Speaking the truth about a fatally flawed system, but few are ready to concede the strength of your argument. The mass media continue to dance around the obvious, looking in vain for appearances of "guardrails", long ago rendered asunder by this piratical, venal, stunningly corrupt, and malignantly lying regime. And, more importantly, who can or will stop this evil man from using nuclear weapons on the battlefield? That ONE person ALONE has the authority to order incineration of millions of people surely
is the singlemost failure of the evolved "unitary executive" transmogrification of constitutional government into one-man rule.
Yet, here we are, under the thumb of a less-than-serious and less-than-rational individual, with seemingly no exit.
This is the best piece you’ve written to date. Elegantly stated on how we let the termites in to eat our foundation and killed the fumigator on the way out.
Bryan, I hate your analysis because it’s so frighteningly correct. One thing you didn’t mention was Nixon/Goldwater bipartisan Congressional leaders go to WH and demand the president steps down. But, again, that Stag is not coming to the rescue; in fact, they’re on Spring Break! Norms are gone…we’ll have to figure out what comes next after we get rid of this dreadful regime.
Nice questions, now go the fuck out on the street and ask everyone else to follow! I wouldn't know if I would end up alone at the gates of the WH or if I would go up in a mob of a million others, but I wouldn't want to look back on me thinking for hours if it's a proportional reaction to a possible nuclear genocide in my name.
Whew. That was hard. Your clear-sightedness is always impressive and surgical. Painful though it is. Great big thanks for another excellent disputation.
maybe Democracy Forward could hire a tech person to create an AI system that would allow the cabinet members and VP to vote anonymously whether to invoke the 25th. If that anonymous vote produces a majority to remove, then maybe there coudl be a second, real vote. Isn't part of the problem with going first that the first person doesn't know if there is a majority? this would remove at least that uncertainty
Any system is only as good as people using it. And no system is so fool proof as to withstand 77 million of fools acting together and many more fools standing by and letting them.
Well crafted piece which leaves no viable alternatives, other than despair (mostly for USians, but for the whole world too). If, as you say, an external event will be the match that lights the fuse, what is the outcome? It could lead to a quick resolution or a long-drawn out nightmare. Whichever way it goes, the U.S. has giant problem, which you've identified: a political, economic and legal system that has failed massively. This then would require a reconstitution of the federation, which given the entrenched polarity with the country, is highly improbable in the short to mid-term. So that translates to long-term chaos with no end in sight.
Remember that 70+ million eligible voters chose this (you can't realistically say you didn't see this coming ... they told you what they were going to do) and another 90+ million eligible voters either could not or would not bring themselves to perform their civic duty and vote in the last election. That's 2/3 of the eligible voting population. The U.S. seems quite willing to go along with this despite the 30% that detest what is happening. And even with the mid-terms coming, the 30% is banking on that changing things for the better. Those numbers will have to change in a hurry for that to be realistic. I call it ''whistling past the graveyard'', because even if the mid-terms produce the desired outcome, that doesn't mean guardrails on the White House; restraints maybe but . . . the society has shown its true colours, and you may patch it up it for 4 years but another demagogue can come along and half the population will again be bamboozled (what kind of education are you providing?). You'll be right back where all this started started.
The rest of the world sees this and knows that the U.S. is broken, is currently a rogue state and wants to get as far away as possible from this madness. Given your viewpoint, which I think is quite astute, what's left but the ultimate diminishment of the country, to the point of pain and suffering for all but the wealthy? Just as they want it.
This is bracing stuff, Bryan. I have always thought that pragmatism was the philosophy undergirding governance in our practical-minded country. That is, the idea is only as good as the practical results it produces in the real world. Perhaps that's where your elevated game theory analysis and my more plodding pragmatism argument coincide. As a casual reader of history and a former humble practitioner in the salt mines of everyday diplomacy (nothing that will ever be written about in history books), for some time now I have thought that the only exit from this terrible variation on the prisoner's dilemma you describe is a serious crisis. Not just serious, mind you, but potentially cataclysmic, catastrophic, even existential--at home, abroad, or everything everywhere all at once. The kind of crisis that obliterates all efforts to justify or explain or even understand. That can't be blamed on, say, Biden or Obama. At that point, if there is anything left to hold on to, the individual actors in this sad, sorry game of save-your-own-skin-first will suddenly let go of the incentives that caused them to cling to the ship even as they knew it was heading straight for the cliff. Reading our dear leader's warnings about the coming end of Persia's two and half millennia of civilization, I wonder whether this Dr. Strangelove moment transposed to the real world this time will be the kind of unimaginably catastrophic crisis that anyone--including in these great United States--can recover from.
Much of what is written here makes sense. The part about no one being able to act because no one will have their back does not. There is nothing stopping certain leaders from agreeing on the required actions via private conversations. The coordination it will require is complex but not impossible nor even unlikely.
Yes, one would think that would be the case, but the fact that the U.S. has reached this point and those individuals can still only whimper and whine, leads me to believe that the author is correct ... they are all too beholden to someone and don't really care. Otherwise, given how egregious some of the White House acts have already been, they would have moved. But they went on spring break instead. Pathetic.
