Obama’s Fundamental Transformation Is Blowing Up
Much more at the link.
On the political side, Obama’s transformations were less legislative (he never cared for the dirty work of politicking on Capitol Hill, even when Democrats were in charge) than they were procedural. Obama’s weaponization of the formerly nonpartisan bureaucracy against the Right might have begun at the IRS but it hardly ended there. He used the State Department and the UN to bypass the Senate’s authority to ratify treaties and Congress’s power to authorize the use of force. Then there are the multibillion-dollar slush funds at USAID and other agencies, whose corruption we’ve long suspected and are only now learning the true scale of.
Underappreciated in all this is the influence of former Obama hand Samantha Power — who was also Presidentish Joe Biden’s pick to head up USAID these last four years. Considered too radical to lead State, where Obama wanted her, Power has moved from one powerful — but often secretive — executive branch position to another.
With the election of Trump 2.0 the DGAF Edition, all that work is being undone.
Much more at the link.