The alchemy of big law was always the way in which you seamlessly revolve in and out of government - the allure of making a lot of money and governing.

That is what is shattering.

Relatedly, for the first time in my lifetime, Democratic voters are turning against their own leaders.

40% of Democratic voters approve of Congressional Democrats, and 49% disapprove.

Last year, 75% approved and just 21% disapproved.

At town halls, Democratic members of Congress are encountering not support, but rage.

As Axios reported, a “senior House Democrat told Axios that a colleague called them after a town hall crying and said: "They hate us. They hate us.”’

Democratic voters haven’t fingered biglaw as the culprit, so the question right now is whether corporate America and big law will remain homeless,
or whether firms like Paul Weiss can recapture what they had.

But there is deep rage in the Democratic base, and on the right, at oligarchy.

And there’s another group ascending against the anti-populists who run Democratic politics.

On Friday, there were 34,000 people in Denver, Colorado at a Bernie Sanders rally.

For context, that’s 5% of the population of Denver, and 1% of the population of the Denver metro area.

One of the speakers was FTC Commissioner #Alvaro #Bedoya, who Trump had tried to remove last week.

Bedoya and his colleague, #Rebecca #Kelly #Slaughter, had been in the shadow of former Chair Lina Khan, but were important officials in moving populist policy.

In contrast to Paul Weiss, instead of lying down, they chose to fight.

Both are doing media tours to discuss the work they are doing against oligarchy.

Bedoya went to Colorado and spoke before that giant crowd. When was the last time a commissioner of a small Federal antitrust agency did that?

Sanders, who is attracting a lot of people who did not support him in 2016 and 2020 to his rallies, is building a different kind of politics.

He has refined his argument to focus on oligarchy, the group of superrich who are running the United States.

And a newer generation of politicians are recognizing in that argument something that makes sense.

There are conflicting messages, notably the New York Times’ Ezra Klein and The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson launching a campaign around the concept of Abundance, which I’ll touch on soon.
But the possibility of sharpening policy tools to bring our oligarchs back into our democracy and match them with a political coalition is there.

And in that sense, I am thankful to Paul Weiss and Brad Karp.
-- In this dangerous moment, the Democratic corporate establishment, by capitulating so obviously to Trump in return for corporate money, has just ripped out the heart that ran the Clinton, Obama, and much of the toxic parts of the Biden administrations.

And they did so at the only moment in the last two decades during which normal Democrats are looking for someone to blame for their own party’s fecklessness.

And who better to blame than the would-be Kamala Harris staff, a pack of Google and private equity defense lawyers - and Chuck Schumer’s brother - who, when the chips were down, bent the knee to Trump?

-- Matt Stoller

Although the article I shared above doesn't mention the agency, through that same February 18th executive order, Downmarket Mussolini also claimed absolute control of another independent regulatory body that is of great concern to all the billionaire nazis that own his regime; specifically the Federal Trade Commission or FTC.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/03/trump-fires-both-ftc-democrats-in-challenge-to-supreme-court-precedent/

Trump fires both FTC Democrats in challenge to Supreme Court precedent

"President Trump fired both Democratic members of the Federal Trade Commission yesterday, advancing his administration's claim that the president can fire FTC commissioners despite a US law and a 1935 Supreme Court ruling stating that the president cannot do so without good cause.

Trump fired Democrats Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, both of whom said the firings are illegal. Trump "tried to illegally fire me. I'll see the president in court," Bedoya wrote. The FTC was created "to fight fraudsters and monopolists," but Trump "wants the FTC to be a lapdog for his golfing buddies," Bedoya said.

A statement from Slaughter said, "The President illegally fired me from my position as a Federal Trade Commissioner, violating the plain language of a statute and clear Supreme Court precedent." Slaughter said Trump "fears the accountability that opposition voices would provide if the president orders Chairman [Andrew] Ferguson to treat the most powerful corporations and their executives—like those that flanked the President at his inauguration—with kid gloves."

US law says any FTC commissioner "may be removed by the President for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office." The Supreme Court held in a 1935 case, Humphrey's Executor v. United States, that "Congress intended to restrict the power of removal to one or more of those causes."

The Trump administration claims the case was wrongly decided, but the ruling is still in effect. Trump's Department of Justice said last month that it would urge the Supreme Court to reverse the Humphrey's Executor ruling, saying it "prevents the President from adequately supervising principal officers in the Executive Branch who execute the laws on the President's behalf."

I chose this article because it clearly articulates how long the Trump regime has been working on this, and what their spurious arguments to support it are; but I don't love the hint of both-sidesing here, and that isn't helped by AT changing the original title to no longer center that this is a massive power grab by the executive branch, which is embodied by president Trump. A good example of why I'm not thrilled about the writeup here is printing sub-headers like "FTC Chair: Trump can fire members." The FTC chair is of course some nazi Trump appointed in January, so I'm sure we're all surprised the maggot fascist who owes his job to Trump, thinks Trump can do whatever Trump wants to do, and that is clearly an important detail to highlight in bold, large font text. *Eyeroll*

As such, let me state that based on the current law, and existing SCOTUS precedent, Trump does not have the power to fire two Dem appointed FTC commissioners because he openly admits they'll get in the way of his dogshit plans. The caveat here of course being that we've fully descended into a game of fascist Calvinball, the GOP have a 6-3 majority in the current Supreme Court, and those berobed reactionaries have already shown a willingness to throw out precedent and make up the law as they go, so who the fuck knows if it even matters whether or not he's allowed to fire his political enemies from an independent commission. As it stands now however, what Trump is doing is unquestionably a brazen power grab and also flatly illegal.

Which then brings us to the question of why? Well, consider for a moment what the FTC has been doing recently; this is from an American Prospect article by David Dayen:

"Rebecca Kelly Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya, both of whom served with former chair Lina Khan in the FTC majority under Joe Biden, were told they were terminated today. The three of them made numerous advances over the past three years on antitrust and consumer protection policies, including successful challenges to numerous mergers and new rules cracking down on subscription deception, restrictive noncompete agreements, and other anti-fraud measures."

Please keep in mind that this is the agency that took Google to court and won. Alright, now consider all the extremely rich tech nazi CEOs who got Der Leader elected and really own the Trump regime; can you think of any reasons why those guys might prefer a corrupt, toothless FTC stacked full of nazis? Perhaps billions of reasons, as in dollars they can make doing shady shit that should be illegal without FTC interference?

In other words, Trump isn't just seizing power for the imperial presidency; he's paying the bills he owes billionaire CEOs by destroying the US regulatory state.