Speaking the truth about a fatally flawed system, but few are ready to concede the strength of your argument. The mass media continue to dance around the obvious, looking in vain for appearances of "guardrails", long ago rendered asunder by this piratical, venal, stunningly corrupt, and malignantly lying regime. And, more importantly, who can or will stop this evil man from using nuclear weapons on the battlefield? That ONE person ALONE has the authority to order incineration of millions of people surely
is the singlemost failure of the evolved "unitary executive" transmogrification of constitutional government into one-man rule.
Yet, here we are, under the thumb of a less-than-serious and less-than-rational individual, with seemingly no exit.
This is the best piece you’ve written to date. Elegantly stated on how we let the termites in to eat our foundation and killed the fumigator on the way out.
Why no one acts ?
Most of the military loves Trump and wants to destroy Iran.
30-40% of the public wants the same (though most of them think Iran is next to Nebraska on the map).
The Cabinet worships its Great Hero.
90% of the Republican Party agrees.
Most of Congress agrees and even when members dont agree they gave been paid or intimidated to shut up.
« Even Jesus wont forgive what you do »
Bryan, I hate your analysis because it’s so frighteningly correct. One thing you didn’t mention was Nixon/Goldwater bipartisan Congressional leaders go to WH and demand the president steps down. But, again, that Stag is not coming to the rescue; in fact, they’re on Spring Break! Norms are gone…we’ll have to figure out what comes next after we get rid of this dreadful regime.
Nice questions, now go the fuck out on the street and ask everyone else to follow! I wouldn't know if I would end up alone at the gates of the WH or if I would go up in a mob of a million others, but I wouldn't want to look back on me thinking for hours if it's a proportional reaction to a possible nuclear genocide in my name.
Whew. That was hard. Your clear-sightedness is always impressive and surgical. Painful though it is. Great big thanks for another excellent disputation.
maybe Democracy Forward could hire a tech person to create an AI system that would allow the cabinet members and VP to vote anonymously whether to invoke the 25th. If that anonymous vote produces a majority to remove, then maybe there coudl be a second, real vote. Isn't part of the problem with going first that the first person doesn't know if there is a majority? this would remove at least that uncertainty
Incentives are more important than convictions. That’s why no one acts. Only people outside the orbit care.
Any system is only as good as people using it. And no system is so fool proof as to withstand 77 million of fools acting together and many more fools standing by and letting them.
Well crafted piece which leaves no viable alternatives, other than despair (mostly for USians, but for the whole world too). If, as you say, an external event will be the match that lights the fuse, what is the outcome? It could lead to a quick resolution or a long-drawn out nightmare. Whichever way it goes, the U.S. has giant problem, which you've identified: a political, economic and legal system that has failed massively. This then would require a reconstitution of the federation, which given the entrenched polarity with the country, is highly improbable in the short to mid-term. So that translates to long-term chaos with no end in sight.
Remember that 70+ million eligible voters chose this (you can't realistically say you didn't see this coming ... they told you what they were going to do) and another 90+ million eligible voters either could not or would not bring themselves to perform their civic duty and vote in the last election. That's 2/3 of the eligible voting population. The U.S. seems quite willing to go along with this despite the 30% that detest what is happening. And even with the mid-terms coming, the 30% is banking on that changing things for the better. Those numbers will have to change in a hurry for that to be realistic. I call it ''whistling past the graveyard'', because even if the mid-terms produce the desired outcome, that doesn't mean guardrails on the White House; restraints maybe but . . . the society has shown its true colours, and you may patch it up it for 4 years but another demagogue can come along and half the population will again be bamboozled (what kind of education are you providing?). You'll be right back where all this started started.
The rest of the world sees this and knows that the U.S. is broken, is currently a rogue state and wants to get as far away as possible from this madness. Given your viewpoint, which I think is quite astute, what's left but the ultimate diminishment of the country, to the point of pain and suffering for all but the wealthy? Just as they want it.
This is bracing stuff, Bryan. I have always thought that pragmatism was the philosophy undergirding governance in our practical-minded country. That is, the idea is only as good as the practical results it produces in the real world. Perhaps that's where your elevated game theory analysis and my more plodding pragmatism argument coincide. As a casual reader of history and a former humble practitioner in the salt mines of everyday diplomacy (nothing that will ever be written about in history books), for some time now I have thought that the only exit from this terrible variation on the prisoner's dilemma you describe is a serious crisis. Not just serious, mind you, but potentially cataclysmic, catastrophic, even existential--at home, abroad, or everything everywhere all at once. The kind of crisis that obliterates all efforts to justify or explain or even understand. That can't be blamed on, say, Biden or Obama. At that point, if there is anything left to hold on to, the individual actors in this sad, sorry game of save-your-own-skin-first will suddenly let go of the incentives that caused them to cling to the ship even as they knew it was heading straight for the cliff. Reading our dear leader's warnings about the coming end of Persia's two and half millennia of civilization, I wonder whether this Dr. Strangelove moment transposed to the real world this time will be the kind of unimaginably catastrophic crisis that anyone--including in these great United States--can recover from.
Much of what is written here makes sense. The part about no one being able to act because no one will have their back does not. There is nothing stopping certain leaders from agreeing on the required actions via private conversations. The coordination it will require is complex but not impossible nor even unlikely.
Yes, one would think that would be the case, but the fact that the U.S. has reached this point and those individuals can still only whimper and whine, leads me to believe that the author is correct ... they are all too beholden to someone and don't really care. Otherwise, given how egregious some of the White House acts have already been, they would have moved. But they went on spring break instead. Pathetic.