But I would be willing to bet that, were Elon Musk an actual appointee rather than just a guy who Trump said do your thing, it would be more difficult for him to complete an appointment process and be confirmed by the Senate, especially after what he's been doing for the past couple of weeks, you know, in terms of the rifling through Treasury documents, looking at people's information documents, looking at people's information, eliminating any protections for information the government has on you, stopping payments from occurring, taking over the Treasury's software All of these things are not something an ordinary political appointee is allowed to do. This is something Treasury Department officials are permitted to do because they've gone through the advice and consent feature and have duly been given the authority to handle these sensitive arenas of the infrastructure of the US government and, as a result, so much of what elon musk has has has done thus far has been immediately uh, subject to injunction by the courts.
Elijah Emery :Now, will the executive branch listen to? It is an open question. Uh, despite the fact that, historically, the executive branch, since 1865, has always listened to the judicial branch, they've slow things, they've not done a very good job of listening sometimes, but they've never blatantly ignored an order from the judiciary to do something. And that could be changing. And that is a genuine constitutional crisis moment, because, you know, elon is not allowed to do most of what he's up to under the rules of the game that the people agreed to.
C. Derick Varn :I hate to spell out what this would mean. If the executive ignores the courts, then the adjudicator is a group under the executive but does not take a vow, an oath to the executive. They take an oath to the Constitution and if you catch what I'm saying, it means that the military is the adjudicator here, Because they're the people that can decide. Well, the president's, the commander-in-chief, but our oath is not to the president, the oath is to the Constitution.
Elijah Emery :The way in which injunctions occur typically and this is relevant is it is not a generalized order, it's an order to a specific official to do something. So there's an open question what would happen if the Supreme Court decided that the only mechanism for getting their actions to actively be done is to issue a writ of mandamus to the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff? Is to issue a writ of mandamus to the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff? Right there there's an opportunity for military clash with the remainder of the executive branch that we have never seen, which is very, very frightening.
C. Derick Varn :I mean for those of you who don't get what that means it means junta. I mean for those of you who don't get what that means it means junta. I mean you and I were talking about this off air, but I was like what that basically implies is the Republic is over either way, even if you have a restored democracy. We've now done what a lot of Latin American countries have had to do, and even but we've had a temporary military yeah, Um, but we basically have a military government, uh, military government, um, returning power to the people.
C. Derick Varn :Returning power to the people in quotation marks, uh, or maybe not. I mean, we just don't know.
Elijah Emery :Um, I'm not under the impression that if there was military involvement in civilian affairs, I personally don't think it would be a permanent thing in the American context though I don't want to find out no, either around constitutional crisis but they're dependent on other officials in the executive branch undertaking actions in line with what the courts are ordering them to do, which opens the opportunity for more firings, et cetera, et cetera, and that's a real problem. That's something that, historically, could be counted on, but maybe not anymore.
C. Derick Varn :And the other way you address it is to impeach the president. But this president's already been impeached twice, oh, excuse me, impeached with articles brought against him twice. It is unlikely, I think, that it would work a third time. Certainly not with a Republican Congress. Unless you have enough Republicans then they would never bring it. But unless you had, enough.
Elijah Emery :Republicans get afraid that this legacy would tarnish their possibility of ever being in office again, that they would go against the president, which is what happened with Nixon, frankly, and it's less likely to happen now, because Fox News didn't exist then and it does now. Right. One thing I will say to you know take heart, listeners is that under the federal system, elections are not conducted at the national level, they're conducted at the state level, and so it is inconceivable to think that something like an actual halt to elections could ever take place under the current structure of American governance, because each state is administering its own elections.
C. Derick Varn :You may have actually given me one thing to feel decent about, about the states having control over elections, because normally I'm like that's a terrible idea.
Elijah Emery :Well, there are limitations. The states are not allowed to, say, prohibit people from voting because they're black, because of the constitutional structure. But the federal government also is not allowed to administer elections. You know, I always thought this was kind of foolish, but now I'm glad that that's the law.
