Be Ready for Ungoverning: Nancy Rosenblum
December 19th, 2024
”Ungoverning is the intentional destruction of the capacity of government.”
We discuss how ungoverning is the equivalent of a bull in a china shop. Many institutions will be destroyed, but we don't know which ones and to what extent!
Nancy Rosenblum is the Senator Joseph Clark Professor of Ethics in Politics and Government Emerita at Harvard University, and the co-author of Ungoverning: The Attack on the Administrative State and the Politics of Chaos.
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Credits:
Host: Mila Atmos
Guest: Nancy Rosenblum
Executive Producer: Mila Atmos
Producer: Zack Travis
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Nancy Rosenblum Transcript
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Mila Atmos: [00:00:55] Welcome to Future Hindsight, a podcast on a mission to spark civic action. I'm your host, Mila Atmos. I'm a global citizen based in New York City, and I'm deeply curious about the way our society works. So each week, I bring you conversations to cut through the confusion around today's most important civic issues and share clear, actionable ways for us to build a brighter future together. After all, democracy is not a spectator sport. Tomorrow starts right now.
When we think about how government works, the ins and outs of delivering Social Security payments or processing passports or delivering aid to farmers, we would be hard pressed to come up with details. The work of government is mostly illegible and lives in our minds on a spectrum ranging from irritating -- think of your interactions with the DMV -- to downright evil, as was the case with the family separation policy at the border during Trump's first term. On the campaign trail, the incoming president promised to keep going in this vein and deliver the demise of government as we know it. But what exactly will that look like?
To unpack the possible destruction of the administrative state, we're joined by Nancy Rosenblum. She's the Senator Joseph Clark Professor of ethics in politics and government emerita at Harvard University and the co-author of Ungoverning: The Attack on the Administrative State and the Politics of Chaos. She previously joined us on the show to discuss her book A Lot of People Are Saying: The New Conspiracism
and the Assault on Democracy. We had a really lively conversation at that time, and I encourage everyone to listen to that episode, because the new conspiracism, which is conspiracy theory without theory, is alive and well, and likely here to stay. And we'll link to that episode in the show notes. Welcome back Nancy. Thank you for joining us again.
Nancy Rosenblum: [00:02:58] Good to be with you.
Mila Atmos: [00:03:01] So I was thinking the best way to structure this conversation is in two parts. And in the first half, we should get the terminology under our belt so we can gauge the impact of UN-governing on our democracy. So let's set the stage on what good governance is. I mentioned in the intro that governing is illegible. What's an example of government in action that everyone can recognize and agree that government is good. It's there to solve problems.
Nancy Rosenblum: [00:03:28] Well, I'm talking here about public administration, and that is government in action in a way that most people don't understand it. So let me pinpoint it if I can. Schoolchildren in the United States learn about the legislature, the presidency, the court system, especially the Supreme Court. No one learns about public administration or the administrative state. And yet those are the departments and agencies in the federal government and also in the states that do all of the business of shaping and implementing and enforcing and adjudicating public policies of every kind, every law and regulation, every benefit, every burden, the day to day, and the emergencies, is all carried on in the departments and agencies, with the thousands of men and women who do this, who collect taxes and take photographs for the National Park Service and translate languages and collect intelligence for the State Department and register voters. So that's public administration. And you cannot have good government in some more holistic sense without a functioning public administration.
Mila Atmos: [00:04:40] So public administration is essential in bringing public policy to life and making sure that government is delivering what we think we voted for, anyway. So let's turn to the subject of your book, which is titled Ungoverning: the Attack on the Administrative State and the Politics of Chaos. What is UN-governing? This is definitely not a familiar term for most of us, right? But it's clearly the antithesis of good public administration. But tell us, how do you define it?
Nancy Rosenblum: [00:05:10] It's the antithesis of governing. Un-governing is the intentional destruction of the capacity of government. It's the intentional vandalization of the machinery of government. And it's unprecedented. And it's so unfamiliar that we give it this unfamiliar name, and it directs our attention on governing to this concrete ground where the actual business of government is carried on through the departments and agencies, and with the public servants, the civil servants who work in them. And this attack on the capacity of democratic government that we call UN-governing was announced years ago, remember, by that agent of chaos, Steve Bannon, who promised the deconstruction of the administrative state. "I want to bring it all crashing down." What does that mean? It means three things. I think it means out with experienced, knowledgeable personnel. You get rid of, you fire, you circumvent, you hamstring the people with experience and knowledge to make government run. And you also shrug off all of the constraints of the regular processes of government, the rules, the consultation, even data collection. And you do this in a particular way that we've seen here in the United States in spades. And that is, you point incessantly to a conspiracy, a cabal of enemies, of the people in every corner of the machinery of government. Which is why Trump declared, "I will totally obliterate the deep state." And this deep state is the foundational untruth, the foundational mystic lie that allows UN-governing to extend everywhere. There's no place it can't go.
