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Summary
The White House is drafting an executive order to dismantle the Department of Education, aligning with Trump’s long-standing pledge.
However, Congress must approve the agency’s abolition, making its passage unlikely despite GOP control. Critics, including the National Education Association, warn this move would harm students, increase costs, and weaken protections.
GOP lawmakers have repeatedly attempted to eliminate the department since its 1979 founding.
Trump also recently signed an order expanding school choice, reinforcing the Republican agenda of decentralizing education policy.
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The executive order’s a symbolic gesture—Congress won’t scrap the Department outright. But the subtext? Steady erosion. Shift student debt oversight to Treasury, pare back civil rights investigations, let federal education funds atrophy. States then fill the vacuum: red ones push vouchers, defund “woke” curricula, blue ones scramble to plug gaps.
The playbook’s transparent. Undermine trust in public institutions, then offer “choice” as salvation. Rural GOP districts take the bait, then recoil when their Title I lunches and special ed services evaporate. Even conservatives quietly rely on federal data systems and grant streams—hypocrisy’s baked in.
Latest school choice expansions? Distraction tactics. Real damage accrues in the margins: disabled students lose protections, civil rights complaints backlog, teacher retention plummets. ED’s survived 40 years of GOP vitriol because dismantling it’s all optics, no payoff.
Predictable cycle. Provoke outrage, let chaos incentivize privatization. Rinse, repeat.
The executive orders are the start of rule by decree, and as long as the legislative and judicial branches let it happen, he’ll get away with it.
Rule by decree? My brother in Christ, have you met the federal bureaucracy? Even if they published the order tomorrow, implementation would take years of litigation. Death by a thousand memoranda.
The executive order’s a symbolic gesture—Congress won’t scrap the Department outright.
You’re wrong. They will not wait for Congress to do anything.
Who the fuck is going to stop them, you?
The courts, actually. Been there since Nixon tried similar stunts. Administrative state’s got more staying power than most realize. But hey, doom scrolling’s more fun than reading SCOTUS precedents.
We already have precedent for a president ignoring a SCOTUS decision (Andrew Jackson).
Does the Supreme Court have some kind of secret police force that makes sure the other two branches of the government follow their rulings?
In fascism, might makes right, and the person with the biggest guns/army gets what they want, or else they just fucking kill you.
Jackson’s precedent created a constitutional crisis that haunted executive power for generations. But let’s ignore history because “guns solve everything,” right?
And no, SCOTUS doesn’t need secret police when they have the entire administrative state’s inertia. The machine keeps running because people show up, file papers, and follow procedure—not because someone’s pointing weapons.
Oh, the SCOTUS that said anything done by a sitting president is automatically legal? That one?
Ah, you mean the unitary executive theory? That magical interpretation where presidential power is somehow absolute? Fascinating how selective that reading was—worked great for executive orders, not so much for criminal immunity.
The courts have been remarkably… flexible with precedent lately. But even in this twilight zone version of constitutional law, there’s still that pesky difference between issuing orders and having them actually implemented. The machinery of state has its own peculiar physics.
Though I suppose when SCOTUS is rewriting administrative law on the fly, precedent becomes more of a suggestion than a rule. Welcome to the constitutional speedrun era.
They will physically remove people from their jobs if it comes down to it, regardless of the legality of the order. You really don’t seem to get it.
Physical force is amateur hour thinking. You can march people out at gunpoint, sure. Then what? Who runs payroll? Maintains infrastructure? Implements policy? Even dictatorships need functioning bureaucracy.
But keep thinking might-makes-right while actual power plays happen in budget meetings and administrative procedures.
The playbook’s transparent. Undermine trust in public institutions, then offer “choice” as salvation.
So that’s the game
Been the Republicans game for as long as I can remember.
“The government sucks, it’s too big, and it’s broken. Elect me so I can break it more to prove I was right”
Well yeah, but that’s Step 1, I was never sure what Step 2 was…
A false choice that equates to gift-wrapping a ticking time bomb and saying it’s a brand new alarm clock…
Makes sense
Congress doesn’t need to be okay with it if Elon’s cronies waltz in and kick everyone out.
Ah, the classic “just do it anyway” approach. Cute, but federal agencies have this pesky thing called statutory authority. Even Elon’s crew can’t magic away the Administrative Procedure Act. Though watching them try would be… entertaining.
What about the last eight years has made you think these people will follow the rule of law?
adjusts reading glasses, sips coffee
Look, I get the revolutionary fervor—very 2025 energy. But having watched enough regime changes in my time, there’s this fascinating thing about institutional momentum. Even when someone kicks in the door waving the proverbial .44, bureaucracy has its own gravity.
Sure, the last eight years showed some… creative interpretations of executive power. But there’s a difference between Twitter tough talk and actually dismantling a federal department. Those career civil servants? They’ve survived multiple “this time it’s different” moments.
Not saying the system’s perfect—hell, it’s a mess. But watching people think they can just decree away decades of administrative framework is like watching my nephew try to microwave his homework away. Entertaining, but not quite how things work.
Then again, what do I know? I just watch the pendulum swing.
I understand your argument. But the entire premise is grounded in the assumption of courts upholding precedent and not letting an executive operate outside the confines of the law. The president has immunity. Congress is ineffectual at best and actively evil at worst. I mean for fucks sake, the current occupant of the White House lead an attempted coup and is still being permitted to sign, enact and decree legislation. If the checks and balances in our system were functioning, I’d be willing to get in line with you. But it’s so painfully clear that they are not.
taps pen on desk, stares into middle distance
You know what this reminds me of? Nixon’s impoundment crisis. Back in '73, he tried to just… not spend congressionally appropriated funds. Thought executive authority trumped everything else. Ended with the Budget Act of '74 and a whole new framework of constraints.
Or consider Reagan’s attempt to abolish the Department of Energy. Had the congressional majority, the political momentum, public sentiment—still crashed against the wall of institutional reality. Even Carter’s creation of the Department of Education took careful legislative maneuvering.
The system’s definitely more brittle now, no argument there. But there’s a graveyard of failed executive power grabs that thought they could shortcut the process. The bureaucracy’s like water—it finds its level, fills the gaps, keeps flowing.
Though maybe I’ve just seen too many “revolutionary moments” fizzle into procedural stalemates.
It’s crazy that people still don’t seem to understand this.