C. Derick Varn :Now, for those of you who go, you go well. Varun and Elijah, and particularly we know that Varun and Elijah do not necessarily agree on the Democrats here, and I also want to share. As I said earlier, I am not necessarily a constitution worshiper. I'm not one of these constitution leftists who thinks that the constitution is actually the best thing on the planet, but I am sort of the idea that something is revolutionary just because it breaks rule of law is an idiotic idea. Um, and I've seen a lot of people flirting with that Um, I also want to point out that, um, the Democrats lost, in my opinion, for a bunch of complicated reasons, but most of the reasons that the Democrats lost on margin are not things that would lead to Trump being popular for what he is doing right now.
Elijah Emery :Yeah. Price of eggs is at an all-time high.
C. Derick Varn :I mean, I hate to tell you guys, some of the stuff that ensures Trump may be unpopular are things that are going to suck but unfortunately are totally legal, for that are the deportations. Most of them are legal peeps. Hate to tell you, but they are.
Elijah Emery :Yeah, I'm not certain about the Guantanamo Bay thing, but deporting people is completely legal, um. The tariffs are completely legal, um, even though they actively go against the main demand that the American people have in this election, which was to lower the inflation rate. Uh, there are things that that the president is doing which are totally legal, even if I think there are many of them are immoral or, at the very least, bad policy he can invade panama under the police powers act and actually it would be totally legal, at least for a certain number of days, um, not invade greenland, though no because of nato.
C. Derick Varn :Nato, yeah, nato treaties, but. But would be legal, I'm unlikely.
Elijah Emery :He could uh get authorization to turn gaza into a beach resort also. Um, though, you know we'll say that anybody who ever thought Trump would be better on the Palestinian issue, completely delusional though, I totally respect choosing not to vote for the Democrats last time around because of your feelings on that issue. That's your right, you know. I just want to make sure to establish if you're going on a lesser of two evils calculus. We are at evil o'clock. Nevertheless, I think I'm not constitution worshipping, even though I study it. I think there's a lot of problems with the document. I do think that probably I would rather have it than nothing, and I would certainly rather have it than whatever Donald Trump would turn it into.
C. Derick Varn :Yeah, I mean, one of the things that I think we're going to learn really quickly is that, while this blitz is a Bannon strategy, the content of this blitz isn't even what Bannon signed up for. The justification I've been hearing from both leftists who are more willing to be accommodationist or even supporting Trump and also certain conservatives, was that we were going to a post-neoliberal era and that a right-wing populist ethos will remain. I'm sorry, but what I'm seeing is neoliberalism on crack.
Elijah Emery :We're seeing Repl replacing everybody in the government with private contractors with stupid names you know right, with no oversight.
C. Derick Varn :They're not even congressionally appointed contractors, as much as with any European populist, which, in our country, as also the global hegemon, would be disastrous. Now we're not going to stay the global hegemon. We're already in a multipolar world, blah, blah, blah. But I also want to point out that this will not help anybody, including America's enemies. It could actually collapse everyone's economy.
C. Derick Varn :So it's a very Although you know I do find it funny, because I have some friends who make jokes about how, like China, china prayed for a gift from God for America and it gave us Donald Trump to completely destroy any semblance of american power abroad well, I mean, and let's think about the things, and I want to emphasize what I'm talking about now is completely legal, but having biden, normalize your tariff and reassuring regimes away from china with, with um, with Canada and Mexico, and then threading them with tariffs the likes of which we have not seen since the Great Depression, to two people who have been utterly two states that have been utterly cooperative, and that every third day there's a new deal where Trump okay, we come up, we're going to stall the tariffs down for 30 days, except for this new tariff I came up with tomorrow that we're now going to apply, even though I've already said that we weren't going to do that.
Elijah Emery :I mean, a good example of this is that one of Trump's first things was to tariff Taiwan semiconductor manufacturing, while also impounding the chips act. This is not benefiting anyone, you know it's. It's just making it so that it's impossible to build computers anywhere. Uh, and computers need to be built like. That's just the way it is.
C. Derick Varn :And particularly since Trump is also now doubling down, moving away from his prior basis on Sunbelt production, which has been the conservative basis since Reagan at least, and focusing on his new friends in Silicon Valley, who were his direst enemies not but four years ago enemies not but four years ago. Um, impounding all the ability to build chips while also talking about having an ai economy is nuts.
Elijah Emery :I mean it's just stupid. It's like I mean anybody, anybody who's a trump accommodationist or supporter from the left is very, very, very stupid. I mean, I'm just going to say it.
C. Derick Varn :Unless you're like, I want to see America collapse as quickly as possible, which is also stupid because it's not going to be replaced by anything you like, there is absolutely nothing good which could come out of this and I think that's that's where I'm at right now too, because, as much as I hate the democrats and I actually do think we should blame them for trump being in office we can't blame him for what trump is doing in office. I am going to ask you, however, elijah why are they so fucking flat footed right now? They're flat footed in a way that I was not. I mean, I was not expecting and I don't mean in the spectacular way we saw during the Trump administration, where they called for rallies and this and the other, but clearly was like meaningless political engagement. Now we have Hakeem Jeffries trying to go and be like pre-Silicon Valley. We still love you and I also say, yeah, go ahead.
Elijah Emery :I have no idea. I mean, I think the only thing the Democrats have been doing right is that many of the state's attorney general, attorneys general, have been initiating lawsuits, which is basically all you can do. But that's not like really a vision. That's playing defense.
C. Derick Varn :And it's from the states, it's it's governors and stuff. And they've been asking these geriatric Because let's, let's like make it very clear, um, because of how narrow the control of the house and senate are, um to get an appropriations bill for trump or anything like that, they are going to need democrats and so far the democrats have provided them, even though we are already in a constitutional crisis. I've been sort of like wow. So I mean, I will say that one of the things I've been thinking about is Trump's people worried about he's going to declare himself dictator. He's ancient. I know if he lived as long as his parents, he he'll live longer than his term, but like, I don't see him living two terms yeah, I mean he's like.
Elijah Emery :He's like one of the least healthy, men I've ever seen other than joe biden um, and he also seems to be out of energy.
C. Derick Varn :I mean, like I was thinking about this First administration. Trump wouldn't tolerate Elon showboating him the way that Elon currently is. No, he'd get angry. I actually don't know why he thinks this is going to go okay, because I do think that this is going to like. What Elon is doing is going to break out an internal conservative Cold War even within Trumpist. So you're no longer dealing with just like it already has on the H-1B stuff, right.
C. Derick Varn :Well, one of the things I told a friend of mine I want to be free about this we always think the blitz is just for his enemies, but I also think the blitz may be for his base, because it's because we're already seeing that some of the controversies are interesting, like, um, this new department of religion which I don't know how the fuck that's legal, but uh, that he's trying to start. He appointed a spiritual advisor. That is controversial even amongst conservative evangelical christians. You should point rabbi schmooly, that was a joke audience I don't like okay um
C. Derick Varn :but you know what I mean. Like, so I have seen rumblings in the conservative news this year about that. Interestingly enough, um, and I do think, uh, they're the libertarians are gonna have some issues, because it's pretty clear that free speech is is also gonna be a lot more difficult under this regime. Um, do you agree with me with that? I know that, like, a lot of people are like, oh, uh, well, the democrats did backdoor pressure on on, uh, on the tech executives do unconstitutional censoring and guess what I'll grant.
Elijah Emery :I think some of that was both done and illegal yeah and now if you're if you're at all connected to the federal government in any way and you say anything, you get fired. Now that's a pretty strong constraint on free speech, in addition to the harassment of people by the Department of Justice, you know like, or Trump's promise to deport pro-Palestinian protesters. These are all very, very strong threats to free speech and are completely unconstitutional.