Mila Atmos: [00:06:55] Yeah. Thank you for connecting the dots for us there because UN-governing is really distinct, Not at all similar, to reforming government, which we often think of in terms of being more efficient and transparent, you know, keeping up with changing conditions on the ground or, you know, mitigating unintended consequences. Un-governing is arbitrary. And in your own words, it's nihilistic. And as we've seen from some of the cabinet nominations so far, like Kash Patel for the head of the FBI or Pete Hegseth for the Department of Defense, both of which are huge administrations with millions in the department's ranks, they really promise to wreak real havoc. And I think many of us are scared about this prospect. But since we are a pro- democracy podcast, what I want to know is why is this destruction of the administrative state or, in their words, the deep state, an assault on democracy.
Nancy Rosenblum: [00:07:52] Let me answer you in two steps. First, to distinguish, as you began to do Mila, between UN-governing, the deconstruction of government to any
kind of reform of government, I want to contrast it with the traditional conservative desire for limited government. We want to roll back some of the things that government does. We want to roll back health care, or we want to roll back Social Security, or we want to roll back regulations and so on and so forth. Now, conservatism and the notion of small government is anathema to most of us who care about progressive government. That does a lot for its people, but nonetheless, it's not ungoverned, it's not vandalizing. It's not trying to do away with the departments and the offices and the civil servants who do whatever governing the legislature, and the president wants them to do so. I want to make clear that this is not about reforming public administration. It's not about limiting it. It's about vandalising it, deconstructing it. And why is it an assault on democracy? You've asked me that twice now.
Mila Atmos: [00:09:05] Yes, because I feel like, you know, we understand, I think, we viscerally have a good idea of what it means to deconstruct a state. I think a lot of people are really scared, and a lot of people are really celebrating it. But I think the connection to democracy is often missing. It's difficult to understand why that's dangerous.
Nancy Rosenblum: [00:09:26] So let me, let me address that directly. Why is it that vandalising the administrative state, taking away all the experts, putting in charge of the Department of Defense or the intelligence agencies or the Department of Treasury, people who have no experience and no desire to continue the normal business of these agencies, why is that anti-democratic? And I think there are two ways of understanding it. One is that in democracy, the people who govern, govern according to the constraints of the office that they occupy. And what it means to occupy an office is that you have designated constraints. Even if you're in a powerful office like the presidency, you have designated constraints, you have designated processes and ways that you have to operate. You have ways in which you can be held accountable for whether you occupy that office in a certain way. The construction of a democracy is the construction through the Constitution and then through other creations of departments and agencies. Office. What UN-governing does is to do away with the constraints of office. You may hold something that has the name of an office like Secretary of Defense, but in fact, you're operating outside of all constraints, and you're operating according to the personal will of the person in charge, in this case, Trump and the presidency. So it's the destruction
of office and the substitution for arrant, unconstrained personal will. Does that does that answer your question?
Mila Atmos: [00:11:05] Yes. Yes. Perfect. Perfect.
Nancy Rosenblum: [00:11:06] And I can extend that if you want.Mila Atmos: [00:11:09] Yeah, well, tell us about the ultimate aim of ungoverned, because you just talked about, in the case of Trump, and I'm going to quote you to you from your book, "using government as a weapon, as an instrument of the leader's personal will is the aim of populist authoritarianism." So this is very different from being a fascist. Tell us more about that, because I was very surprised by this, because, you know, we've heard for so long Trump is a fascist, but you're saying something different. And I would love for you to.
Nancy Rosenblum: [00:11:38] Quite, quite different.
Mila Atmos: [00:11:39] Explain the difference.
Nancy Rosenblum: [00:11:41] Quite different. We have a whole chapter in which we distinguish what Trump is, this kind of popular authoritarianism from fascism and from other kinds of demagoguery. But the why of un-governing is really terrifyingly simple. It's to replace limited public authority. In a democracy, public authority is always limited, whether it's by a constitution or the rules of how an office operates. It's to replace limited public authority with unleashed personal will, to replace office with rule. I'll illustrate that with a quote. When Trump talks about "my generals," it's not a colloquial way of saying that the military is subservient to civilian authority. It's a demand for total obedience, for submissiveness, for the use of a military force against his political enemies, in particular his internal enemies. Recently, he called for Obama to be subject to military tribunals. So that's what un-governing is about. It's replacement of office with all of its constraints and requirements of knowledge to perform designated functions with personal willfulness. And it's really quite an extraordinary thing. I think that they're... Going back to your very beginning. There are a lot of ways to fail to govern a democracy well. There can be obstruction. There can be uncompromising ness. There can be clientelism. There can be corruption. There can be corruption at scale. We call it kleptocracy. But
un-governing is its own really dramatic, thorough, comprehensive thing. And there's no place where this destruction of office and replacement of personal rule can't go. Maybe I should just give some examples.
