
America’s system of checks and balances might struggle to contain a despot - martincmartin
http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21716060-next-four-years-will-keep-students-constitution-busy-americas-system-checks
======
nilkn
The power of the Presidency has been slowly expanded over the last few
centuries. Each time, when the power was expanded, it was done so under a
President who seemed reasonable enough that nobody was afraid of what the
change truly meant. They knew that their current President wouldn't abuse it,
and they didn't think much further ahead than that. Many of these expansions
of power were made for very short-term political gain that seems downright
silly in retrospect.

Trump should be a lesson that reverberates throughout future history on why we
should always be wary of expanding the Presidency's power. There _will_ come
along a President every once in a while who will abuse every drop of power
given to him and who will basically act like he's in an episode of Game of
Thrones. The government should be designed to work fairly even with such a
person in power.

~~~
lineindc
I have no stakes in here (I'm not American), but as far as I know, he's just
doing what he promised he'd do if he got elected. What you're asking for is...
to protect people from themselves? I don't understand.

~~~
big_youth
In my social circles we are ecstatic that Trump is following through on his
promises.

~~~
jacquesm
I suspect your social circles will end up paying dis-proportionally once the
bill for Trumps promises arrives.

------
coldcode
In 1933 few people expected that 12 years later, no one would admit to being
in the 43% that voted for the Nazi party. But in their defense they had no
idea what the future would hold, the economy was a disaster, the country
downtrodden, and the Party kept the worst of their ideas rather quiet in the
big cities. The problem here is different, but we still don't know where this
will go, while we can see what was done so far we don't know if this is mild
compared to the future or the worst is done.

Having said that, the time to deal with a despot of some kind is before it's
too late, the problem is knowing when that is and not waiting until you can't
do anything any more. Our system here was an amazing design for the 1780s but
they couldn't know all the problems that would only appear 240 years later. At
the start they weren't even sure it would last to the 2nd president.

------
apo
Bruce Ackerman, whose work was cited in the article, gave a dead-on analysis
of the current situation in 2011:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7lCgKfxmuQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7lCgKfxmuQ)

He appears to be discussing certain points in his book, The Decline and Fall
of the American Republic. Here are a few:

\- The rise of a dual-election system for president increases the likelihood
of an extremist president. Imagine a political spectrum ranging from 1 to 100.
In a single election, the winning candidate appeals to the fat 50 range. In a
dual-election primary system the winning candidate appeals to the fat extremes
of 25 and 75.

\- The decline of the press leaves an information vacuum which political media
manipulators fill to the president's advantage

\- The constant rat-tat-tat of the War on X (where X is drugs and terror)
gives a sense of urgency that only unilateral presidential action can address.

\- The rise of the military as a check (or aid) to presidential power (think
Turkey).

\- Cabinet-level departments are increasingly influenced or controlled by non-
confirmed staffers (e.g., Elizabeth Warren), removing an important check on
presidential power.

\- The lack of a "Leader of the Opposition" position in the American system
leaves the job of braking presidential power to a diffuse Congress.

\- The rise of polls as de facto privatized elections that legitimize the
administration's agenda ("polls show the majority of Americans favor the
President's actions").

Ackerman also notes the key role the Obama administration played in advancing
these trends. This is not a question of parties, but of institutions.

~~~
eumoria
The rise of the military as a check (or aid) to presidential power (think
Turkey) is one thing that I strongly believe can't happen in this country not
solely in a legal sense but military personnel won't be used in force against
citizens they will simply refuse to.

~~~
ben010783
I wouldn't assume that. The Kent State shootings
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings))
and Bloody Sunday
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selma_to_Montgomery_marches](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selma_to_Montgomery_marches))
are enough to convince me that it is possible. Additionally, the current
president had strong support in the military and police (estimates have him
winning their votes with a margin of over 10%).

~~~
eumoria
Those are good points... I guess was just implying more along the lines of a
larger scale citizens oppression a la rounding up people on a national scale.
Kent or the march are akin to police shootings that we still currently have
happening as far as scale/injuries but I guess that's being semantic.

Riots (even imposed by the people there to "control them") will always be
difficult, confusing, awful situations. However the hyperbole of this problem
being akin to Nazi Germany bothers me. Our military would simply tell a
President to go get fucked before they would round up US citizens.

