A maniac at the helm
John Cassidy at the New Yorker says it’s getting worse.
Since Donald Trump entered the White House, American democracy has sometimes been described as dangerously fragile, but that isn’t necessarily true. Having survived for two hundred and forty-two years, American democracy is more like a stoutly built ocean liner, with a maniac at the helm who seems intent on capsizing it. Every so often, he takes a violent tug at the tiller, causing the vessel to list alarmingly. So far, some members of the ship’s crew—judges, public servants, and the odd elected official—have managed to rush in, jag the tiller back, and keep the ship afloat. But, as the captain’s behavior grows more erratic, the danger facing the ship and its passengers increases.
Well if the ship is vulnerable to having a maniac at the helm then it is fragile, however sturdily built it may be. We haven’t had a president like Trump before so we haven’t been forced to realize how helpless we are to stop such a president. We’ve smugly talked about checks and balances because that’s what they told us in school, but nobody told us they don’t actually work if the president and Congress are of the same party. A system that can’t make Trump stop is very god damn fragile indeed.
“A Democracy, if you can keep it.”
I hear the Titanic was quite sturdily built.
…and better operated…
“Having survived for two hundred and forty-two years”
Really? What a strange definition of democracy. That includes nearly a century of slavery and about 150 years when women didn’t have the vote. Democracy is fragile everywhere and not only in the US.
John Cassidy is really referring to the survival of the US Republic, not democracy.
Very apposite, OB.
The American Presidency seems to me to be modelled on and inspired by the best examples the Founding Fathers of the United States knew of at the time. So the President is really an elected 18th Century monarch. (Iceland and Switzerland, two older democracies, were for whatever reason apparently ignored by those Founding Fathers.) So now you have an elected Trump in place of an hereditary Mad King George.
Thankfully, the Founding Fathers of Australia and New Zealand, originally scheduled to become one nation divided internally by the Tasman Sea, did not go the same way. So a Trump is not really possible in either country.
And many still aren’t realizing it. I still hear people saying “checks and balances” like so many maniacal parrots that never learned anything but “Polly want a cracker”. These are people at the highest levels of education, some of whom cannot realize that the system depends on the acceptances of norms and traditions by those at the highest level.
Omar, @5
Superficially, the US president does appear to be a 18th century quasi monarch, it’s interesting that very few other democracies use the American system. Most have adopted some version of the Westminister arrangement.
I disagree with your last comment, it’s rather too complacent. We’ve certainly had a few ‘Trumps’ as state premiers here in Australia, but thankfully, so far, not at the federal level of government.
RJW
A major reason that Trumps can’t do very much here is specifically due to the Westminster system: no political outsider can come along and sweep everything.