This is from Facebook. It's about a group that is suing the Trump Administration for his overall destruction of our government, as opposed to suing for a detail at a time, one at a time. At least that's what I think it said. What do you think?
--Kim
For years, Donald Trump and his loyalists have treated the federal government like a hostile foreign power, something to be gutted, humiliated, and privatized. In his second term, that war has escalated into a full-blown purge, orchestrated through the cartoonishly named Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a shadow agency with real teeth and no accountability. But now, the federal workforce is fighting back with lawyers.
This week, a coalition of labor unions, nonprofits, and local governments, represented by Democracy Forward and former White House ethics czar Norm Eisen, filed a 115-page constitutional cannonball aimed straight at the heart of Trump's dismantling machine. The lawsuit is massive in both scale and scope. Its five-page caption lists so many plaintiffs, it reads less like a legal document and more like the end credits of a disaster movie: "Starring California, Maryland, Texas, Washington, a public school district in Oregon, the SEIU, and everyone else who still believes in separation of powers."
Their claim is simple, if existential. DOGE's mass firings, budget shutdowns, and executive overreach are not just cruel. They are illegal. Only Congress can create or dismantle federal agencies. Only Congress holds the purse strings. Trump, however, prefers to govern with a Sharpie and a stack of executive orders, bypassing lawmakers and wrecking institutional norms with all the finesse of a drunk wrecking ball operator.
The stakes are enormous. This is not about one agency or one program. It is about whether a single man, backed by a handful of billionaire donors and a fear-addled Congress, can hollow out the civil service and remake the U.S. government as a loyalty cult. It is also about whether the Constitution still matters when the executive branch claims it is above the law.
Trump has long railed against the so-called "deep state," meaning career civil servants, scientists, and experts who dared to outlast his tantrums. In his second term, the rhetoric has become reality. Thousands of federal employees have been fired, sidelined, or replaced with unqualified ideologues who check the only box that matters: loyalty.
It is not just the high-profile agencies. Programs once considered apolitical, endangered species recovery, coastal habitat restoration, food safety inspections, and scientific grant reviews, are being gutted. Expertise is vanishing. Institutional memory is being severed. Imagine walking into a hospital and finding out the surgeons were replaced by podcast hosts who once Googled "brain surgery." That is the DOGE model.
Trump's defenders claim it is legal because he is "reorganizing." But this lawsuit says otherwise. The Constitution gives Congress, not the president, the power to create and fund federal agencies. The president can appoint agency heads with Senate approval and set policy within the law. But he cannot unilaterally restructure the government through executive orders and loyalty purges.
What makes this lawsuit different is not just its size. It is the coalition. Unions representing millions of workers. Local governments that depend on federal expertise for water, housing, and emergency services. Nonprofits defending health, education, and civil rights. Even school districts, like Eugene School District 4J in Oregon, have joined because they have seen firsthand how federal resources are being turned into political weapons.
Led by Norm Eisen and backed by Democracy Forward, the plaintiffs are flipping Trump's "flood the zone" strategy on its head. Trump used chaos and media noise to overwhelm opposition. This lawsuit meets him on that battlefield. It is expansive, aggressive, and impossible to ignore.
It does not just challenge one executive order. It challenges the entire machinery of authoritarian governance Trump has built. In a sea of piecemeal court battles and temporary injunctions, this case pulls the emergency brake on the whole train.
This is a fight for the soul of the American government. If Trump's power grab succeeds, it sets a terrifying precedent: that a president can dismantle the institutions meant to check him, fire anyone who resists, and rewrite the rules as he goes. That is not democracy. That is autocracy in real time.
Let us be honest. Congress will not stop him. The MAGA-controlled House is too complicit, too cowardly, or too enthralled by Trump's strongman theatrics. The Senate, with its 18th-century procedures and Mitch McConnell's ghost still lurking, will not offer much resistance either. That leaves the judiciary, the last branch standing between a functioning republic and a Fox News fever dream with nuclear codes.
The good news is that the courts have been fighting back. Nearly 200 Trump executive actions have already been challenged. Dozens have been blocked or struck down. Judges appointed by both parties have ruled against his abuses. And in this case, the plaintiffs have chosen the right battleground. These are experienced federal courts that take separation of powers seriously.
But the legal system can only hold the line if the rest of us stay engaged. Trump is not just trying to erase programs. He is trying to erase accountability. If no one resists, this becomes the new normal. Government by vendetta. Rule by edict. Power without responsibility.
This lawsuit is not just a legal maneuver. It is an act of constitutional self-defense. A reminder that the so-called "bureaucracy" is not a faceless enemy. It is made up of scientists, teachers, engineers, and analysts who keep the country running. The people who ensure clean water, safe food, fair elections, and functioning infrastructure are not the problem. They are the last firewall against an administration that has never believed in public service, only self-service.
This is the mother of all lawsuits because it has to be. If it fails, there may be no one left to file the next one.
follow me at marygeddry.substack.com and @magixarc.bsky.social
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment