Review: We Hold These "Truths": How to Spot the Myths that are Holding America Back

We Hold These "Truths": How to Spot the Myths that are Holding America Back by Casey Burgat
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Subtitled "How to Spot the Myths That Are Holding America Back", this book has been called "This book is the crash course in civics that America needs." Largely educational and even enlightening from insider account of how government really does work, there is also some revelations on behind the scenes realities of some events in our recent dramatic and turbulent times. Alyssa Farah Griffin was the White House Director of Strategic Communications during Trump's first term and recalls bleach etc. remarks by Trump in a press briefing:

POTUS walked right past me without breaking stride, ignoring or missing my attempts to catch his attention. I followed him to the briefing room, and its big blue sliding door closed. I opted to watch from a stone's throw away in Upper Press, where my office and the White House press secretary's office were located. Then I watched as President Trump did far more damage than I ever could have fathomed.

"There's been a rumor that-you know, a very nice rumor-that you go outside in the sun or you have heat and it does have an effect on other viruses," Trump said from the world's most famous podium. He then turned to Coronavirus Task Force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx and directed her to "speak to the medical doctors to see if there's any way that [she] can apply light and heat to cure" the virus.2 Dr. Birx sheepishly nodded, afraid to contradict the president in front of the world. I worked closely with Dr. Birx and hold her in the highest regard. She served her country in uniform as an army doctor, then dedicated her life to fighting infectious diseases, including HIV and AIDS. I'll never fault her for not jumping to the podium to correct the president of the United States, for honoring the chain of command, though I don't envy the position it put her in.

And here's where the wheels fell off.

(Trump, who doesn't kid,
said he was being sarcastic.)

Back to the lessons in government, we are seeing as I type what feels like a crest of peak EO churn as executive orders seem Trump's tool for quickly reshaping government. So, it is helpful to learn of the history and development of this tool in the president's toolbox.

The impermanence of executive orders not only has created a land-scape of instability but has also become a powerful tool for presidential candidates looking to make immediate impacts. The promise to reverse a predecessor's executive orders has become a rallying cry on the campaign trail, with candidates often pledging swift action in their first 100 days in office. This tactic allows them to quickly chalk up wins by undoing the policies of the previous administration, appealing directly to their political base eager for change.

So while the early months of an administration are often marked by a flurry of executive action, much of that action involves undoing the work of the previous administration. For modern presidents, their first 100 days have transitioned into playing a game of Whac-A-Mole with the other guy's executive orders-just as fast as one policy pops up, it's smacked back down, and the clock is turned back. And the cycle continues.

Interestingly, The Heritage Foundation, an American conservative think tank, that took a leading role in the conservative movement in the 1980s during the presidency of Ronald Reagan when his policies were taken from Heritage Foundation studies. They offer their own EO analysis in "The Use and Abuse of Executive Orders and Other Presidential Directives".

More from Griffin:

Lincoln did not call his Emancipation Proclamation an "executive order," but it was. In fact, it was the most famous and impactful example of the president of the United States bypassing Congress and changing federal law with the stroke of a pen. But from where did Lincoln's power to issue such a proclamation originate? Despite their frequent use and significant impact, the term "executive order" (or any of its variations) is nowhere to be found in the Constitution. Instead, the authority for what's often called the "power of the pen" originates from the Constitution's "vesting clause." This clause simply vests in the president "executive power," a deliberately vague term that has evolved over time to encompass the wide array of administrative actions involved in managing the government's day-to-day affairs.

This vagueness has produced an eternal debate about the scope of executive power, how the Founders intended it to be used, and what it means for modern presidencies. Constitutional experts generally agree that executive actions are legal as long as they fall within the president's policy jurisdiction (read: matters for which there is a relevant federal department) and within a reasonable interpretation of existing court rulings. (Note that things the president cannot do within those bounds include lower gas prices, cut mortgage rates, reverse inflation, fix Social Security, protect abortion access nationwide, or many other moves that some constituents expect him to do.)

These actions-whether they're called orders, directives, or memoranda are official, legally binding mandates...

Speaking of things that seem to add more grandstanding than good government IMHO, there is here an analysis of the evolution of the now ubiquitous filibuster by Adam Jentleson, contributor to this anthology of essays. Jentleson is former chief of staff to Sen. John Fetterman and deputy chief of staff to Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid. Jentleson is the author of Kill Switch: The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy and a regular contributor to various publications. He recalls "the golden age of the Senate, running through the first half of the 19th century, was a majority-rule institution where the filibuster did not exist." That was until Sen. John C. Calhoun

... envisioned a numerical minority empowered to counter the dominance of an unsympathetic majority. Whereas Madison wanted the minority to have a platform to air their views and delay the legislative process to make themselves heard, Calhoun believed the minority was entitled to a veto. Importantly, Calhoun had a specific minority in mind: slaveholders, for whom he was the nation’s leading advocate.

...[Sen. Robert “Fighting Bob” LaFollette's 1917 filibuster against arming American ships against German attacks] triggered a massive public uproar against the Senate-as Wilson described them, a "little group of willful men" and widespread calls for the chamber to reform its rules.

For a moment, it looked like the end of the filibuster. The Senate quickly reconvened and formed a committee to rein it in... But the committee made one change that would prove enormously and unintentionally-consequential. Instead of setting the threshold for cutting off debate at a majority, as in the original rule, they recommended setting it at a supermajority. ...Senate Rule 22, otherwise known as the "cloture" rule... is what sets the de facto threshold for passage at 60 votes...

For half a century after Rule 22, filibusters remained rare. From its inception in 1917 until 1970, the Senate averaged less than one cloture vote per year.16 During this time, those looking to stall a bill would talk for as long as they wished, and the majority would let them. But then and this is the key part once the minority ran out of words, they stopped talking. They voiced their opposition, and then

Rep. Steve Israel (D) who served in Congress from 2001 to 2017 offers insights into the realities of fundraising.

I learned early that there is only one area of instant bipartisan agreement: raise money.

Far from the resplendent white marble of the Capitol, I soon found myself shuttled into a "call room." Since it's illegal to fundraise within Capitol walls, members do their financial dirty work a few blocks away in a less auspicious building. Gray fabric cubicles. Flickering fluorescent lights. Members of the US Congress reduced to glorified telemarketers. For 10 to 15 hours every week, I would cold-call donors, delivering my well-honed 60-second pitch to raise the money required to stay afloat in politics and address the pressing issues I sought to tackle as a legislator.

I'd envisioned long hours spent on the House floor in great debates with partisan foes, hashing out hard-fought compromises and passing legislation that would improve the lives of my constituents. The reality was a financial arms race that would lead me to spend over 4,200 hours dialing up donors during my 16 years in Congress. That's almost half a year of my life.

Stephen I. Vladeck, an expert in constitutional law who has argued over a dozen cases before the US Supreme Court, has a prescription for SCOTUS:

...the indictment that SCOTUS has become too political rests on an assumption that rarely gets questioned. It assumes that, in some bygone kumbaya era, things were different. The court was better and could be trusted because justices of yesteryear were above (or, at least, aloof from) politics. They kept their personal views quiet and considered cases with cold judicial neutrality. In other words, they stayed in their lane, which is to just "call balls and strikes," as Chief Justice John Roberts famously described his would-be job at his 2005 confirmation hearing.

That idea certainly does sound nice. Only one minor snag: It's completely false. The belief in an apolitical judiciary is a myth-and a dangerous one. The Supreme Court has never been above politics. Even more to the point, the Supreme Court shouldn't be above politics. And if anything, the view that the court is supposed to be above politics has helped precipitate the true crisis facing the Supreme Court today.