Mila Atmos: [00:13:30] Yeah. Give us a good example. Yes.
Nancy Rosenblum: [00:13:32] Let me give you some examples from Trump's first term. And then we can extrapolate to what he will do now. So for example, to take a minor thing. He subverted the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association's forecast of hurricane Dorian's path. You may remember that. He added Alabama to the map of the hurricane. Now, of course, they're threatening to undo the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Associations altogether, and to replace it with private forecasts. You hobble the post office. You circumvent and blindside the State Department. During meetings with hostile foreign leaders, do you remember when Trump visited North Korea and said that North Korea is no longer a nuclear threat? There was nobody there to take notes, nobody there to know what happened at the meeting at all, and so on. So it's the personalization of government and it results in un-governing. And then the question becomes, and we're seeing this right now, what Trump's will is, and what are the problems you may have implementing his will, including from those like the Project 2025 people that, they pretend to be in alliance.
Mila Atmos: [00:14:44] Right. Well, I want to talk about what's going to happen or what we think is going to happen next. But before we go there, I want to talk about the appeal of UN-governing because personally, I find it very confusing. But many voters obviously thought that was the solution, this nihilistic approach to government. People complained, or let's say in the post-defeat debates, there are lots of references to a failure of the Democratic president to deliver. But actually what's coming will surely be fewer deliverables for everyday people. And you describe MAGA as a reactionary counterculture movement. And, you know, it's been years in the making. How did this movement get us here to this point where people are demanding un-governing?
Nancy Rosenblum: [00:15:38] Great question. Let me just begin by saying that not everyone who voted for Trump in this last election is MAGA, or is interested in deconstructing government. They don't even know about it. Right? Many of these voters were just discontent with what they had, and saw this as some sort of alternative tossing
of the dice. But for many of them, of course, maybe a half, we don't know how to measure it. This really was an attraction to bringing it all crashing down. And the question is why? One kind of answer is that radical movements from the left or from the right tend to be apocalyptic movements, by which I mean they want change right now. I grew up in the 1960s and early 1970s on the left. And it was true then. We wanted free love right now, right? We wanted our communes right now. We wanted the end of the Vietnam War right now. And we were going to go to the streets and demand it. And this is true of powerful movements. They want what they want right now. They're apocalyptic. And you can address that desire, as Trump successfully did, by saying, I can give it to you right now, right. I can bring all of these things that obstruct you and that you don't like crashing down. So I think we have to understand this as sort of somewhat ingrained in radical social movements that can be exacerbated by a leader that can promise it right now.
Mila Atmos: [00:17:21] Mhm. So there's a tension though in delivering something right now because he's proposing some public policies that are deemed to be very popular, for example, mass deportation. Of course, something like mass deportation in fact requires a massive administrative state. You cannot find, round up, deport 12 million people without the help of public administration. Like he cannot wander the streets by himself and do it, right. So from the experience with zero tolerance in the first term, what do you expect to happen this time?
Nancy Rosenblum: [00:17:56] Well, we don't know. But I can say this zero tolerance, which was the separation of families at the border in an attempt to deter immigration. And your listeners may remember it. It was not so long ago and it was in the news all the time. It was devastating because they separated families. Steve Miller did this policy, and he's once again at the forefront of this deportation promise. Steve Miller organized it in a way that... He had no experience. He didn't consult the agencies that had some experience with deportation or that had some experience with dealing with children, especially infants. They kept no information. They kept no data. The thing was such a mess. They had to end it. And this was only a few thousand people, not 11 million, right? And it had devastating consequences in the sense that about a thousand of those children have never been reunited with their parents. So it was in every way cruel. But from my point of view, what was fascinating about it was that the attempt to implement a policy without public administration, right, without people who had
experience, without processes and rules and data keeping and a sense of the cost and how it would operate. So they're probably better organized now. But I do think that this massive deportation claim is impossible and impossible even in the long run, let alone in the short run. And I have a couple of things to say about it. One is,
Mila Atmos: [00:19:31] Yeah, go ahead.
Nancy Rosenblum: [00:19:31] One is that it may be that it turns out to be justperformative.