C. Derick Varn :So why is it that anyone would argue that Trump is going to save the Constitution?
Elijah Emery :Because they don't have any understanding of the Constitution, or Trump or both.
C. Derick Varn :Because I just I mean, I do like it when we see like conservatives who used to be regular normie neoconservatives now signing a Vola and Carl Smith, so you know, and that way I'm like, well, you finally took the mask off, motherfucker, Like we don't have to pretend anymore.
Elijah Emery :It sucks that for the liberals, if you take the mask off, it's just like a signed copy of Harry Potter rather than like linen.
C. Derick Varn :Yeah, I know, I always. I'm always listening to conservatives rail about how all the liberals are secret Marxist and I'm like, if they were, you would have been shot already. So it's just, and no, I'm I don't advocate killing conservatives, but I just I just I find it crazy that the world we're in right now, at the same time I think the thing that concerns me, elijah and I want maybe this is a way to wrap up, because we've kind of said the big three things If we went through every second border, we'd be here.
Elijah Emery :We'd be here for two days.
C. Derick Varn :Yeah, yeah, I I suspect with you that the courts are going to cause Trump's not going to have time to to to stack it in time and he doesn't seem interested in that. The courts is Supreme court's going to side on precedent on on birthright citizenship. They're probably going to decide on precedent with impoundment, with maybe some weird caveat card out for Trump, but not to the extent that he's currently doing it. Um, I also am not optimistic with you that these protections for for hires and executive branches are going to stay, because we do know that a lot of the jurisprudence of all of the current conservative justices is about weakening the administrative state explicitly.
Elijah Emery :Though it's also possible that they stay in a modified form. I don't know.
C. Derick Varn :We do know that Roberts and Amy Cohen and Barrett like to split the baby. So do know that Roberts and Amy Cohen and Barrett like to split the baby. So who knows Doge? I have no idea how that's going to work out, because it's so blatantly unconstitutional and it's a threat. It's a threat to the power of everybody else beyond this one administration. That's what I think people like, unless the GOP. Congress is totally just like. We want to rule once and then never have to worry about anything ever again, including having jobs in Congress. I don't think we're there yet, but if nothing is done about Doge, then I think we are now in the formal imperial I mean we've already been an empire, but I mean in the internal sense of imperial Like we basically have a true imperial presidency and a Bonapartist presidency.
Elijah Emery :It's really humiliating. Instead of us getting Napoleon or Caesar, to have Donald Trump and Elon Musk. That is an embarrassment. The legacy of Caesarism.
C. Derick Varn :Even our strongmen are pudgy losers, yeah, who just happen to have played the government long enough to get very, very rich. In both cases, actually, I mean, the irony of Elon Musk wanting a balanced budget at the federal government level is that his entire career is impossible under those conditions and in some ways, what he's trying to do is protect his own hegemony from anyone ever using the government to get back to where he was at. And if there's ever been any truth to an otherwise crazy idea like techno neo-feudalism, that, if it does happen, would be that um, uh, so you know it's, it's interesting, um, but I also can't. I I can't see all the other branches lying down forever, but if they are, then I think the question for all of us is our elites are that incompetent? Holy shit, um, like that. That's where I'm at. I mean, that's actually what scares me more, and trump is not just. Just, I expect trump to pull to try to get away with whatever you can try to get away with, uh, and I do not expect trump to be remotely consistent ideologically. In fact, a lot of what we see is reptile brain intelligence and believing in nothing. But it does seem like his reptile brain intelligence is reaching a limit, because none of the stuff he's doing is generally popular with the American public, who are not diehard Trumpists, and even the diehard Trumpists are only happy about it because he's doing it. They wouldn't be happy about it under other auspices. So, but like this picture of right populism that we were getting with Bannon and all that, that's not what Elon's doing, I mean.
