Faceless bureaucrats: Getting the job done for governments ever since the first bean needed to be counted.

Which federal departments would you eliminate?

Say the supporters of a President who lost the popular vote by 3 million votes. Who was then caught red-handed trying to bribe a foreign country into doing his 2020 oppo research for him. And who was then acquitted by his own party for that same conduct without even testifying in his own defense.

Joe Schmoe Bureaucrat who shows up to work and counts beans all day is not the enemy of democracy.

Re: Caught red handed bribing a foreign country, see these 658 pages by the House

https://docs.house.gov/billsthisweek/20191216/CRPT-116hrpt346.pdf

Dissenting views included in the interests of fairness and balance!

The GOP Senate didn’t let us find out the whole story, but there’s plenty there to get you started

And we’re not even talking Russiagate yet. Depending on your familiarity with that scandal, the meme I posted above might fly over your head

Suffices to say there’s a pattern, and the truth will out, it always does

No: I'm actually well aware that the Founders failed to delineate a rigorous enough impeachment process to be of any practical use in our modern hyperpartisan era.

To wit, nothing in the Constitution *requires* Presidents to:
1. Go under oath to answer impeachment charges;
2. Show their face on the Senate floor during the impeachment trial;
3. Refrain from asserting spurious "Executive privilege" claims;
4. Produce their top officials for deposition;
5. Produce documents under congressional subpoena.

That doesn't make any of this right or compliant with the spirit of the Constitution or impeachment.

But this is now the new precedent, and Democrats would be foolish not to assert the same defenses if and when one of their own Presidents is impeached.

The Trump Impeachment expanded Executive Branch power like nothing else in recent memory. And you, in theory a small-government, separation-of-powers guy, are cool with it because Trumps your guy.

And yeah, you still don't understand that the House's "sole power of impeachment" means that it has the power to declare abuse of power and obstruction of Congress even if there's no violation of the U.S. Code. It's not possible to pre-criminalize all the various kinds of abusive behavior that a President is capable of engaging in by virtue of his office.

Re: "The American people," more of them supported Trump's impeachment and removal than didn't. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/impeachment-polls/

The Electoral College is one of those flawed mechanisms — like slavery, or restricting the franchise from women and non-landowners — that was present at our Founding, but which should now be reformed or abolished as an impediment to democracy.

There’s a real tension in living up to the spirit of a Constitution that begins “We the people,” when our current President lost the last election by 3 million popular votes.

With that staggering of a vote deficit, Trump would not have won power in any other democracy on earth. “Winning by losing” only happens in dictatorships.

And here, because we continue to follow a dumb and antiquated system of electing a President that occasionally produces countermajoritarian results.

But since you don’t even claim to want democracy, but rather a “Republic” (code for minority rule by the GOP whenever possible), that makes sense.

I’m late with this, but I just realized that for some folks here, nothing’s really real until Donald Trump says it.

So, really the very first place I should start in all these conversations is digging for Trump quotes.

Well.

Is Donald Trump wrong in his description of our country?

What is your source for the proposition that the U.S. is not a democracy?

Is the dictionary a reliable source?

The dictionary is a reliable source, and the U.S. is a democracy.

If you need a refresher, here is a 9-page pamphlet from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services given to citizens being newly naturalized in order to help them understand our system of government.

It’s written in plain English.

https://www.uscis.gov/system/files_force/USCIS/files/Government_and_You_handouts.pdf?download=1

Man, gotta say this really brings it back full circle with the bureaucracy thing.

Educating citizens and non-citizens alike: Let’s hear it for faceless bureaucrats.

Please go to law school.

Sorry here's the link

https://www.uscis.gov/system/files_force/USCIS/files/Government_and_You_handouts.pdf?

The part where it establishes elections, representation, and a democratic system of government?

Nah, I read those parts too.

Before you knock "faceless bureaucrats," realize they stand for the principle of just showing up to work and doing your job with boring competence, professionalism, and a minimum of drama.

They keep the ship of state afloat.

And they keep the lights on in our government when everyone else has gone home and is tweeting nonsense from their couch at 3 a.m. The wild incompetence of the Trump Administration has made faceless bureaucrats look better than ever these days.

The only real alternatives to "faceless bureaucrats" are: (1) Staffing the same positions with incompetent cronies whose primary qualifications are personal loyalty to the boss; (2) Not staffing the positions at all and leaving important work unfinished.

Someone made a meme the other day asking whether faceless bureaucrats are still getting paid to sit at home during Covid-19 and how taxpayers should feel about that. Well: Most, if not all, of said faceless bureaucrats are capable of telecommuting from home.

And whether they're getting paid or not during this unprecedented quarantine situation is not all that important to me. We need to solve the immediate crisis before we start pointing fingers at those just complying with a public safety order.