Mila Atmos: [00:19:37] Mhm. There's a lot of that.
Nancy Rosenblum: [00:19:38] Right.
Mila Atmos: [00:19:39] Performative.
Nancy Rosenblum: [00:19:39] Right. And sometimes Trump would, you know, sign a bill that turned out not to be a bill but a piece of paper. There was no bill at all.
Mila Atmos: [00:19:47] A press release, as you mentioned.
Nancy Rosenblum: [00:19:48] Exactly, exactly. But this is more serious. I mean, people's lives will be discommoded, or worse. I don't want to minimize this in any way, but it will, you know, it would be a small selection of people, maybe criminals from jail, something that was manageable and they could get a lot of press. Even if that's true. And here's what I think is the saddest and most terrifying part of it. Even if it's true that they're just going to try to truly affect a small beginning to it, I think it's going to have repercussions everywhere. I think that they have in announcing it, and they're going to announce it more and more, mobilized right wingers, mobilize their MAGA people, to go after immigrants, whether they're undocumented or not. And he's done this before in other areas around elections, for example. He has mobilized what amounts to a private army of vigilantes, you know, going after people. And, you know, we can read the people are terrified already and that they are already being harassed. And you're in New York. You must remember, after 9/11, New York City in particular, had this this slogan
that was advertised everywhere in the subways and in the train stations. "If you see something, say something."
Mila Atmos: [00:21:10] Oh, yes, I remember.
Nancy Rosenblum: [00:21:12] And there's been studies of what happened when you when you invite people, right, to cooperate in turning in their neighbors. And that's what happened. People did it because they were just wary of their neighbors. But above all, people did it out of malice, right? They figured that they could get their detested neighbor, immigrant, or just the wrong race, or whatever, in terrible trouble. And I think that that's what's going on here. It's already begun, and I think we're going to see it on scale. Terrorizing immigrants, documented or not, and having intimidation and threats and turning people in by these self-styled vigilantes, because Trump has from the very beginning, you know, when I talk about un-governing, the defining characteristic of government is that it has a monopoly of legitimate violence. And because Trump couldn't get the military to do what he wanted, or even National Guard and so on and so forth, he began to create a private army. That's what we saw in January 6th.
Mila Atmos: [00:22:21] Right. The Proud Boys. The Oath Keepers. The insurrectionists.
Nancy Rosenblum: [00:22:25] Well, they are they are still here. And it's amplified because I think that, you know, unorganized civilians are going to go after neighbors. So I think it's it's already having an effect.
Mila Atmos: [00:22:37] I mean, things have already gone viral with with people openly harassing fellow passengers on airplanes. You know, but of course, the vigilantism is encouraged. Violence is openly encouraged, already on the rise. It was very much on the rise during in the aftermath of Covid or during Covid against Asians, because he kept calling it the China virus. So if you looked Asian, it was definitely not a safe time.
Mila Atmos: [00:23:06] We'll be right back with Nancy Rosenblum. So stay with us. The last thing you want to do is miss this episode's civic spark, one small step we can all take to be more empowered and ignite collective change.
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And now let's return to my conversation with Nancy Rosenblum.
Mila Atmos: [00:25:06] I want you to talk a little bit more about how UN-governing is affecting or is delegitimizing the authority of the state to be the sole agent of violence, in a way. Because the vigilantism is pretty evident. But what does it do to like police? Military? I'm interested in that.
Nancy Rosenblum: [00:25:29] Well, you've struck on what I think is an absolutely central theme. We talk about how Trump and his people have created a lot of distrust in public institutions and in government, and I don't think that's the right way of explaining what's going on, because distrust can be turned into trust. More importantly, in a democracy, it's good to have distrust of government. We have lots of reasons to distrust even good and effective governments and presidents. Delegitimization is another order of thing. And it's delegitimization that has been carried on by this notion of the deep, the deep state. And what delegitimation means is that these institutions and the people that run these institutions have no value and no authority. And when you say over and over and over that the Department of Justice has no value and no authority, or that the
election administrators in your state have no value or no authority, you're removing the warrant for compliance. You're saying you don't have to obey these things. Right. And that's why we've begun to see and and I think it's going to be escalated beyond what we've seen, disobedience of various kinds and intimidation and threats and vigilantism of various kinds, because the institutions themselves and the people that run them have been de-legitimated. You don't have to comply with them. They're not legitimate. And there's no place this can't go. I mean, that's what's so extraordinary about it. You know, there's no institution. There's no set of officials, nothing that can be immune from this claim, that our enemies are internal enemies. And they're there, you know, whether it's in the IRS or in the Department of Defense.