------
maxlybbert
It's hard to know where to begin. It appears that the Economist believes that
as long as the right person is president (and, I presume, the right people
control Congress), then the Constitution works fine. That isn't a compliment.
As James Madison said:

"[W]hat is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human
nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were
to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be
necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over
men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government
to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself"
(Federalist 51,
[https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=10&page...](https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=10&page=transcript)
).

The Constitution was designed with the assumption that the people in any
branch of the government wouldn't necessarily be "the right people," and the
other branches would need to serve as watchdogs (even though the other
branches wouldn't necessarily be run by the right people either; in the worst
case, ruthless politicians in Congress are expected to keep tabs on a ruthless
president, and a ruthless president is expected to keep tabs on a ruthless
Congress).

There are mistakes in the original Constitution (e.g., the elections of 1796
and 1800), but if today's Constitution relies on the people electing angelic
politicians, then we've done something seriously wrong.

Having Congress and the president keep each other in check appears to work in
practice as long as they are controlled by different parties. Of course, they
are currently controlled by the same party, so there _is_ good reason to
worry. The only real solution in that case is to not give power to the
president if it bothers you that the person in the Oval Office might not
always be someone you like. If you don't like the fact that President Trump
can order the assassination of an American citizen, the time to speak up is
when President Obama first claims that authority (
[http://www.salon.com/2010/02/04/assassinations/](http://www.salon.com/2010/02/04/assassinations/)
).

~~~
jcranmer
> If you don't like the fact that President Trump can order the assassination
> of an American citizen, the time to speak up is when President Obama first
> claims that authority.

The Economist DID speak up against that when Obama tried to do it.
[http://www.economist.com/node/21531477](http://www.economist.com/node/21531477)

------
cryptarch
Could someone tell me more about the American Enterprise Institute? They
critique "Trump's executive-orders" situation, which a lot of organizations
could do but they ended up in the Economist. They basically enter the picture
like "we're an authority and we're saying stuff is bad, like we have an actual
code for how bad it almost is".

They're a conservative think-tank, they seem to have intelligence/military
ties, seem to be pro-intervention (foreign war), were against emission trading
(but pro CO2 tax) and have received large donations at one point from
ExxonMobil. It's still a bit of a murky picture to me. The name sets off alarm
bells for me.

On the article: I noticed the phrase "students of the constitution"; it's an
odd combination that elicits (for me) student protests and conservative
ideology.

I'm not surprised by the current Trump situation. I've been following the
shift to authoritarianism in the US and UK for a while, and this seems like
the logical next step.

I haven't considered the US as a travel destination in a while, the same goes
for the UK. These countries aren't stable, they're very unfree relative to
where I live (NL), and I just won't stand for the level of humiliation their
checks at airports have arrived at. They also seem like dangerous places to
go, as they're close to no-law zones where the TSA has free reign.

It's bad enough that our largest airport has scanners that make 3D images of
your naked body, but to top it up you often get a full pat-down, especially if
you wear clothes with pieces of metal in it (like of jeans).

I'd much rather go spend my time and money in countries that don't require my
genitals to be patted down by strangers.

Off-topic: I'm not sure why this thread was flagged. I also think it's weird
that replies were disabled for e.g. the comment by TulliusCicero, but that
might just be because I don't understand the disable-reply-button system.

~~~
bradleyankrom
Agree that this doesn't warrant flagging. Thanks for re-posting. As an
American who regularly travels within and beyond our borders, I've developed
similar feelings about the protocol for security checks in the US. Getting the
full-body patdown is awkward, taking off jackets, belts, shoes, etc. and then
putting them back on in front of a throng of people borders on humiliating for
someone with anxiety issues.

~~~
jacquesm
I lost a pair of boots on the way to a meeting on an internal flight in the
US. It really can get quite crazy. (And no, steel tipped boots are not weapons
but a safety device and are very common in rural areas).

You could argue about my dress sense, but to confiscate my boots is just nuts.

