Quote:
Originally Posted by New Era
This has been just a brutal election cycle. A brutal four years. There has not been a political or cultural norm in the country that Trump has not managed to at least take a piss on, and then others he has completely destroyed. I honestly don't think people know what is up for grabs in this election. If the United States slides any further toward authoritarianism the impact to the rest of the globe will be immense. The loss of freedoms will be felt around the globe.
I hope that as Americans take to the polls they remind themselves this is not just about defeating Trump. This is not just about tossing Cheeto Mussolini out in the street. This is about removing the likes of Mike Pompeo as Secretary of State; Steve Mnuchin as Secretary of the Treasury; William Barr as Attorney General; Wilbur Ross as Secretary of Commerce; Alex Azar as Secretary of Health and Human Services; Ben Carson as Secretary of HUD; Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education; Mark Meadows as Chief of Staff; John Ratcliffe as DNI; Andrew Wheeler from the EPA; and so on and so on. This is a vote to cleanse the system of these people who work against the very departments they are supposed to oversee.
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This, I think, is the single most important thing about this election and - to Slava's point posted above - is the reason this election is more important than others in recent American history.
No other administration has actively worked to undermine and dismantle the very institutions that make America the democracy that it is and has long been. Trump has attacked and undermined the democratic process, the courts, the civil service, the rule of law, the very union binding the states together. This is not an election that is primarily about decency, or policy, or personality: it is a referendum on American democracy as we know it.
In no prior US election in living memory have the stakes been this high. The only one that comes close is the last one (2016), but at that time the US had fairly robust institutions that - to varying degrees - have weathered the assault over the past 4 years. Those institutions are now incredibly weak and/or corrupted, and another 4 years will change them beyond recognition (and effectively finish many of them off).
One of the great bulwarks for any democratic government it its civil service, which carries out the day-to-day functions of running the country. The civil service is incredibly resistant to change, as it takes significant effort and time to change the personnel and practices of the people to make up the administrative state. Trump has already had an outsized impact on the civil service, and a further 4 years is enough time to corrupt and undermine its culture in a way that will require a similar effort (and similar time) to undo.
If Biden wins, his administration must immediately begin the task of weeding out the Trump culture from America's various institutions. That starts with the names that New Era mentions directly, but extends down to the roots: the people that have been hired/appointed in every agency under Trump's watch, from senior executives to file clerks. It's a monumental task, but really important if the US is to regain its strength before 2024 rolls around.