> But what if your opinions, as an individual, unelected bureaucrat are bad?

That’s a slightly silly stance to take. Modern developed countries live and die by the quality of their bureaucracy. Making every bureaucratic role an elected position would be insane.

How on earth would you organise elections for every single DMV employee? Or every single park ranger? Or every single government accountant or secretary? Every single civil servant involved in collecting the data used to drive policy decisions.

To get rid of “unelected bureaucrats” you would basically have to turn every federal role into an elected role. The federal government employees around 3 million people, even if we say that only 10% of them are “real unelected bureaucrats”, that’s still 300,000 elections you would need to hold every X number of years. How on earth would anyone ever manage any of that?

Thats before we get to the insanity which is Musk, the epitome of the “unelected bureaucrat” who seems to be the one leading the charge on many of these “policy decisions”, and publicly lambasting “unelected bureaucrats” as being corrupt and “undemocratic”.

I read that as an all-inclusive "we" and not so narrow as "bureaucrats". The examples given are not exhaustive, if you have an imsgination. There are many ways to fight for what you believe in. Look up mutual aid, participatory democracy, and the histories of women's suffrage and the fight in the USA for equal rights for Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color (that fight is nowhere near over). Start with loving yourself, extent that to others, and if you feel like you're teetering, lean on others and find your balance again.

If I'm the guy guarding the door (and I have been), I damn well make my own decisions to the best of my ability, to where I would be willing to explain the what and why of my actions.

>Constitutionally, we should go with the opinions of the people who won an election

That’s literally not how the constitution has ever worked.

Which unelected bureaucrats do you consider to have the power and leeway to make policy according to their personal goals, such that making them follow the President rather than the courts' interpretation of the law is the better option?

… oh boy, if you think that mid level bureaucrat might be a neo-nazi I might have some bad news for you about the highest level bureaucrats currently running your country..

You’re right. But if the guy paid to guard the door is told to start letting gangsters in by management, whistleblowing and civil disobedience become championed by the public rather than condemned, that’s “the people’s” check and balance to power. I don’t think we should legally protect the guard’s right to disobey orders, but we MUST protect the guard’s right to protest publicly.

Ask yourself: what's the difference between the SEC saying, "We declare that Facebook broke a securities law and shall now be fined $1M" and Trump saying, "I decree that the SEC declare that Facebook broke a securities law and shall now be fined $1M"? Either of those could be true or false. Either could be politically motivated. Either could hold up in court or be struck down. So what's the difference?

One[0] answer is, the former was vetted by someone knowledgeable and (at least allegedly) non-partisan who had the power to stop it if it was wrong. That's it. If the president really wants to fine Facebook he can - he can replace the SEC Director with the "My Pillow" guy if he wants, who can replace SEC employees with randomly chosen members MAGA types until the desired fine is eventually issued - but at least going through the bureaucracy confers the possibility of impartial and informed oversight. Vesting the power with the president directly doesn't do that; presidents are biased and partisan by design.

0: Another answer is the SEC has been granted the power to do that by Congress and the president has not; but I get that people on the "unitary executive" train disregard this, and