~~~
bdavisx
I wouldn't be surprised if the boots fit the person that confiscated them --
or someone else who was working that day. Are they really supposed to not be
allowed?

~~~
jacquesm
> Are they really supposed to not be allowed?

From Canada (Sault Ste Marie) to Minneapolis it wasn't a problem, but on the
connecting flight to San Francisco it was.

And in a way that's the problem: these rules are quite selectively/randomly
enforced and even if there is paragraph somewhere that allows them explicitly
I never even thought of challenging the official handed over my boots and
bought a pair of new shoes on arrival in San Francisco. (Try finding a pair of
shoes that early in the morning...)

So you're probably right, even so I'm not stupid enough to start a fight with
a TSA guy and end up in more trouble than it is worth and they probably abuse
that when they can get away with it (foreigners).

Their rules include something like 'The final decision rests with the TSA
officer' so good luck challenging that.

They settle cases for millions each year where TSA employees were caught
stealing from passengers.

------
rm_-rf_slash
Might? They've been struggling since the Bush Administration ushered forth an
era of warrantless wiretaps and black sites.

My biggest criticism of Obama has always been his lax attitude towards the War
in Terror infrastructure: NSA mass surveillance; drone strikes against
American citizens in countries we are not at war with; the unaccountable FISA
court, to name a few.

Obama gave his successor a loaded gun. I was uncomfortable with Obama handling
it, much less anybody else.

~~~
jacquesm
And that is exactly the reason why all these 'I've got nothing to hide' types
are so wrong, you _never_ know what the next government will be like and all
that data is just one small step away from being subpoenaed and abused, if it
hasn't found its way to a government owned server already.

------
a2tech
When more than half of one of the checks firmly backs the despot of course
it'll struggle.

------
disease
David Frum recently wrote a piece for the Atlantic outlining the likelihood of
a "backsliding democracy" in the United States. I found it chilling:

[https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/03/how-
to-...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/03/how-to-build-an-
autocracy/513872/)

~~~
germinalphrase
I didn't care so much for his opening narrative - but the later arguments
about (potentially inadequate) check/balances definitely makes the article
worth reading. It is indeed chilling to consider how quickly things could
deteriorate if media/congressional opposition are coopted/made feckless.

------
njharman
We deserve Trump. We deserve every fucked up thing that happens. We deserve
this because we did heed the warnings, we did not stop expansion of powers, we
were complacent. It's too late to be angry now.

------
mtgx
Congress is supposed to be a check on that power. However, because of the
systematic corruption of money, Congress is full of compliant and easily
bought politicians, though, thus leaving few that would actually have the
willingness to fight a despot.

~~~
maxlybbert
The only way to get money out of politics is to stop making it a worthwhile
investment. As long as people can turn a profit, they will be willing to spend
money to get in line.

~~~
ConceptJunkie
That will never happen until the power of the Federal government is rolled
back to its strictly enumerated powers as intended by the framers. That,
unfortunately, isn't going to happen any time soon unless an Article V
convention starts whittling away at the last century of overreach.

------
mgarfias
[https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Cult_of_the_Preside...](https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Cult_of_the_Presidency.html?id=1JeGAAAAMAAJ&hl=en)

------
noobermin
Ackerman's quotes throughout the article are pretty spot on:

>from an 18th-century notable to a 19th-century party magnate to a 20th-
century tribune to a 21st-century demagogue

I also largely agree, we have given power to the President over the years
because they at least had some reasonableness to them, at least in their
context. I am squarely of the opinion that it isn't quite "both sides do it"
equally, but it is true both have contributed to Trumps soon to be zero checks
on power.

------
oxide
Why is this flagged?

The flagging feature is not a "hide" button. Try the "hide" feature to make
posts disappear.

------
jackmott
might?

------
davidkellis
Timing is suspect. We've known this for a long time.

~~~
TulliusCicero
How is it suspect? We now have a president with authoritarian tendencies, it
makes sense to be worrying about this now.

~~~
Shivetya
this entire article has no place on this site and the DNC through its
sycophants and the press has been pressing the Hitler angle since before the
swearing in.

Do you feel like a parrot yet?

This site is rapidly sliding into uselessness with all the direct and indirect
political crap. apparently the rules don't apply when one side is upset.

No one blinked an eye when the last President decided assassination of
American citizens abroad was okay nor having investigations to include
wiretaps of journalists.

~~~
jdmichal
Interestingly, the article was flagged dead at one point but has apparently
been restored. So there is at least some contingent that agrees with you.