C. Derick Varn :But I was reading what Trump wants to do. He wants to increase the labor supply. How, how do you increase the labor supply and crack down on and deport 20 million people and deport 20 million people? And deport 20 million people, which admittedly also I want to point out. I realize it's fucked up that liberals are arguing that basically we need borderline slave labor to make our economy affordable, because they have been crypto-arguing that this entire time. But how do you do that? You just start arresting all the Zoomers and making them go to work camps, because that's about the only thing I can think of. What are you going to do? Corvée labor, which, by the way, would be unconstitutional under the 13th and 14th Amendment, unless you arrested everybody, which would not shrink the federal budget which would not shrink the federal budget.
Elijah Emery :So yeah, I mean, it turns out that, like uh, almost none of these things work together or make any sense well, that was my, that was my.
C. Derick Varn :Like I said in the beginning, this is. I was like no one is dumb enough to try to do these contradictory things and I should never say that.
Elijah Emery :I should never say no one is dumb enough not to do contradictory things look, I made the case for project 2025 being bad before the last election season, uh, and unfortunately I've been totally vindicated. Yes, you have by just like assuming that the trump people are very stupid. I'm you. I'm never going to underestimate their intelligence, ever again, or overestimate it, I don't know which. It is Not very intelligent.
C. Derick Varn :Here's the thing about Trump world. I think Bannon's a genius. I don't admire him, but I think he's a genius. Elon I don't admire him, but I think he's a genius. Elon. I don't get except for kicking the ladder out from everybody so he can benefit from the government contracts he got that made him rich and now making that impossible for anyone else ever to get, which I did sort of predict that Silicon Valley would do that eventually. But I wasn't expecting it like this. I wasn't expecting them to be like we're not just going to destroy that, we're going to even go after stuff trump has said he would never touch and has sincerely believed in the past like we're watching.
Elijah Emery :I hate it when your medicaid payments are not being dispersed, you know, like that. That was one reason trump was so popular is that he said he wouldn't touch that stuff.
C. Derick Varn :Right, and we now see them pick back up privatizing Medicaid and Medicare, and and even people like Robert Kennedy Jr, rfk, who used to be pro single payer even, is now like we should privatize Medicaid. These fuckers don't believe in a goddamn thing. And if you think you can follow them up because they just undo the liberal order, I mean you might as well be saying after trump us because it's going to go the same way. And I'm not warm for f-word analogies because I don't actually think trump is a fascist, but like it's irrelevant at this point. Um, and people like, oh what, it might not matter. In fact, fuck maga may end up being worse than fascism, I don't know um either way, it's bad, that's what I'm willing to say.
C. Derick Varn :Yeah, I'd be like like we can have the semantic debates about the f word all you want. I don't really care about that. Um, what I'm more interested in is what are we going to do now, because the liberals seem to have rolled over? I mean, it really does seem to me and you can tell me because you are more you are, you're friendlier to democrats than I. Am you always like? Remind me not to you know? Start calling for their heads on platters and stuff I'm very disappointed in them, I mean I know you are.
C. Derick Varn :You. You seem more disappointed. You seem more disappointed. I've been in shock. I've been, actually I've been in thorough shock since, um, since biden's debate, um, because I'm just like you guys have said that all democracy was on the line and clearly you didn't actually believe it, and now it looks like it really is. You have Congress shut out of things that Congress can't be shut out of legally, but who knows how we're going to deal with that.
C. Derick Varn :I mean, as much as I hate the three years during the Biden administration of all the talk of fucking idiotic talk of civil war. Now I'm like it's not likely but it's not impossible. Now, um, it's, it's. You're getting into a very precarious situation and the left has no real answer to it, because all that the left has been talking about is either foreign policy important I'm not saying it's not absolutely important um or has been just trying to tail one of the two parties, mostly the democrats. But we saw this strange thing happening in the second half of the trump administration really, we saw it as early as Biden winning that leftists thought that they could get anti-systemic energy by playing some games around, maybe, or maybe not endorsing Trump, but now that Trump's in power. I want my leftist friends who thought that was a smart way to go about things to think about it. You're going to own what he breaks, whether you truly endorse him or not.
Elijah Emery :If you're seen to endorse him, that's on you too um, and this is this is distinct from people who are unfairly blamed for that. I, I know you, you agree with that, that there's a difference between, uh, you know being a supporter.
C. Derick Varn :Yeah right, yeah um Trump supporter.
Elijah Emery :Yeah.
C. Derick Varn :Right.
Elijah Emery :Yeah, um, but there there are definitely leftists who have the after Trump boss attitude, right.
C. Derick Varn :I, I, I, I. I'm going to just go ahead and say outright I didn't vote for Kamala Harris. I voted for some weird third party candidate Um, I actually voted for what's her face? From the PSL, but I don't even like that party. I just it was a protest vote but and I don't regret it still, because also, my state, Trump still won, my state they was my decision had nothing to do with what was going to happen here. My decision had nothing to do with what was going to happen here.
C. Derick Varn :But I am sort of shocked because on one hand, it makes, I want to say, all my leftist rooms have been disgusted at the Democrats. Well, guess what? I in my mind, you were right to be disgusted, because this is what they should have been there for and they can't even do what they've traditionally done and like bullshit this. They can't even do what they've traditionally done and like bullshit this. But if you think somehow that this is going to be good for the constitution or for world peace, are that like one of the things I pointed out to people? I'm like dude. If, if Greenland happened, NATO is over, like NATO is done, that that would end nato. In fact, you would only even consider that, if you thought nato was about to be over anyway, or you?
Elijah Emery :were too stupid to think about it well, yeah, I mean that is I.
C. Derick Varn :I try to not assume that, but my thing is with trump is trump is both brilliant and dumb simultaneously, and that's the hardest thing to fight, because I think we all have to admit he does have a reptile brain way about speaking to people. That has gotten him through a whole lot. And the Democrats playing lawfare with him which they did do, whether it was legitimate or not.
C. Derick Varn :They didn't play it very seriously because, basically, he was able to wait out the clock without very successfully, yeah, um, I mean, and now, between the supreme court and him being president, good luck on any of that happening, because by the time he's out of office, I barring some really other bad other options the statute of limitations on most of the things that were brought up will be over. So I just I think the Democrats have been both craven and weak, but I am sort of like, what do we do now? Because, like, the other thing I'll tell you is, even if somehow trump manages to to maintain the next four years without dividing his own base, which we're already seeing break apart, I think, um, where he's hemorrhaging popularity already, but he came in fairly unpopular, but he's dropped four percent popularity within two weeks, like he went from 51 to 47. And that's on the most friendly polls. And so it's just like a lot of people are already regretting their vote and you're right, since it's a state-level issue, we'll see very quickly are already regretting their vote. You're right, since it's a state-level issue, we'll see very quickly how that plays out in the midterms.
C. Derick Varn :But I'm also sort of like it's going to be bad for the Democrats too, unless they start pulling in new power and really going after their gerontocracy out of New York and California. As far as the left goes, I have no idea what we should be doing, except for labor stuff. The one thing I will tell you that people who tried to tell you this stuff was going to get better for labor under Trump are full of shit. We're already seeing in my state. We've already seen assault on collective bargaining for the few parts of the public sector that have it Doge's assault on collective bargaining at the federal level.
Elijah Emery :The firing of the NLB board member is an assault on collective bargaining at the federal level. This is a disastrous administration for labor already and it's only getting worse.
C. Derick Varn :Right, I mean we're talking worse than the Bush and reagan administrations, which is kind of hard to be um and so uh, and we're also seeing I don't know there's. I have said stuff like well, they've been promising the in the the department of education forever and they've never been able to do it.
Elijah Emery :But, um, I think they might try even without congressional, they'll do what they try, are doing right now to usa right um, now it'll be chaos.
C. Derick Varn :It's already chaos. A lot of like, I mean a lot of the biden schemes have been chaos, but, um, it's going to be utter chaos and it, I think for a lot of people we don't know where we're going to be in four years and I think, uh, for me, one of the reasons why I've been most less likely to do punditry is I've seen pundits. They seem to be particularly given to becoming captive by their audiences and eventually just believing what their audiences want you to believe, like me, hearing from someone like jimmy door that doge is a legitimate audit of the federal government, I'm like only if we all knew what was happening and it was authorized and have proper powers to do it.
Elijah Emery :Doge falls under the Presidential Records Act, which means that they don't have to give any records until 2035.
C. Derick Varn :Right. So even like we won't know in the dark.
Elijah Emery :It's in the dark. We have no idea what's going on.
C. Derick Varn :They could lie to us right now, we wouldn't know. Lie to us right now, we wouldn't know. So it's so, you know. We see, we see these pundits like saying things that are just tacitly idiotic. Um, I've also learned, and I'm not one to say we need more civics education because I I'm a teacher. I actually don't think education always works for that.
C. Derick Varn :But, uh, civilly, right now a lot of people, and including a lot of people and liberals or the left, have no idea what the law really is, and so they're talking out of their ass half the time like I, you know people saying I'm going to stand up for the constitution, but well it, the oversight of administrative agencies is obviously in the executive, so it must be the president.
C. Derick Varn :I'm like not with impoundment or same created by congress, is not? There's both uh legislation about that after nixon tried to do impoundment and there's a pre-court president before that, although I'll admit, uh, we didn't talk about this, but actually the legislation made to make impoundment steadier actually might end up being something that helps make it seem like it might have some uh, constitutional grounds, which is why I think we might see a a weird splitting of the baby there. I can't see them totally justifying the trump impoundments. Like we'll see, we don't really know what this supreme court's going to do. Um, but one thing I, one thing I will tell Supreme Courts don't tend to give up their power, and a lot of what Trump is doing would even cause the courts to give up their power. So it's going to be interesting. So yeah, any last thoughts, elijah.
Elijah Emery :It's very bad. So, yeah, any last thoughts, elijah, we'll see what happens on the other side, and somebody should figure out something to do, because counting on lawyers seems to be the plan right now.
C. Derick Varn :And while I very much appreciate the faith placed in the profession I'm going into not a panacea- I just I don't want to sound like one of those freaky liberals who was talking about civil war in 2020, but I do want to point out the last time we've seen this kind of dysfunction was between 1840 and 1860. And we we we solved that.
Elijah Emery :But it's going to be terrible when we go to war over whether or not Elon Musk is funny.
C. Derick Varn :Um, I mean, it's going to be terrible when we go to war over whether or not Elon Musk is funny, I mean it's. I believe in free speech, but I also may be at the point where I think social media should be outlawed.
Elijah Emery :Well, unfortunately, that is another illegal thing Donald Trump is doing. Well, unfortunately, that is another illegal thing Donald Trump is doing keeping TikTok alive beyond its congressionally authorized state of divestiture or ban.
C. Derick Varn :Although he did seem to have a buyer set up for it somehow. I'm trying to figure out how that worked. That seemed like it was like yeah, we'll see how it goes. I don't expect the Republican Congress to grow any balls outside of Rand Paul complaining about stuff. And who knew that I'd be pro-team Rand Paul, the world's last fucking libertarian.
Elijah Emery :You hate it when it's bad news that Mitch McConnell is falling down the stairs.
C. Derick Varn :Yeah, man, you know, one thing I've learned about America is however dark you think it already is, it can get darker. God bless, god bless. On that note we're going to end. Have a great rest of your days. Friends of the show. Um and uh, be very, very mad at a bunch of people, most especially, uh, well, most is actually my. My partner got on. I mean, it's like you always harp about being mad at the liberals, but you always harp about being mad at the liberals, but don't you have to be mad at the people doing this? Well, be mad at them first, actually, yes, but also be mad at the liberals, who put us in this situation in the first place.
Elijah Emery :And Be mad at everyone doing bad things.
C. Derick Varn :Yes, which is, unfortunately, most of the government. So on that note we will end. Have a good day, bye, bye.
