The Left Doesn't Believe in the Constitutional Order

Great. It's about time an unaccountable fourth branch of the state was decimated. Trump v. Slaughter revolves around the president's ability to fire executive branch officials without cause at "independent" agencies. For one thing, nowhere does the Constitution empower Congress to create "independent" anything. The notion is a concoction of our worst former president, Woodrow Wilson, and it was codified nearly a century ago in Humphrey's Executor v. United States, when the court ruled that the Federal Trade Commission was a quasilegislative, executive and judicial agency.

Google AI still informs me that the Federal Trade Commission is an "independent agency" that is "technically within the executive branch structure," which is not a real thing. Moreover, even if it were one, the scope of "independent" agencies has expanded significantly since 1934. In some ways, they now have more power over Americans than any branch. There is no conception of the founding that included a sprawling autonomous administrative state empowered to create its own rules, investigate citizens, adjudicate guilt, impose fines and destroy lives. The Supreme Court already overturned the Chevron deference, which granted agencies nearly unfettered powers to create regulatory regimes without Congress. Humphrey's Executor deserves the same fate.

But we should not ignore the political aspect of the debate over "independent" agencies: the Left's bad-faith warnings about the collapse of the constitutional order.

Legacy media outlets warn that the Supreme Court is "poised to expand presidential powers" or "vastly expand presidential powers." Modern presidents have taken far too much power, no doubt. Often, that power is unconstitutionally handed to the executive by Congress, as in the case of levying tariffs. Article II of the Constitution, however, unsurprisingly vests control of the executive branch in the executive. So what power is being expanded here? One that explicitly exists? Or rather, as professor Randy Barnett asks:

Argument: Allowing the president to remove administrative officials will transfer an enormous amount of power to the president.

Question: Transfer from whom? Who currently has all that power?

The answer is one of the political parties, which has crammed bureaucracies with activists. The setup is reminiscent of the "nomenklatura" in the Soviet Union.

Now, Democrats are panicking about presidential power. But their entire conception of the constitutional order is upside-down or inside out or whatever form helps them best today.

When in power, Democrats champion the democratization of the only branch of government that's explicitly meant to be undemocratic: the courts. Prominent Democrats, including presidential candidates, endorse the idea of packing the Supreme Court to create an ever-expanding pseudo-legislature. The Supreme Court, of course, exists to uphold the law, not answer to the whims and vagaries of the electorate.

When in power, Democrats (though they are certainly not alone in this regard) demand that the executive act as if he were a one-man legislative branch. Perhaps no modern president has abused executive power more than former President Barack Obama, who engaged in a litany of unilateral acts, including, but certainly not limited to, ignoring Congress and legalizing millions of illegal immigrants without Congress. His Democratic successor, former President Joe Biden, not only attempted to "forgive" billions of dollars in private loans but also tried to declare the Equal Rights Amendment the "law of the land" via an X post, to the cheers of many Democrats.

Now, Democrats, the great guardians of "democracy," argue that the country is in peril because commissioners in agencies within the executive branch will be under the purview of the president. It's reminiscent of when Democrats warned us that the Supreme Court was crushing "democracy" when it overturned Roe v. Wade and returned the matter of abortion to voters.

Is it in the best interest of the country for the president to allow agencies (small "i") independence for the sake of governing stability? Yes. Constantly interfering with, for instance, the FTC for short-term partisan gain undermines the country. The temperament of candidates is an important matter for the electorate to contemplate when it chooses a president. The Constitution did not create an FTC immune from oversight.

Of course, if you don't want presidents to wield power over vast bureaucracies, the best thing to do is to shrink them or not create them in the first place.

(COMMENT, BELOW)

