But today, I really wanted to bring back two older pieces I wrote for other outlets that are about why presidential democracy is a bad idea.

Where the analogy breaks down is that a president isn’t like a CEO. A CEO is hired by a Board of Directors, who are elected by the shareholders. He has broad authority, but the authority is purely delegated. He’s analogous to a prime minister in a parliamentary democracy, where the “check” on the elected government is just that they need to maintain the confidence of parliament. The herky-jerky, kludgy nature of the American system isn’t explained by these alt-right fantasies of a secret regime pulling the strings — it’s a design flaw of the Madisonian system. And in the vast majority of cases in other countries, it’s broken down precisely because sooner or later, someone ends up trying to rule as a plebiscitary dictator.

American democracy is doomed

by Matthew Yglesias
Updated Oct 8, 2015, 12:30 PM EDT

America’s constitutional democracy is going to collapse… [as opposed to parliamentary democracy]
Some day — not tomorrow, not next year, but probably sometime before runaway climate change forces us to seek a new life in outer-space colonies — there is going to be a collapse of the legal and political order and its replacement by something else. If we’re lucky, it won’t be violent. If we’re very lucky, it will lead us to tackle the underlying problems and result in a better, more robust, political system. If we’re less lucky, well, then, something worse will happen.

#1: Trump’s Early Honeymoon Is Over—And the Gender Divide Remains

The weekend before Trump’s inauguration, 49% of young Americans (18-29) in our SocialSphere tracker expressed optimism about his presidency—likely fueled as much by frustration with Biden as pure excitement for Trump.

• In Biden’s final days, his approval among young voters was just 34%.
• Only 23% believed he met their expectations.
• 45% felt his presidency had negatively impacted their lives.

#2: Economic Concerns Dominate Gen Z’s Political Priorities

#3: Cultural Issues Still Matter, But They’re Not the Main Event

While cultural issues still exert influence, economic challenges—rising costs, employment instability, and healthcare accessibility—are the principal concerns for Gen Z voters.

We were warned that this day was coming. We, like the Europeans, just hoped it wouldn’t. My new piece on the implications for Pacific security of last week’s geopolitical earthquake in Europe.

As I watched with growing unease the statements by Trump, Vance, Hegseth and Kellogg last week, it became clear that the political earthquake that hit Europe last week would also have aftershocks across Asia. In this piece, I conduct an initial assessment of the key impacts of the new Trump Doctrine for working with allies and authoritarian regimes, and the implications for Australia.

There have been many interpretations of the behaviour of the new US administration in Europe and America. Perhaps the best description might be offered by Vladimir Lenin, who is reputed to have stated: “There are decades where nothing happens and then there are weeks when decades happen.”

This shift has been described by the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal as peace through weakness. In an era in which aggressive, technologically advanced and industrialised authoritarians believe the time has come to reorder the international system, Trump’s retreat from the world will only provoke and embolden dictators like Putin and Xi Jinping.

This piece was published yesterday by the Sydney Morning Herald.

Tomorrow in Ukraine, Russian soldiers will attack Ukrainians. Russian drones and bombs and rockets will target Ukrainian homes. A criminal war of aggression will continue.

Tomorrow in Saudi Arabia, Russian officials will discuss the future of Ukraine with an handful of Americans, delegated by a president who sympathizes with the Russian view of the war. The Russians will have the luxury of talking about Ukraine without the presence of Ukrainians.

The headlines are about “peace negotiations.” But what is really going on? How should we think about this unusual encounter in Saudi Arabia?

Here are ten suggestions, drawn from years on working on relations among the three countries, and from some recent personal observations at the Munich Security Conference.

But today, I really wanted to bring back two older pieces I wrote for other outlets that are about why presidential democracy is a bad idea.

Where the analogy breaks down is that a president isn’t like a CEO. A CEO is hired by a Board of Directors, who are elected by the shareholders. He has broad authority, but the authority is purely delegated. He’s analogous to a prime minister in a parliamentary democracy, where the “check” on the elected government is just that they need to maintain the confidence of parliament. The herky-jerky, kludgy nature of the American system isn’t explained by these alt-right fantasies of a secret regime pulling the strings — it’s a design flaw of the Madisonian system. And in the vast majority of cases in other countries, it’s broken down precisely because sooner or later, someone ends up trying to rule as a plebiscitary dictator.

American democracy is doomed

by Matthew Yglesias
Updated Oct 8, 2015, 12:30 PM EDT

America’s constitutional democracy is going to collapse… [as opposed to parliamentary democracy]
Some day — not tomorrow, not next year, but probably sometime before runaway climate change forces us to seek a new life in outer-space colonies — there is going to be a collapse of the legal and political order and its replacement by something else. If we’re lucky, it won’t be violent. If we’re very lucky, it will lead us to tackle the underlying problems and result in a better, more robust, political system. If we’re less lucky, well, then, something worse will happen.

#1: Trump’s Early Honeymoon Is Over—And the Gender Divide Remains

The weekend before Trump’s inauguration, 49% of young Americans (18-29) in our SocialSphere tracker expressed optimism about his presidency—likely fueled as much by frustration with Biden as pure excitement for Trump.

• In Biden’s final days, his approval among young voters was just 34%.
• Only 23% believed he met their expectations.
• 45% felt his presidency had negatively impacted their lives.

