How can Doge access critical government infrastructure and fire people if it isn't even a real department?

Submitted ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨tigerjerusalem@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨[deleted]⁩

I’m not from the US so all of this is baffling. In Europe and even South America there’s tons of mechanisms to stop that from happening, and this kind of meddling would seriously result in arrests. However this is happening in the US with these people going completely unchecked. How is that even possible?!

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xmunk@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Laws are only a thing if enforced.

The fox is in the hen house so if we want law enforcement we need to make sure it happens ourselves.

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- Pechente@feddit.org ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  To add to this: The Supreme Court has granted the president immunity from any wrongdoing and Trump has pardoning powers. So Trump or anyone close to him can essentially not be convicted, hence the massive corruption we’re seeing right now.
  
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- Drunemeton@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  The Devil is in the details, and he needs to get the fuck out!
  
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dhork@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
It is a real department, sort of. Trump used Legislation that was intended for an Obama Era “US Digital Service” and rebranded it “US DOGE Service”

en.m.wikipedia.org/…/United_States_DOGE_Service

They do, in fact, overstep their legal boundaries quite often. But the administration simply fires anyone who gets in the way until they get an acquiescent administrator who lets them grab the department by the pussy.

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- spankmonkey@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  “When you are rich and famous enough, they just let you do it.”
  
  I wish Trump bragging about sexual assault wasn’t national pokicy.
  
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  - homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    yeah but the non-voting lefties are way diggin’ it. They’re so glad genoside joe is out.
    
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a14o@feddit.org ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
It’s a coup. They are currently rewriting the rules of how things are done.

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- rmuk@feddit.uk ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  It’s a coup. They are currently ~~rewriting~~ willfully ignoring the rules of how things are done.
  
  FTFY
  
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0ndead@infosec.pub ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Because nobody’s punched these little fucks in the face yet

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FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
It’s good to be a king, and that’s what Trump is now. The people in charge of defending us from this took the money instead.

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grue@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
It’s a little thing we call “tyranny.”

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sin_free_for_00_days@sopuli.xyz ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
It doesn’t seem like people are really aware that the coup was successful this time. All the shit we are seeing is just fallout from that.

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match@pawb.social ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
south america has a tradition of government reform and transparency wherein criminals in government are arrested sometimes forcibly. no such tradition exists in the USA

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carl_dungeon@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Good question, as an American, I’m all for these fucks being the first against the wall.

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BobTheDestroyer@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
There are two kinds of true, and thus two kinds of ‘real’ to think of. There’s the kind where what you believe matters and the kind where it doesn’t. Gravity is the second kind. Step off the top of a building and it doesn’t matter if you believe in gravity, you’re going to fall. Politics is the first kind. If everyone believes I’m the king of North America, well, then that’s the truth. It’s reality. Likewise if everyone in the government believes that Elon Musk can fire whoever he wants, then he can, because everyone will just go along with it.

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- jaggedrobotpubes@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  While true, this takes the heat off the place it most belongs: individuals, individually choosing to go along with something so horrible, when they could instead choose not to.
  
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evasive_chimpanzee@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

there’s tons of mechanisms to stop that from happening

There are tons of such mechanisms in the United States as well. Unfortunately the mechanisms essentially boil down to laws, policies, and norms. Doing an illegal action does not pull a lever that deposits you in jail. The whole system relies on the people in power choosing to do the right thing. That’s going to be a potential issue in any country with centralized power.

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- Sorolainen@sopuli.xyz ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  I watched similar thing happen in my own country. It was just one decision (so far) and made with a very comfortable parlamentary majority. The problem was that it was supposed to be unconstitutional according to wast majority of constitutional experts. That turned out to be absolutely no problem for the parlament and the administration.
  
  It’s not even that I am too much against what they decided, but it did change my views on the nature of law. Any law or constitution is just a paper if it isnt enforced and will carry no weight, when it is simply ignored.
  
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gedaliyah@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
There are all sorts of mechanisms in the USA to stop this from happening as well. However, Trump spent the first term embedding loyalists in the courts and congress, so there really is not much left to stop him. If the people who are there to act as a check on presidential power are in on the game, then who is left to enforce the law?

Prosecution takes a very long time and authoritarians move very quickly. Time is not on our side.

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toned_chupacabra@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
I’m afraid that my country the US is entering a dictatorship similar to the 1973-85 dictadura in Uruguay. Even about 40 years later, when I (stupidly) left there, I could see the political and social PTSD from it. Along with Uruguayans being “never again with that horror” from there successful transition to one of the strongest democracies in the Americas.

The big difference is, instead of being a “civic-military” dictatorship, the US is beginning a “civic-techbro” dictatorship.

The military will follow along later. Much of the enlisted, non-officer troops are pro-Trump. Even some officers are.

Source: immediate relative who is a sergeant in the US Army. He is horrified by the Trump supporters in his unit.

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Snowclone@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
This is like in Latin America when a president wins a CIA backed ‘election’ and then creates a NEW legislative branch of government that has twice the power of the current legislative goverment, it’s a very simple and obvious way to practice ‘legalism’ which is a Fascist principal of doing things that APPEAR legal. But clearly aren’t.

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paequ2@lemmy.today ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

there’s tons of mechanisms to stop that from happening

Those are fake. Laws are fake. Government is fake. Money is fake. Everything is an illusion. It’s not a physical law of nature or something. It all boils down to if someone feels like doing something or meh…

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- count_dongulus@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  Yeah anything involving human behavior is ultimately…just based on how people feel and act. There’s (currently) no Robocop programmed to enforce laws to the letter.
  
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JeremyHuntQW12@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Commonwealth countries have a cabinet system of govt.

Minsters are selected by the cabinet from members of parliament. Departments are closed, opened and altered all the time when there is a ministerial reshuffle ordered by the cabinet.

Any minister could run this sort of operation in their department without palrliamentary approval, and the cabinet could do so for the whole govt (and frequently do).

The US has a presidential form of govt. The presidental office is separate from the parliament. Minsters are appointed by the president and must not be members of parliament.

But the president can’t just choose anyone - they must be members of their political party and they must be elected through a series of member elections and state executive decisions.

The issue here is not that DOGE cannot operate under a minister, its that the president cannot order a political outsider to undertake the duties of a minister properly elected through party processes.

BTW, no such limitaion exists in France - the French president can appoint anyone as ministerm, they don’t even need to be a French citizen or a residnet in France ! Macron attempted to do this recently but had to back down when the parliament blocked money bills.

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PsychedSy@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
They are a real department. The USDS.

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Sibbo@sopuli.xyz ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Aren’t they able to veto all financial expenses of the state or so? Then they probably can’t fire people directly, but just decide that a certain role is superfluous, and doesn’t receive funding anymore.

(I’m just guessing, but that’s how I’d do it)

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