Shock and Awe Versus Salami Slicing

 

Donald Trump has clearly taken the shock and awe approach to seizing absolute power.  The advantage of this approach is that its promise of getting the seizure of power out of the way right away before anyone can resist.  The disadvantage is that extreme measure do tend to incite resistance.

The alternative is salami slicing tactics -- making one small power grab after another, each too small and inconspicuous to provoke much opposition, but collectively disastrous.  (This is also called the boiling frog technique).

The Monday, January 28 funding freeze is an example of shock and awe gone awry.  The Office of Management and Budget temporarily froze all grants to check for ideologically objectionable content, with the proviso that it did not intend to include Social Security of Medicare.  Medicaid portals closed in all 50 states.  Head Start was put at risk.  So was Meals on Wheels.  Clearly, this was not politically sustainable.  A federal judge ordered payments to resume, pending hearing on Monday, February 3. It seems a safe bet that the judge will hold the freeze to be illegal and probably unconstitutional.  

A part of me wishes the judge had left the stay in place for the week, or at least for a day or two.  A lot of innocent people would have suffered, obviously.  But political pressure would have built.  With the stay in place, Republican members of Congress pasted a smile on their faces and declared their support.  A week of this, or even a few days, would have produced some cracks.  His approval ratings still at 50%, would have suffered. And he would probably have backed down in the face of political pressure.

On the other hand, if Trump had completely backed down (he appears to have only partly backed down) we would have been denied the opportunity for a court ruling on the constitutionality of his actions.  And let us be plain.  The willingness of courts in general and the Supreme Court in particular to hold Trump's actions unconstitutional is driven, at least in part, by how afraid they are that he will defy the ruling.  It seems a safe assumption that there is no risk he would defy the ruling if it meant shutting down all Medicaid portals, defunding Meals on Wheels, etc.

The alternative would be salami slicing. Refuse to spend properly appropriated money for some small project that Trump found ideologically objectionable.  Today's Supreme Court would no doubt have found a way to find his action constitutional, no doubt with some cautionary words warning that there were limits on what they would allow.  So Trump would test those limits with a larger impoundment and see his limits expanded once again.  And so on until all legal limits on Trump's impoundment power ended.

But the political limits would remain.

Which brings back the subject of Elon Musk's coup.