#2: Economic Concerns Dominate Gen Z’s Political Priorities

#3: Cultural Issues Still Matter, But They’re Not the Main Event

While cultural issues still exert influence, economic challenges—rising costs, employment instability, and healthcare accessibility—are the principal concerns for Gen Z voters.

We were warned that this day was coming. We, like the Europeans, just hoped it wouldn’t. My new piece on the implications for Pacific security of last week’s geopolitical earthquake in Europe.

As I watched with growing unease the statements by Trump, Vance, Hegseth and Kellogg last week, it became clear that the political earthquake that hit Europe last week would also have aftershocks across Asia. In this piece, I conduct an initial assessment of the key impacts of the new Trump Doctrine for working with allies and authoritarian regimes, and the implications for Australia.

There have been many interpretations of the behaviour of the new US administration in Europe and America. Perhaps the best description might be offered by Vladimir Lenin, who is reputed to have stated: “There are decades where nothing happens and then there are weeks when decades happen.”

This shift has been described by the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal as peace through weakness. In an era in which aggressive, technologically advanced and industrialised authoritarians believe the time has come to reorder the international system, Trump’s retreat from the world will only provoke and embolden dictators like Putin and Xi Jinping.

This piece was published yesterday by the Sydney Morning Herald.

Tomorrow in Ukraine, Russian soldiers will attack Ukrainians. Russian drones and bombs and rockets will target Ukrainian homes. A criminal war of aggression will continue.

Tomorrow in Saudi Arabia, Russian officials will discuss the future of Ukraine with an handful of Americans, delegated by a president who sympathizes with the Russian view of the war. The Russians will have the luxury of talking about Ukraine without the presence of Ukrainians.

The headlines are about “peace negotiations.” But what is really going on? How should we think about this unusual encounter in Saudi Arabia?

Here are ten suggestions, drawn from years on working on relations among the three countries, and from some recent personal observations at the Munich Security Conference.

Trump’s emergency application took direct aim at a precedent from 1935 in which the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Congress can shield independent agencies from politics.

That case, Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, concerned a federal law that protected commissioners of the Federal Trade Commission, saying they could be removed only for “inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office” — the same language that Congress used decades later to protect the Special Counsel.

So what now? I’m afraid the Trump White House and the Supreme Court have teed up the Dellinger case to mark the end of Humphries Executor — and therefore the practical end of independent agencies. They may carve out the Federal Reserve on some pretext, but they are bent on centralizing presidential power.

PARIS — As U.S. and Russian envoys prepare to begin talks in Saudi Arabia on ending the war in Ukraine, European leaders have called an emergency meeting in Paris after being cut out of the peace negotiations.

The gulf between the U.S. and Europe on the Ukraine war and security issues crystallized for Europeans this past weekend at the Munich Security Conference, says Elie Tenenbaum, head of the Security Studies Center at the French Institute for International Relations.

“Their worst nightmare has come true,” he says. “They see that the Trump administration is going to bypass them and try to strong-arm Ukraine in negotiating a deal with Russia to end the war.”

Musk is moving fast and breaking important things

And here’s the thing: If a rocket blows up, you can build a new rocket and try again. “Move fast and break things” is sometimes an OK approach if the things in question are just hardware, which can be replaced. But what if the object that experiences “rapid unscheduled disassembly” is something whose continued functioning is crucial to people’s lives — say, something like the U.S. government?

This isn’t a hypothetical question: Musk, with backing from Donald Trump, is blowing up significant parts of the U.S. government as you read this. And we can already see the shape of multiple potential disasters.

So last week, when the Trump administration began laying off large numbers of probationary workers, the only real questions were how quickly it would become clear that essential government functions were being compromised and just how scary the damage would be.

Mass layoffs in government are here. Oddly, the antitrust agencies aren’t affected. Or are they? Meanwhile, Trump Antitrust chief Gail Slater had her nominating hearing in the Senate last week.

So what’s the long-term effect? That’s not clear. Obviously the people being let go are going to be hurt, and certain regions will likely experience economic pain. But will these firings actually affect the country more broadly? There’s clearly a lot of waste in government, but the idea that it’s all waste seems exaggerated. I suspect the Federal government is so pervasive, and there’s so much in our society that runs on it, that we won’t realize what’s gone for some time. So I’d like to hear from you. If you’re a reader of BIG and you work in government or in a company or organization funded by government, please consider filling out this survey that I put together, especially if you are concerned about layoffs. The basic idea is to give us some sense of how Americans will be affected by the cuts.

And now let’s get to the second event, which is antitrust chief nominee Gail Slater, a former J.D. Vance staffer, having her nomination hearing in the Senate on Wednesday. It’s unusual for the Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division to be appointed so quickly, which means that this area is something Trump cares about. And indeed, while the right is trying to shake up government, the one part of the Biden agenda they haven’t rejected is antitrust. For instance, the Trump Antitrust Division recently challenged a big tech merger, which shocked Wall Street. Then, a few weeks ago, DOJ lawyers argued in a Google case the way they would have were Biden still in charge. Finally, last week, the FTC and DOJ oversaw a regulation on merger notifications go into effect, eschewing the broader pause on updating rules.