Jack of Harts

This part of the commentary requires a really brief civics lesson. We have three equal    branches of government in our Constitution. Executive. Legislative. Judicial. But there’s an unofficial Fourth Branch of the American Federal Government that has grown up over time. Some call it the Administrative Branch, or State. Others the Bureaucracy. The Regulatory State. Conspiracy theorists often name it the Deep State. Whatever name you give it, it’s a non-elected body of Federal workers who clarify and Execute the laws written by Congress. It’s officially part of the Executive Branch of government. The issue is that Congress often writes laws that are not fully clear and leaves it to the Bureaucracy to figure out how to make them work. Or they just have the Bureaucracy write the laws for them and then vote on the text without reading it. The old “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,” syndrome. Which has made for some interesting laws and regulations. One reason many consider it a fourth branch is because various rules make it difficult for the Chief Executive to manage and control the Bureaucracy. The point of this commentary is to state that the whole thing is gone in Jack of Harts. It basically disappeared during the Second Great Depression when the Federal Government collapsed. The States did not like it and did not reform it with the rest of the Federal Government. And though it had made some form of comeback by Jack’s time, the Shang literally pulverized it into ash when they dropped a missile storm all over Washington DC. As I’ve often joked, the American people actually didn’t mind losing DC that much. They were only politicians and government workers after all. No one much missed them. It was the millions of other Americans who died that pissed America off. Or so the joke goes.

The United States of America in Jack’s time is not the one we live in now. One important difference is that they have lived through the Second Great Depression. My background has it happening when the Federal Government proved incapable of making payments on the debt. I have a detailed timeline, but don’t tend to put those dates in my stories. I’d prefer the march of time not wipe my stories out too soon, you know. 😉 One of the primary effects of the Second Great Depression in America was that it basically erased any lingering trust in the Feds for most Americans, which is why the various State governments became the powers they are in Jack’s time. The States stepped up, the States brought order back, and the States resurrected the Federal Government in a far more manageable form. One that wouldn’t get out of their control again. Or so they hoped.

The United States of America has been recovering from the Second Great Depression for more than two centuries when the Jack of Harts stories begin. People are healthy thanks to medical sciences. Genetic engineering has Uplifted numerous animals to human level sentience. And yes, even smart dogs and cats still hate each other. And corruption is as rampant as it ever was. Jack likes to joke that if the Shang had limited their initial attack to Washington DC alone, the vast majority of Americans probably would have applauded them. There is far more truth in that joke than many would be comfortable admitting. And when the junior Senator from Colorado was the highest-ranked Survivor, she had a lot of work to do. Jack still says that she was the first President worthy of the position in his lifetime. Possibly the only one.