Mila Atmos: [00:27:33] Mhm. I think one of the things that's also -- when we're talking about public administration -- is how is Trump going to weaponize the DOJ without actually relying on the people who work there to execute on this? You know, you just mentioned that he thought that Obama should stand in front of a tribunal, right? So how is that going to work or how do you envision that working? Because while he's deconstructing the state, he's also trying to weaponize it.
Nancy Rosenblum: [00:28:04] Yeah. Well, it will work by having an attorney general, and assistant attorney generals, who fire and expel the, you know, permanent employees, the justices, the lawyers who work there and replacing them or intimidating them into doing what they want or replacing them with their own people. Now you're asking a question that is fundamental and applies to every area of government. How can this be done? I mean, can they really do it right? They can try to put their own people in place, although we're seeing he's having some difficulty in that. Yes, even that at the highest levels you can try to put your people in place. And I think he'll be successful in most cases. But at some point you need an echelon of experienced people who know how the processes work to get the business of government done. And that's why I think we can expect this deconstruction of the state to go slowly. There will be dramatic public attempts at it, but I think that in fact it will go somewhat slowly and there's an interesting conflict here, which perhaps you'd like me to speak about, which is the conflict between what Trump wants and what the Project 2025 people want.
Mila Atmos: [00:29:24] Yes. Let's go there. What is the conflict between project 2025 and Trump?
Nancy Rosenblum: [00:29:28] Right. So and this is one of the reasons why there may be stumbling blocks to what looks like a dramatic and doable, you know, sort of erasure of the norms of government. I said that Trump wants unleashed personal will. And so then the question is what matters to him, right. What is his will? Where does his will want to go?
Mila Atmos: [00:29:52] Yeah, I think every day that's different.
Nancy Rosenblum: [00:29:54] Well, yes. If you're looking at sort of policy things, that'swhy he's so performative. Right. But I think there are three things that he actually wants. Mila Atmos: [00:30:03] Okay. Tell us.
Nancy Rosenblum: [00:30:03] He wants, he wants revenge. He wants intimidation. He will care that the Justice Department goes after his enemies. He wants to make financial deals. He wants money. This man...
Mila Atmos: [00:30:16] Yes, he wants to line his pockets.
Nancy Rosenblum: [00:30:17] He said the other day I didn't like electric vehicles, but now Elon Musk supports me. So I got to. Right. He's he's transactional. And what he wants, he wants besides just, you know, his passionate revenge is to set up a kleptocracy. He started to do it in his first term, and he's going to do it in spades now, right? People can buy offices. Industries can buy deregulation, and so on and so forth. So he wants revenge. He wants a kleptocracy, and then he wants performative power. That is, Trump wants to appear as authoritative on the national and the international stage. Right. And that's why he will have meetings with leaders in which nothing happens. And there's...
Mila Atmos: [00:31:07] And actually, you don't need notes. You don't need note takers.
Nancy Rosenblum: [00:31:10] Well, you may need notes, but I take your point. Right. Or phony signing ceremonies or, you know, enormous claims about deportation on day one, and why some people have said he's forming a cabinet made of Fox interviewers
because they're popular and they look good and they're known. So he wants exhibitions of unleashed authority. He wants kleptocracy. And he wants revenge. And this, as you say, makes him very erratic. And it gives him not so much interest in policy. Right.
Mila Atmos: [00:31:45] Yes.
Nancy Rosenblum: [00:31:45] So and it's unclear what policies he will support, what policies he will let other people do just because maybe there's money in it for him or because why not? He's not interested. He wants to play golf. And that's where, and we wrote an op ed in the Boston Globe recently about this. That's where there's a potential conflict coming between him and the Project 2025 people like his vice president Vance and others. Their ideological. Trump is not ideological. He wants these things. He wants revenge. He wants money,
Mila Atmos: [00:32:21] And then he wants to play.
Nancy Rosenblum: [00:32:22] Right. And he wants exhibitions of power, and then he wants to, right, play golf. These people are virulently ideological. They are about reforming and reorienting government for a program. And it's a Christian nationalist program. It's combined with racism and misogyny, as we know, and it's a program for deregulation.
Mila Atmos: [00:32:45] But so talk about that. The people who are ideological, how does un-governing work for them? Because you talk at length in the book about how un- governing has become a Republican brand, and it's really here to stay for now, even though you know Trump is not going to live forever, right? Trumpism in some form will endure. But this idea of governing as a, as a platform, how does that work with wanting to execute Project 2025, and installing or, you know, rei-nstalling, although it never quite was, a Christian nationalist state.
