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Thyme’s term as President is coming to a close, with the next Presidential Election’s result being underway in just a few hours. With this in mind, I thought it would be fun/interesting to reflect a bit on what she got done, or rather tried to get done.
Opening this article with some statistics, the President has issued sixteen Executive Orders, of which eight are jokes, leaving us with eight serious ones. She has appointed two Judges and two Supreme Court Justices, one Attorney General, one Secretary of Expansion and one Secretary of Treasury; not all of these appointments have been free of drama or public backlash though.
For example, the appointment of Lyoko and then later Olive to the position of Secretary of Treasury has been met with significant criticism by some members of the public. The Senate decided to refuse to confirm Lyoko, denying him the position due to him being unable to answer some questions he was asked in the hearing, such as how much tax had been collected in the last month, a question he-as the incumbent Central Revenue Bureau Director-should have been able to answer. Thus, after the Senate refused to appoint Lyoko, the President decided to recommend Olive for the position to the chamber instead, who also was confirmed by the Senate later after a rather short hearing; this move has since been described as a “backstabbing” by Lyoko, as he believed the President didn’t support him enough.
On the other hand though, the two appointments to the Supreme Court were devoid of any drama or controversy. The Senate almost unanimously approved of Judge Britz ascending to the post of Justice, and has (thus far) expressed practically no discontent with the other nominee, Ed, who is currently serving as Attorney General. The three already sitting Justices of the Supreme Court have also taken no offense to the two picks, having personally suggested them to the President.
President Thyme’s notable Executive Orders include EO 146-03, which established the “tau4bills” program, encouraging normal everyday citizens to engage with SimDemocracy’s legislative system, EO 146-10, which created the new #media-discussion discord channel, furthering activity by encouraging citizens to participate in discussion surrounding movies, books, and other forms of media, and EO 146-14, which increased security from raiding (“terrorism”) in discord servers of executive departments and political parties.
Summarizing, her Executive Orders have been a mix of jestical whimsy, such EO 146-12 “SHUT YOUR BITCH ASS UP”, furthering activity in the SimDemocracy community, and taking the necessary steps to protect the nation from terrorist threats; very similar to what most other Presidents did with their privilege to issue Executive Orders.
Taking a bit of a look at foreign policy, a defining element of Thyme’s Presidency has been the debate around “SimExit”, a proposed Brexit-like departure from the League of Servers (LoS), an international cooperative between discord polsims modelled after the real-life League of Nations, although in this case it’s more being compared to the European Union.
Intending to end this debate which had been going on for multiple weeks now, she issued a non-binding referendum on the matter, which resulted in a slight majority of participants voting to remain in the LoS. This was not the end of the saga though, as another referendum seeking to answer the same question, but this time with slightly higher election security standards, was held shortly after, potentially due to the administration being unsatisfied with the first one’s results. It wielded the same results as the first one.
Going a bit on a tangent, the debate around SimExit seems to still not be over, as the Supreme Court is soon going to hear a petition by practicing attorney Notcom into if the initial Executive Order by former President Hazzy making SimDemocracy join the LoS even is legal. The petitioner seeks to challenge its legality on the basis that the League of Servers’ charter illegally grants legislative authority to the Security Council, and on the ground that the Security Council being able to ban any person with a simple majority violates the right to due process enshrined in the SimDemocracy constitution. Whether or not the petition will be successful still is an open question though, with multiple Amicus Briefs by distinguished attorneys already disagreeing with the petition already having been submitted.
A small thing to note about her Presidential term actually is that she posted every single of her Executive Orders to the SimDemocracy subreddit, something that only very few Presidents before her have done. In EO 146-06 she also directed her subordinate government officials to forward their important announcements to the subreddit too.
Concluding this article, Thyme’s Presidency has had a profound impact on SimDemocracy’s culture and foreign policy, especially in regards to SimDem not leaving the League of Servers. On the other hand though, there was very little domestic reform or political action by her; all in all, her Presidency can be described as whimsical, and mostly devoid of drama.