Ezra Klein on our “non-player” Congress
New York Times columnist Ezra Klein offered an insightful column last weekend on the utter failure of Congress to assume its role as a check on the hostile takeover of the federal government now being carried out by President Trump and his billionaire henchman, Elon Musk.
Like us, at Fixing Congress, he assigns some blame to Democrats for having failed to resolve problems while they controlled Congress and the White House.
“Democrats became champions of a government that didn’t work,” writes Klein. I think that’s part of the reason Donald Trump won. Not the biggest reason he won, but when people feel that the government isn’t working, the party promising change beats the party rallying in defense. When Musk says that Republicans had a mandate for governmental reform, I don’t think he’s totally wrong.”
But Klein assigns most of the blame to Congressional Republicans who allowed themselves to be bullied into acquiescing to nominees who were clearly unqualified and sweeping executive action that constitutionally required deliberation and action by Congress.
Policy, however, is only a pretext. What Trump and Musk are all about, writes Klein, is a permanent rearrangement of power.
“They are trying to remake our system of government, not our laws. They have identified a weak point in that system, and they are driving a flaming Cybertruck through it. That weak point is Congress.”
Even if Republicans decide they want or need to go along with Trump’s policies, argues Klein, they are foolish to cut themselves out of the loop and go along with his power grab.
“The most powerful branch of government — the branch with the power to check the others — is supine. It is not that it can’t act to protect its power. It’s that it will not act to protect its power. This is a nonplayer Congress.”
You can read the whole of the column here: