Thread by @john_of_the_mtn

20 years ago, #POTUS was the leader of the free world.

Today, @POTUS is leading the nationalization of a free country.

A history🧵on how we got here..

It didn't start with #September11. Federal interventionism and expansionism began much earlier.

We dove into global conflicts in 1898, when we took Cuba, PR, Guam, and Philippines from the Spanish in a short war that began suspiciously.

Two hawkish POTUS later, #WoodrowWilson (a passive academic) established the #FederalReserve and income tax in 1913 (FTC in 1914), entered WWI and created a propaganda office in 1917, raised taxes in 1918, and formed what became the @UN in 1920.

Federal powers greatly expanded.

Wilson's two terms sound familiar today.

Fears of #Communism and #terrorism. The #SpanishFlu. Clumsy demobilization after a foreign war. Mass racial violence. #Inflation. Substance prohibition. Voting rights.

The upheaval was so acute that Harding ran on a "return to normalcy."

One of the forgotten legacies of the Wilson Era was the appearance of two future presidents on his staff: Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt.

Hoover led Wilson's US Food Admin and was Harding's Sec of Commerce. He expanded the power of both, micromanaged everyone, and supported more taxes and a minimum wage.

Philosophically pro-individual, his mgmt style unintentionally expanded federal power.

As POTUS, Hoover unknowingly hid a looming farm crisis by centralizing agriculture pricing under the Federal Farm Board (now the FCA), but did nothing to curb speculation on Wall Street.

Again, his anti-interventionist beliefs were incompatible with the power of his office.

Hoover's presidency also coincided with the collapse of many young democracies in the face of economic disaster.

Political power in the 1920s/30s began centralizing through fascism and communism. The world was becoming less free, and war was brewing again.

Hoover wouldn't be POTUS in the next war. That would fall to #FDR, who Wilson had made Asst Sec of the Navy in 1914. FDR ran on the Dem ticket in 1920, lost, battled polio, then was elected NY governor in 1928 and POTUS in 1932, three years into the #GreatDepression.

It's hard to identify a POTUS under which federal power was expanded more or faster than under FDR.

In his #first100days (a concept he coined), FDR leveraged a Democratic #trifecta to pass 76 laws and the framework to create dozens of new acronymized govt agencies.

Anyone still reading this likely doesn't need a refresher on FDR's expansion of federal power, but let me mention two things:

1) The idea of #CourtPacking came from his Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937. He wanted to add new justices who were favorable to his reforms.

2) The Reorganization Act of 1939 expanded the powers of POTUS to hide policymaking behind the privilege inherent to the Executive Office of the President (EOP), which includes all White House staff, the National Security Council, and the Office of Management and Budget.

The EOP is the hidden "permanent government", with many of the staff and policies continuing between administrations. EOP staff are allegedly nonpartisan, but the $700m+ budget now includes 1,800 positions that don't require Senate confirmation, giving even more power to POTUS.

FDR was elected to four terms bc of a combination of economic urgency, wartime fear/powers, and his extraordinarily savvy approach to domestic realpolitik.

However, it was Truman who broke the nuclear seal, renounced isolationism, and entered the business of nation-building.

Truman's foreign economic policies were successful in re-democratizing Europe, but his military intervention in Korea was a precursor to Vietnam and he was pro-NATO.

Domestically, he vetoed tax cuts, consolidated the Navy into the Dept of Defense, and created NSC, CIA, and NSA.

Eisenhower's foreign policy was to contain Communism. To this end, he planned and/or supported regime-changing coups in SE Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. He never committed a large number of troops anywhere, but his admin initiated US involvement in Vietnam and Cuba.

Domestically, he was moderate Republican. In fact, Truman had recruited him as a Democrat and his New Dealism and expansion of social security aligned more with FDR than his VP, Richard Nixon.

Eisenhower's most famous speech was actually his farewell address, where he expressed concerns about the military budget, particularly deficit spending and government contracts to private military manufacturers, which he called "the military–industrial complex."

It's curious that two POTUS in a row used their executive powers and an expanded intelligence community to tinker with foreign govts, and then renounce such things on their way out. Truman himself regretted the peacetime "cloak & dagger" CIA he created.

The powers of the intelligence community and the military-industrial complex seemed to persist beyond POTUS administrations, much like the EOP. For example, although JFK authorized the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, it was planned under Eisenhower.

JFK hadn't been in politics long. He was an idealist, and no doubt entered office hoping to have as swift and as memorable an impact as Teddy Roosevelt, the only POTUS-elect younger than him.

Indeed, his legacy would be swift and memorable.

From his inauguration, JFK was pushed by forces inside his government, but that were beyond his control.

One example stands out. Operation Northwoods was a plan by the @DeptofDefense for the @CIA to perform terrorist attacks on US citizens and blame them on Cuba to promote war.

History speeds up here. JFK rejected Operation Northwoods in '62 and was assassinated in '63.

1964's Gulf of Tonkin Resolution authorized POTUS, without a formal declaration of war by Congress, the use of conventional military force in Southeast Asia.

#PatriotAct blueprint..

For 123 years, Presidents have used crises (some fabricated) to expand executive powers at home and abroad.

However, this power outlasts them. Every new President becomes a puppet of the "Deep State," the persisting duo of intelligence community and Military-Industrial Complex.

Mussolini is often paraphrased (perhaps inaccurately) as saying "Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism, because it is a merger of state and corporate power."

If that's true, we're almost there and this merger of power comes at the expense of American liberty.