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The GOP Wants You to Elect Thousands of Judges and Bureaucrats: “Boy, Are You Stupid or Something?” [1]
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Date: 2025-03-25
The well known Forrest Gump character was asked the following, “Boy, are you stupid or something?”
There are many ways to criticize the GOP’s suggestion that Democrats do not believe in democracy because they do not want to elect thousands of government managers and judges.
Their proposal to elect all these folks could be described as ridiculous, unworkable, impractical, or absurd. But the best description is that it is just plain stupid.
When Rubio or Mike Lee or Jim Jordan criticize “unelected judges” or the President says “And the days of rule by unelected bureaucrats are over” and Vivek Ramaswamy rages against “unelected bureaucrats”, they are talking nonsense.
Recent complaints about Judge James Boasberg in his efforts to stop deportations without due process are just the tip of the iceberg of this repeated Republican objection.
Let’s state the obvious. There is no possible way for voters to elect even the relatively small number of close to 250 judges on the United States court of appeals. And there is no possible way for voters to vote for hundreds or even thousands of other judges and government bureaucrats even if given a choice of only the most senior ones.
There are more than18,000 (2021 figures) employees at the National Institute of Health alone and many dozens of senior staff (or bureaucrats) at that agency. And that is only one of dozens of government agencies.
The impossibility of electing even a small percentage of government judges and bureaucrats seems clear. In other words, the people suggesting such an election are either out of touch or stupid, and there are a great many of them in the senior GOP’s leadership.
Here, I suggest that the people at Town Meetings with their Representatives and the mainstream media reporters at news conferences point out to Republican legislators and the President how their criticisms of bureaucrats and judges make little sense.
Shut down their often repeated talking point and embarrass them by showing how stupid and unworkable their suggestion is.
No voter wants election ballots with hundreds and thousands of names of judges and bureaucrats on them. Their choices would be uninformed to the point of being almost random and therefore of little value in promoting democracy. And how many judges and managers would be willing to run a nationwide or even statewide campaign to get and keep their government jobs. How would the news media cover the positions of all these candidates?
In response to the question in the title of the article, Forrest Gump replies, “Stupid is as stupid does.”
The phrase can be interpreted to mean that actions or behavior reveal someone’s lack of intelligence rather than their appearance. And while the GOP may look capable and be good at marketing their ideas, repeating this absurd suggestion over the decades reveals a fundamental lack of intelligence on their part.
Let’s make GOP leaders own up to their stupid suggestion, so we never have to hear it from them again.
Voters are up being overwhelmed and confused listening to such ridiculous talking points. Let’s eliminate this one from our political discourse once and for all.
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https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/3/25/2312487/-The-GOP-Wants-You-to-Elect-Thousands-of-Judges-and-Bureaucrats-Boy-Are-You-Stupid-of-Something?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web
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