I very much appreciate Mr. Ferguson. He's a great writer, a wonderful historian, and someone most of us can learn from (also, in recent years, gotten quite bland and less exciting than he used to be... The Ascent of Money is still a great introduction to the topic for ANYONE) #1418407.
Here he is, eulogizing/taking stock of America and the much-exaggerated rumors of its demise
For all these reasons, I remain skeptical about all the warnings of excitable journalists and professors that the American republic faces a mortal threat in the person of Donald Trump. For 10 years, I have been reading that he is the reincarnation of either Julius Caesar or Adolf Hitler. I have consistently taken the other side of the bets that we are either Rome or Weimar.
Believable. American institutions are fine-ish and hyperbole is what the media and academia sell so whatever.
both Madison and Hamilton saw confederal structures as too weak to last, due to their lack of a dominant central authority. As Hamilton argued, the key to avoiding these pitfalls lay in exploiting the insights of the new “science of politics” that had flourished in Europe in the Enlightenment.
"That meant designing a constitution based on the separation of powers, an independent judiciary, and representative rather than direct democracy.""That meant designing a constitution based on the separation of powers, an independent judiciary, and representative rather than direct democracy."
The EXCEPTIONAL CHARACTER of America meant solving the "age-old problem: how to have a republic that provided its citizens not just with security, but also with liberty and prosperity."
Many republics in the past have done well in terms of longevity (Genoa, Venice, Athens, Carthage etc). Also:
Nor should we overlook the remarkable success of Switzerland, despite its having ignored everything Hamilton ever wrote about the need for a federal government with strong central institutions. The Swiss have been running a confederal republic with highly decentralized politics for half a millennium.
I must confess to not quite understand what precisely a republic, as opposed to other democratic systems, entail .
WHY, then, is America fine?
- the Founders saw Trump coming and designed their constitution accordingly. Presidential power pretty limited, all things considered. Craziness and obscene attempts (tariffs, Fed influence etc) have stalled out: "This is not the crisis of the republic. It is politics as usual."
- The LINDY of Republics... once they've survived, they just keep going for a long time. "the institutions of republican life bed down and become the familiar norm: In short, they become traditions. [...] America evolves, yes. But it also endures, its perennial rhythms passed lovingly from generation to generation."
Perhaps in the coming six months, the Cassandras will be vindicated: The courts will capitulate, the Congress will burn, and the republic will succumb to the tyrant Trump. But I wouldn’t bet on it.
History suggests that, so long as it doesn’t lose a major war (a subject for another column), a republic that has lasted 250 years has a good chance of lasting at least another few hundred.
That seems reasonably balanced.
"To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, it’s a republic—and we’ve kept it. Now it’s just a case of not throwing it away."
Archive: https://archive.md/zV9rF
I'm certainly not one who buys the story that Trump is sooooooooo much worse than what we had before (or whatever we'll get next). Seems pretty par for the course as far as I'm concerned. Bush lied about WMDs and got us into two wars. Obama drone struck anyone he felt like. So on and so forth as far back as you'd like to go.
However, I don't think America is fine. It seems to me that the bureaucratic machinery of the state is only going to grow in power and inertia and that the consequences of this will be it's own kind of tyranny. Things like the income tax, TSA, the patriot act, bank secrecy act, and so on get introduced in a weak form, but steadily expand until they alter life in ways that were unthinkable to the people who voted for them. I don't see any saving ourselves from this fate. Hence, my interest in Bitcoin and other systems that hopefully allow us to route around reliance on the state (even if it may be a forlorn hope).
The Super Bowl Halftime Show is absolutely terrible, one of the worst, EVER! It makes no sense, is an affront to the Greatness of America, and doesn’t represent our standards of Success, Creativity, or Excellence. Nobody understands a word this guy is saying, and the dancing is disgusting, especially for young children that are watching from throughout the U.S.A., and all over the World. This “Show” is just a “slap in the face” to our Country, which is setting new standards and records every single day — including the Best Stock Market and 401(k)s in History! There is nothing inspirational about this mess of a Halftime Show and watch, it will get great reviews from the Fake News Media, because they haven’t got a clue of what is going on in the REAL WORLD — And, by the way, the NFL should immediately replace its ridiculous new Kickoff Rule. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! President DONALD J. TRUMP
the biggest problem is the unelected administrative state or even worse, a deep state
update: the Super Bowl halftime show is in fucking Spanish, what's the performance next year, hijabs and Arabic?
80 years before Trump we had FDR and 80 years before that we had Lincoln. Both were more totalitarian than Trump and neither destroyed the American state (unfortunately).
loss of states rights and federalism
I get the slide but that’s what’s most likely to happen again, not a full disintegration.
gradual degradation