From a Google Image Search - Getty Images - Administrative State
Mandate for Leadership-Tailor-Made for Trump
The Second Promise made in the Mandate is to "Dismantle the Administrative State and Return Self-Governance to the American People." There is a premise here that civil servants who complete the paperwork that keeps the government ticking along are stealing rights from the American people. What rights are being stolen? The stolen rights have more to do with the fact that civil service duties preserve a more liberal order than the one that conservatives wish to impose on US citizens and the only way to accomplish their conservative goals is to rid the government of all the "woke" employees who reined in Donald Trump when he was president. The claim here is that our government is being run from the bottom up by humans who run on autopilot with old liberal data. All the old employees need to be replaced with new employees who will understand and implement conservative policies through a reset of the autopilot function. Have I got that right?
From a Google Image Search - Key Facts/PolEd
Here's what Dr. Roberts, President of the Heritage Foundation had to say in the Foreword:
"Of course, the surest way to put the federal government back to work for the American people is to reduce its size and scope back to something resembling the original constitutional intent." (When there were only 13 states and 2.5 million Americans?). "Conservatives desire a smaller government not for its own sake, but for the sake of human flourishing. But the Washington Establishment doesn't want a constitutionally limited government because it means they lose power and are held accountable by the people who put them in power." (The use of the phrase "of course" is doing a lot of work here, but do you agree with these premises?)
"The task of reattaching the federal government's constitutional and democratic tethers calls to mind Ronald Reagan's observation that 'there are no easy answers, but there are simple answers.'"
In the case of making the federal government smaller, more effective, and accountable, the simple answer is the Constitution itself." "Consider the federal budget--and 12 issue-specific spending bills comporting with it--every single year. The last time Congress did so was in 1996. Congress no longer meaningfully budgets, authorizes, or categorizes spending.
(While liberals may agree that government could be more focused and somewhat smaller, states' rights would not be their solution and, in fact, with Americans divided equally between the two parties and with the conservative's "creative" approaches to collecting state governments any results of a constitutional convention held now would seal the deal for conservatives and shut out liberal reforms. In other words, this would be a bad time to hold a Constitutional Convention.)
"The term Administrative State refers to policymaking work done by the bureaucracies of all the federal government's departments, agencies and millions of employees. Under Article 1 of the Constitution, 'All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives.' That is, federal law is enacted only by elected legislators in both houses of Congress."
(This is disingenuous. Given the size of our nation, the millions of citizens, the daunting issues that face societies at times, and the in-depth knowledge needed to make educated decisions about how to implement policy Congress cannot be expected to pass every tiny regulation that hopes to solve a national problem. Congress passes broadstroke laws to address issues and then hands implementation off to experts in the area being attended to. Delegation is important and necessary.)
"In recent decades, members of the House and Senate discovered that if they give away that power to the Article II branch of government, they can also deny responsibility for its actions. So today in Washington, most policy is no longer set by Congress at all, but by the Administrative State."
"Congress passes intentionally vague laws that delegate decision-making over a given issue to a federal agency. That agency's bureaucrats--not just unelected but seemingly un-fireable--leap at the chance to fill the vacuum created by Congress's preening cowardice. The federal government is growing larger and less constitutionally accountable--even to the President--every year."
Roberts, the author of this Foreword, offers examples:
"A combination of elected and unelected bureaucrats at the Environmental Protection Agency quietly strangles domestic energy production through difficult-to-understand rulemaking process."
"Bureaucrats at the Department of Homeland Security, following the lead of a feckless Administration, order border and immigration enforcement agencies to help migrants criminally enter our country with impunity."
"Bureaucrats at the Department of Education inject racist, anti-American, ahistorical propaganda into America's classrooms."
"Bureaucrats at the Department of Justice force school districts to undermine girls' sports and parents' rights to satisfy transgender extremists."
"Woke bureaucrats at the Pentagon force troops to attend 'training' seminars about 'white privilege'."
"Bureaucrats at the State Department infuse U.S. foreign aid programs with woke extremism about 'intersectionality' and 'abortion'."
"Unaccountable federal spending is the secret lifeblood of the Great Awokening."
(Point of view is at the crux of America's divide. Humanitarianism was once considered an American superpower, including values such as being a champion for the downtrodden, the bullied, those without human rights they should possess, tolerance for diversity, and understanding that all humans have similar dreams and needs. Conservatives now consider humanitarianism wrongheaded. The rights of each individual to protect her/his rights trumps any more global consideration of human rights. Keep your money, protect your property, arm yourself as is your right under their interpretation of the Second Amendment, close the borders, and stick to Christian values as dictated by conservatives. Half of America agrees with the Conservative Way. Do you?)
"There are many executive tools a courageous Conservative President can use to handcuff the bureaucracy, push Congress to return to its constitutional responsibilities, restore power over Washington to the American people, bring the Administrative State to heel, and in the process defang and defund the woke culture warriors who have infiltrated every last institution in America.
The Conservative Promise lays out how to use many of these tools including how to fire supposedly 'un-fireable' federal bureaucrats; how to shutter wasteful and corrupt bureaus and offices; how to muzzle woke propaganda at every level of government; how to restore the American people's constitutional authority over the Administrative State; and how to save untold taxpayer dollars in the process."
"The next conservative President must end the Left's social experimentation with the military, restore warfighting as its sole mission, and set defeating the threat of the Chinese Communist Party as its highest priority." (Conservatives insist that the US military is "woke" and more like a humanitarian aid squad than an army.)
(While this document is very upfront about what Conservatives think about how to reform and reset America to simpler practices and times it also uses incendiary language designed to present their propaganda, and uses arguments they believe will sway Americans to let conservatives recreate our nation in their image. Replacing civil servants who take civil service exams to qualify for jobs with applicants who pass a conservative smell test does not seem like a path we want to go down. It also sounds like it will be a chaotic approach to hiring that will end any of the efficiency of the so-called 'administrative state' that conservatives sneer at.)
(pp. 6-9, Mandate for Leadership 2025)
https://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/project2025/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf
It points to the holes in our aging Constitution that doesn't enshrine human rights. People want essentially peace (stop all the killing), harmony (stop the name calling), healthcare ( a national system), job security (unions), inclusion ( part of a equal society), education (opportunities to excel) and freedom (to experience the world and all its cultures and wonders.)