Previously:
• 12/07/25: War Powers Are Dead
• 11/27/25: MTG Embodies the Inanity of Populism
• 11/14/25: Gaslighting Americans is latest Dem Disaster
• 11/11/25: Trump's Filibuster Nuke Would Hand Dems the Keys To Remake America
• 11/04/25: Let's Talk About the Real Genocide of Christians in Africa
• 10/16/25: Obamacare Is a Massive Failure. The GOP Shouldn't Bail It Out
• 10/10/25: Why Aren't 'Ceasefire Now!' Activists Celebrating Trump's Gaza Peace Deal?
• 09/12/25: Israel's Strike on Qatar Should Have Happened Years Ago
• 09/05/25: An Open Letter to My Esteemed Colleagues at the International Association of Genocide Scholars
• 08/29/25: The President Doesn't Get to Dictate How We Express Ourselves
• 08/22/25: Is Socialism as Popular as the Media Think?
• 08/15/25: Save the Little Sisters of the Poor!
• 08/08/25: RFK Jr.'s War on Vaccines and Public Health Continues
• 08/01/25: Europe's Recognition of 'Palestine' Is a Cynical Joke
• 07/18/25: Legacy Media Still Covering for Biden
• 06/27/25: Trump Learned the Lessons of Iraq
• 05/30/25: We Have No Constitutional or Moral Duty to Subsidize Harvard
• 05/30/25: Welcome to the Intifada, America
• 05/16/25: Scapegoating Biden Isn't Going to Solve the Dems' Problems
• 05/09/25: The Pulitzer Prizes Have Become a Sad Joke
• 05/05/25: How Do You Do, Fellow White People? Tim Walz Says Hello!
• 04/25/25: Ketanji Brown Jackson Makes a Powerful Argument for School Choice
• 04/18/25: If Everyone Is an Expert, No One Is
• 03/31/25: The Left's Imaginary COVID 'Reckoning'
• 03/21/25: Sorry, Conspiracy Theorists -- Lee Harvey Oswald Acted Alone
• 03/03/25: Mitch McConnell: A GOP Hall of Famer?
• 02/21/25: RFK's Dangerous Autism Lie
• 02/14/25: It's Time to End the EV Racket
• 02/07/25: If You Really Support Immigration, Stop Excusing Chaos
• 02/03/25: Trump's Gaza Proposal Makes Complete Sense
• 01/24/25: How Biden's Pardons Normalize Abuse of Power
• 01/17/25: Israel Makes a Deal With the Actual Devil
• 01/13/25: Why Javier Milei Matters
• 12/20/24: The Obama Doctrine Is Dead
• 12/13/24: It's time for a national conversation about left-wing violence
• 12/09/24: It's time for a national conversation about left-wing violence
• 11/08/24: Don't Trash the Constitution to Dunk on the Libs
• 11/08/24: This 'liberation' will NOT be reported
• 11/01/24: HARRIS Is the Bigger Threat to the Constitutional Order
• 09/20/24: Fact checked! Harris Is the Extremist
• 07/13/24: Explain Yourself, Kamala Harris!
• 07/05/24: How Biden's Mental Decline Went From 'Misinformation' to Fact in a Week
• 04/12/24: Biden Is Now Chasing the 'Death to America' Voter
• 03/15/24: Turns Out Biden Lied About Hur, Beau, And Why He Pilfered Classified Docs
• 02/09/24: Why Biden Is Threatening to Veto Aid to Israel
• 02/09/23: Electric Cars Are a Scam
• 06/30/23: Americans Have Never Been Less Threatened by 'Extreme Weather'
• 03/03/23: Questioning Biden's Ukraine Policy Doesn't Make You an 'Isolationist'
• 01/20/23: No ribbons? Don't hide behind religion!
• 01/13/23: On Classified Documents, Joe Biden Is Out of Excuses
• 04/29/22: Biden's Ministry of Truth
• 04/08/22: The Most Radical Abortion Law in the Nation
• 04/01/22: Recuse Yourself, Joe Biden
• 03/25/22: No, School Boards Are Not 'Banning Books'
• 03/11/22: Let Them Drive Teslas
• 01/28/22: It's Not Government's Job to 'Root Out' Misinformation
• 01/14/22: Biden's Big Elections Lie
• 01/07/22: Schumer's Ugly 'Voting Rights' Gamble
• 12/24/21:AOC's Grasp on American Governance Is a 'Farce'
• 12/17/21: Dems Pivot from Build Back Better to Useless Extremism
• 11/19/21: Reckoning' Over Steele Dossier?
• 10/15/21: The Biden White House Will Pay for Playing Inflation Games
• 09/24/21: The most demonstrable political scandal still ignored
• 09/17/21: Sorry, AOC, The Rich Already Pay Their Fair Share
• 09/02/21: Why Isn't Biden to Blame for COVID-19 Deaths?
• 08/06/21: Biden's Unprecedented Attack on the Constitution
• 07/30/21: Jan. 6 Was Deplorable. It Was NOT a Coup
• 06/21/21: The Myth of Republican Obstructionism
• 05/21/21: What Does Putin Have on Biden?
• 04/16/21: Kristen Clarke Is Unfit to Be in Government
• 03/26/21: No to DC Statehood is far from GOP being reflexive
• 03/22/21: Biden Prepares to Strip College Students of Due Process Rights The Hypocrisy of the Filibuster Busters
• 03/12/21: Biden Prepares to Strip College Students of Due Process Rights
• 03/05/21: AOC's Terrible Minimum Wage Argument
• 02/12/21: The Dem Party Is Radicalizing against the Constitution
• 02/05/21: What NOT to Do with Marjorie Taylor Greene
• 01/15/21: Free Speech Is a Value Not Just a Right
• 12/31/20: It Can't Get Any Worse Than 2020. Here's a 2021 Political Wish List
• 10/26/20: Wanted: An Honest Debate about the Death Penalty
• 10/26/20: These are the questions 'Big Guy' Biden must be forced to answer about Hunter's emails
• 09/11/20: The Dems' Dangerous Delegitimization of the Election
• 08/28/20: Biden Is Underperforming Hillary in Battleground States
• 08/14/20: Kamala Harris, Imaginary Centrist
• 07/24/20: Who you calling a fascist?
• 07/17/20: Speech Police have finally gone too far
• 07/03/20: 'But Gorsuch' Is Still Trump's Best Argument
• 06/22/20: Welcome to America's Cultural Revolution
• 06/12/20: The color of my skin is not an indictment of my morality, nor does it strip me of my agency
• 06/05/20: What this son of immigrants knows about bulding bussinesses --- and the dismay of destruction
• 05/28/20: The Folly of Twitter's Fact-Check
• 05/22/20: Dems Warning Trump Will Reject Election Results Should Look in the Mirror
• 05/15/20: Obamagate Is NOT a Conspiracy Theory
• 05/08/20: Really, Joe --- due process is the opposite of justice?