Nancy Rosenblum: [00:33:23] Right. You could say, of course, that Project 2025 is not just an ideology, it is a program for government. And that's true. I would nonetheless say that it's about governing, because it's going to disable and vandalize the departments and agencies and civil servants and people that govern in a way that a democracy requires. Maybe that's where you're getting up at the very beginning, that
offers health care, that offers public services, that runs a foreign policy, right, that keeps the nation safe as opposed to putting in people who don't know anything about the military or intelligence. But I'm going to disagree with something you just said here.
Mila Atmos: [00:34:07] Okay.
Nancy Rosenblum: [00:34:08] The key to Trump is the desire for personal power. Project 2025 really is a program that reaches into the future beyond Trump. Or wants to. Right. It assumes that political power is about serving actual goals, their cultural goals, in this case in certain deregulatory goals. But however objectionable these goals are, they're meant to go beyond and outlast one person. And it sees the Trump presidency itself as in the service to a future without Trump, without Trump at the helm of a government and party. And that's something he can't bear. So I'm going to be on the on the lookout for quite public conflicts between the areas in which Trump's going to give Project 2025 its head, if any, and his turning against it. You know, he's already talked about having another term beyond this one.
Mila Atmos: [00:35:05] Right, right. I mean, he has already talked about canceling elections. "This is the last time you'll have to vote." He didn't, I think, actually say he's going to cancel elections. But yes, the intention is not to run again.
Nancy Rosenblum: [00:35:15] I think on the cultural front, he may give Project 2025 its head on the cultural front, meaning, you know, ways in which they fight against civil rights or women's health and/or wanting Christian schools and prayer in schools and so on and so forth. He may give them their head on cultural issues, but I don't think on other things for the reasons I've just described. So I'm on the lookout for conflict rather than alliance.
Mila Atmos: [00:35:44] Right. Yeah. You know, I had a conversation with my son about Mitch McConnell, and we were talking about what a power player he is, and he quipped, "well, even though Mitch McConnell is no progressive, he is not into un-governing." And so maybe of all people, he could be a buffer to the wholesale destruction, if it's even possible.
Nancy Rosenblum: [00:36:08] Well, that's a good conversation to have, and we don't know. I mean.
Mila Atmos: [00:36:12] Yeah, we don't know.
Nancy Rosenblum: [00:36:13] In the past, people have looked to Mitch McConnellduring the impeachment hearings. Mila Atmos: [00:36:19] Yes.
Nancy Rosenblum: [00:36:20] We had looked for him for institutional leadership. And it's been said that he's an institutionalist and he cares about the Senate, and he has failed in the past. But it may be that he won't fail now and and that he will come to the fore. Now he has given up his formal leadership position.
Mila Atmos: [00:36:37] Yes.
Nancy Rosenblum: [00:36:37] And that gives him more leeway to do things. It's going to be a very important thing over the next six weeks or eight weeks, to see whether the Senate stands up to some of these appointments and not just 1 or 2 of them, but to many of them. And what McConnell, what McConnell does?
Mila Atmos: [00:36:54] Well, I think he tanked Rick Scott's bid for being Senate majority leader, which, you know... And Rick Scott was the preferred candidate by Trump. So he clearly has some influence.
Nancy Rosenblum: [00:37:08] Well, there's a basic democratic issue here, which is whether the institutions, not the public administration right now, but the Congress and the president and the courts, whether there'll be any equilibrium as they're supposed to be amongst them. I think we saw the Congress and the Senate cave during Trump's first term very clearly. And it may be that the Senate will stand up for itself now. You know, I don't know. They have very small majorities in both houses. And...
Mila Atmos: [00:37:39] Well, talk to me about what that would look like, what's the necessary work so that these institutions can not only survive, but thrive as a necessary pillar for democracy.
Nancy Rosenblum: [00:37:52] Yeah, that's a great question. Well, the two houses have different critical offices to perform. Right. And some of them, obviously they have to do together. But in the Senate's case, they have to be concerned about national security. They were always supposed to be able to declare war and circumscribe war. They've given up all kinds of authority that they once have, but they still have things that they can do right when it when it comes to foreign policy and national defense and so on. And we'll see whether the Senate interferes at all in Trump's shenanigans in that regard. They also have judicial appointments. And there we can expect nothing but the worst unless their majority shifts. The Congress is more likely to either exercise or fail to exercise its unique authority and requirement in the next year. Really? Less than a year. Because it's the one that takes care of the budget. That has to give money out, right? And that has to say we're going to we're going to raise taxes or lower taxes. We're going to make sure we have enough to pay our debts and so on and so forth. And so we'll see whether one or both of these institutions completely cave and allow Trump to drive us off track, both financially and in the national security arena.
Mila Atmos: [00:39:20] Right. We'll see. I think since since we've experienced a first term, I think people... I mean, I'm hoping that people will be different this time. But...
Nancy Rosenblum: [00:39:28] No. I think I think not. [laughter] I don't. I don't think. Mila Atmos: [00:39:33] Yes,
Nancy Rosenblum: [00:39:33] I don't. I don't think we can expect very much except from, you know, from democratic forces in the Congress and some in the Senate. But, you know, I want to say that there's a lot that can be done and where I would look, hopefully. So maybe we should talk about the hopefulness a little bit. Actually....
Mila Atmos: [00:39:55] I have one question before the hopefulness question. Nancy Rosenblum: [00:39:57] Okay.
Mila Atmos: [00:39:57] And that's about the Supreme Court. I think this conversation would not be complete without talking about, we love to look at the Supreme Court as a guardrail against constitutional attacks, but actually the current Supreme Court is in on it, to obstruct the administrative state, for example, in overturning the Chevron doctrine and then grabbing power for itself. But in terms of helping a president and destroying public administration. I thought your chapter on courts and constitutional attacks really helped me better understand the theory behind the unitary executive. And now, to me, the immunity decision to crown presidents as near untouchable kings makes more sense. But where does that leave us today as ordinary citizens?
Nancy Rosenblum: [00:40:40] Well, I don't know that those decisions affect ordinary citizens directly in any way the way overturning Roe did, for example.
Mila Atmos: [00:40:49] But it gives it gives the president the power to do whatever he wants and not be accountable.
Nancy Rosenblum: [00:40:53] Well that's right. I mean, you're pointing to the two important areas that are going to have ramifications dramatically starting this year. One is this immunity decision, which means that he can do anything. He can commit any crime, he can undo any department. He can deconstruct the administrative state, and there is no way of stopping him or indicting him even after the fact. You know, and people have talked about this endlessly, what this immunity decision does and how it makes no sense in our system of government. But it was not a surprise. Well, let me say this. We are so wary now of this court, which is not just a conservative court. It's a court that's gone over into the camp of an unleashed executive. It's also done something else. And you raise the Chevron decision. That was a doctrine, the central doctrine in administrative law for the administration of government. And it said that Congress can make a law, but Congress can't figure out what kind of percentage to put on the the amount of carbon that you can emit from a furnace. Right. And so the Chevron doctrine said that unless Congress says what the administrative state with the Department of Energy is doing was not what they intended it to do. You give leeway. You give deference to what these administrative departments do. These are the experts. These are the people who have to enforce it and implement it and so on and so forth. And in two very important decisions in the last two years, the Supreme Court
undid that and said, no, we're going to take away the discretion from the administrative state, but instead of sending it back to Congress, they took it for themselves. They say it's up to us to say what the law would be. And that's why Elena Kagan, in her dissent, said she couldn't imagine anything more terrifying than the justices of the Supreme Court who have no knowledge, no knowledge of the emissions from power plants right to make decisions on whether the rules of the Department of Energy should be upheld or not. So we have a court that's out of control, right? In the same way that we have a president and administration that's that's out of control. I don't know if that answers you, but there's no help there.
Mila Atmos: [00:43:16] Yeah, there's no help there.
Nancy Rosenblum: [00:43:17] But but let me just say not everything will go to theSupreme Court.
Mila Atmos: [00:43:21] Yeah that's true. That's true.Nancy Rosenblum: [00:43:22] And there are many there are many federal courts and state courts that are still reasonable courts.
Mila Atmos: [00:43:28] That's good to remember.
Nancy Rosenblum: [00:43:29] And the forces that are going to be trying to create stoppages to what's going on here are known both to the civil society agencies, the advocacy groups, and to the states that are starting already to bring suits against what's happening and they know where to go.
Mila Atmos: [00:43:47] There's some hope. Every week on Future Hindsight, I ask my guest to share a civic spark. One small step we can all take to be more empowered and ignite collective change. What's a good way to turn the insights you've shared with us today into action?