That true crisis is not the one we think of whenever the press reports another divisive SCOTUS decision. It is that, to an extent that we have never seen in American history, the justices are not accountable to the other branches of government, especially Congress (or really, to anyone). Nor do they believe they should be. Justice Samuel Alito said this quiet part out loud in a July 2023 interview with The Wall Street Journal, asserting that "no provision in the Constitution gives [Congress] the authority to regulate the Supreme Court-period."

Alito is wrong as a matter of text (Article III of the Constitution expressly authorizes Congress and only Congress among other things, to make "regulations" of the Supreme Court's caseload). He's wrong as a matter of history (he himself holds a seat created by Congress in 1837). And he's wrong as a matter of common sense (without congressional approval, the court would have no money, no building, no staff, and no ability to do much of anything).

Congress ceding power to executive branch, specifically the president. Lack of comity

...bill to the floor that would give Congress more time. It passed overwhelmingly, though 90 Republicans opposed it. And just a few days later, McCarthy was booted from the Speakership by his own party. His crime? Compromising with Democrats.

Did compromise die along with McCarthy's leading role? No. Mike Johnson (R-LA) eventually emerged as the new leader, promising to fight for his party's goals. But a change in leadership could not change the underlying dynamics at play. Republicans were still divided and held a narrow majority. The parties were still miles apart on spending policy. There was no way forward except to cut a bipartisan deal.

The final spending package, agreed to in March 2024, largely resembled the deal cut between Kevin McCarthy and the White House in May 2023. The bill passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in both chambers. Conservative Republicans, who would have liked to go it alone, didn't like it. But the American system of government didn't really give them a choice.

A similar pattern has repeated over and over again in recent his-tory. Lawmakers on one side or the other want to do big, bold things to deliver on their campaign promises. They don't want to com-promise. But they discover, eventually, that to achieve anything at all-to move the ball forward on any of the issues that are important to Americans-they must.

cooperation required

...the majority rarely succeeds without the minority's support. Most times it's either teamwork or stalemate.

Are there exceptions? A few. Across the 295 party agenda items, we found just 13 (4 percent) that ended with one party achieving a clear policy victory over the sustained opposition of the other. These rare, partisan laws loom large in our political consciousness: Obamacare, the Republicans' 2017 tax law, some of the Bush tax cuts. But they are unusual.

This last point is key. It's not that Democrats and Republicans work together all the time. It's that if a majority party wants to actually come through on its promises, it needs the minority to help do it.

Border bill gerrymandering gridlock

Congressman Pascrell represented New Jersey in Congress from 1997 to 2024. He served as chairman of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Oversight in the 117th Congress. Pascrell was a member of the New Jersey State Assembly from 1988 to 1997 and mayor of Paterson, New Jersey, from 1990 to 1997. Prior to serving in office, Pascrell received his BA and MA from Fordham University. He was a longtime public school teacher and is a veteran of the US Army and US Army Reserves. Congressman Pascrell was a lifelong resident of Paterson. This essay was completed shortly before his passing in late 2024.

On February 4, 2024, a trio of US senators made a momentous announcement. James Lankford (R-OK), Chris Murphy (D-CT), and Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) unveiled a legislative deal to address America's southern border crisis and frayed asylum system.²

The package was the product of months of painstaking behind-the-scenes negotiation among the senators on one of America's most pressing issues. The effort had been declared dead by reporters and congressional insiders more times than you've accidentally been on

Matt fuller

What I can tell you from working in both types of settings is this: People want drama. They crave it. When Marjorie Taylor Greene calls Lauren Boebert a "little bitch" on the House floor, that's the story that gets clicks. It's juicy; it's immediate; it's got all the elements of a good old-fashioned political brawl. Readers are far less interested-and I've got the numbers to prove it-in my 6,000-word story on why Republicans turned on funding a war in Ukraine. (It's a great piece and you should read it!)

...

The truth is, the power to change the media starts with us-and it always has. If we want a more balanced, less sensationalized media environment, it's up to us to stop rewarding the content that perpetuates division and start demanding something better.

Part of the difficulty is, many of the people in power don't want us to.

The author's website offer more content along these lines including his substack for a "crash course in civics".

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