Nancy Rosenblum: [00:44:03] Great question. And before I answer your question, can I just say how important that question is? And it's important because one of the results of an unpredictable administration, you know, vandalizing the administrative state so
that we don't know whether our health care is going to be permanent or whether it's going to be reduced, or whether our Social Security check is going to come on time, and so on and so forth. One of the results of this is that it creates terrible unpredictability. And when citizens find that their lives are unpredictable because what they expected from government may or may not come or may change dramatically without notice, and without them being able to take steps to protect themselves is they lose a sense of agency. It's very demoralizing. It's frightening, and it creates passivity and a loss of democratic agency, which is the most important thing we have. So your question about what small steps people can take is a critical one. And I would say two things, I guess. One is that we had have often in the past have demonstrations, right. Massive protests and demonstrations. And they're not to be belittled. These are energizing. They bring people together. They get people who are otherwise feeling passive and demoralized to have an exciting experience. So I'm not against protests and demonstrations. They're energizing, but I don't think that they're politically significant. Okay, so I think the important steps that people can take are local, are local and in their states. The biggest bulwark against what's happening with Trump and the federal government now is in the states, in state governments and compacts among the states, and they're going to do things like litigate, and they're going to create havens for people who have to flee to blue states from red states. And they know a lot about how the courts work and the judges work. But I think the most important thing that people can do is to vote in state and local elections. The composition of state legislatures and of school boards and of zoning boards and so on is absolutely critical and is going to be more important than ever now, because that's where people are going to find their safety and their regularity. And ultimately, perhaps, you know, a national objection to Trump and what's happening. And, you know, people can do that. People can go to their town meeting, people can vote for who sits on their school board or their public health department and so on. And, you know, it does require effort, but it's an effort around home, right?
Mila Atmos: [00:46:58] We agree. We should get engaged locally. We say this all the time on the podcast.
Nancy Rosenblum: [00:47:02] It's absolutely true. There's no question about it. And it's more true now than, you know, this is the old Tocqueville argument about what makes America a democracy is the levels of government and the local involvement. But I say it
now, not only because, you know, that's your way in to having some agency, but also because at this point, those are the saving institutions. That's what's going to save us.
Mila Atmos: [00:47:27] Yeah, it is, it is. So last question. Looking into the future, What makes you hopeful?
Nancy Rosenblum: [00:47:35] This is a good question because I think I'm not so hopeful about our institutions, and I'm not so hopeful even about our party system anymore. I don't think we have two viable political parties anymore. I guess what makes me hopeful is what what we were just talking about the sort of Tocqueville, an agency that's demonstrated in local groups, in local political protests, in gatherings, in associations, in the generation of young people that although they're supremely ignorant, you know, have good feelings about the climate, for example. And it only takes one way in, you know, to become an active citizen. And I think that our hope has to be, as it always is, with young people in the next generation. I have two grandchildren, and they have both been victims of the malignancy of our political society. My grandson in his high school, there were three school shootings and a friend of his was killed.
Mila Atmos: [00:48:41] Oh,
Nancy Rosenblum: [00:48:42] And my granddaughter is trans and has been affected by the politics against young people like her. And the question is whether these people, and so many others like them, are going to rise above it and become politically active or not.
Mila Atmos: [00:49:00] Yeah.
Nancy Rosenblum: [00:49:00] I'm hoping.
Mila Atmos: [00:49:01] Well, yes, I am hoping too. Nancy Rosenblum: [00:49:03] What's your hope?Mila Atmos: [00:49:05] oh. What's my hope? I hope the same as you. Well, I hope -- you know, I have this podcast to spark civic action. So I hope that people will be
sparked into action, you know, in these coming years. Thank you so much, Nancy, for joining us on Future Hindsight. It was really a pleasure to have you on the show.
Nancy Rosenblum: [00:49:24] Pleasure to be with you, Mila.
Mila Atmos: [00:49:26] Nancy Rosenblum is the Senator Joseph Clark Professor of Ethics in politics and Government emerita at Harvard University and the co-author of Ungoverning: the Attack on the Administrative State and the Politics of Chaos. Remember, civic action doesn't have to be complicated. It's about small steps that spark progress, like sharing this episode with a friend. So let's recap this week's civic spark and fire up our collective power. An unpredictable democracy is frightening. We know this to be true, but pushing on through fear is necessary if we want to move forward as citizens with power together. Don't let unpredictability strip you of your agency. The quickest way to grab your power back is to vote local vote in state and county elections. Go to town meetings, get engaged with your school board. So I'll say this now for the third episode in a row: get busy on the local level.
Next week on Future Hindsight, we'll be sharing an episode from our friends at Latino USA. I think it will give you more food for thought as we enter 2025.
And next year on Future, Hindsight will be coming to you with some really great stuff on party politics, multi solving and systems thinking, and the work of the ACLU in Washington DC. That's next time on Future Hindsight. Now make sure you hit that follow button on your podcast app. So our episodes will stay in your rotation every week.
Thanks for tuning in. And until next time, see clearly, act boldly, and spark the change you want to see.
This episode was produced by Zack Travis and me.
The Democracy Group: [00:51:20] This podcast is part of the democracy Group.