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> I studied political sciences twenty years ago - even then it was established consensus that presidential democracies are vulnerable to authoritarian takeover.

> I studied political sciences twenty years ago - even then it was established consensus that presidential democracies are vulnerable to authoritarian takeover. Democracies are vulnerable to "authoritarian takeover" has been known and understood for 2500 years. > The position has too much power, is easily abused and there are not enough checks on that position. In most parliamentary democracies, the Prime Minister is much more powerful than the US President. This is particularly the case since the PM is PM by virtue of his party having the legislative majority. > And all who cry "if the democrats win everything will be ok again!!!!" - not it won't. A better argument would be that this isn't a partisan issue. The last President declared a Constitutional Amendment by fiat and attempted to do (good) things like student loan relief with blatantly illegal authoritarian methods due to the perpetual Congressional gridlock.

tialaramex 1y ago
> In most parliamentary democracies, the Prime Minister is much more powerful than the US President. This is particularly the case since the PM is PM by virtue of his party having the legislative majority. This is a grave misunderstanding. A legislative majority isn't a static historical fact like Trump's electoral majority, it's dynamic - those are identifiable people not just a statistic. Liz Truss was the UK's Prime Minister for less than two months. What changed in two months? Probably most of the idiots who actually voted for her didn't change their minds, but that doesn't matter, her fellow Tory MPs feared the worst from the outset and were proven correct. If she hadn't left she'd have been kicked out, she's known to have actually asked if there's some way she can cling on and been told basically "No" because there isn't. Ultimately, if they can't get rid of her any other way, her backbench only needs to affirm a simple motion, "That This House Has No Confidence In His Majesty's Government" and it's all over. It would never come to that, but that's the backstop.
- Amezarak 1y ago
  Congress can also agree to remove the President. Indeed it would take only a few Rs to flip to do so. We see PMs easily enacting massive legislative reforms and even Constitutional changes that are nigh impossible in the US, that was not a particularly controversial statement.
  - tialaramex 1y ago
    Congress could, in theory, begin an arduous process (weeks? months?) in which eventually, if they succeed, again in theory it removes the President and... puts in his place his chosen replacement. It has never successfully done this, so from there we're in uncharted waters but it's hardly obvious that it is an effective procedure. In contrast the Westminster Parliament routinely disposes of Prime Ministers who lose its confidence, it's already happened once in my lifetime and it's not some multi-week procedure in which there's some performance of a judicial process, just a simple question: Does this Government retain the Confidence of the House? Margaret Thatcher decided on this course of action on a Monday, on Wednesday morning she rose to say, "Mr. Speaker, I beg to move, 'That this House has no confidence in Her Majesty's Government.'" and by the next morning the Callaghan minority government had fallen.
    - Amezarak 1y ago
      The length of time the process takes is entirely under the control of Congress. It could be done in a day if they wanted. The longer time periods seen with Clinton and Trump were to attempt to gin up the political support to follow through.
      - tialaramex 1y ago
        I was concerned with facts, whereas you seem focused on a fantasy about how you wish things were. But your fantasy doesn't matter at all. US-style Presidential Republics are a known bad design, the US nation building projects stopped doing this themselves because it doesn't work, the United States itself is just a slower decay, it's not an exception. The problem wasn't the Crown, that's the big takeaway. Giving the same power to a guy who doesn't have a hat doesn't fix the problem. You need to hold this much power in commission, that's the lesson that gave us the present British arrangement - the Lord High Treasurer was much too powerful, so his power was given to a commission, today its First Lord though not nearly as powerful as the Lord Treasurer, is too powerful, that's the Prime Minister you gestured at - the formal office is "First Lord of the Treasury", with the Chancellor being Second Lord, and the whips taking subsidiary parts of the commission. If you ask me we should further re-divide this power. But just giving all that power to one man (and in the US it has always been a man) is even worse. The US President has powers that a King had, which made sense in the 18th century but stands out today - that's why Trump can corruptly pardon people for example.

tialaramex 1y ago

> In most parliamentary democracies, the Prime Minister is much more powerful than the US President. This is particularly the case since the PM is PM by virtue of his party having the legislative majority. This is a grave misunderstanding. A legislative majority isn't a static historical fact like Trump's electoral majority, it's dynamic - those are identifiable people not just a statistic. Liz Truss was the UK's Prime Minister for less than two months. What changed in two months? Probably most of the idiots who actually voted for her didn't change their minds, but that doesn't matter, her fellow Tory MPs feared the worst from the outset and were proven correct. If she hadn't left she'd have been kicked out, she's known to have actually asked if there's some way she can cling on and been told basically "No" because there isn't. Ultimately, if they can't get rid of her any other way, her backbench only needs to affirm a simple motion, "That This House Has No Confidence In His Majesty's Government" and it's all over. It would never come to that, but that's the backstop.

Amezarak 1y ago
Congress can also agree to remove the President. Indeed it would take only a few Rs to flip to do so. We see PMs easily enacting massive legislative reforms and even Constitutional changes that are nigh impossible in the US, that was not a particularly controversial statement.
- tialaramex 1y ago
  Congress could, in theory, begin an arduous process (weeks? months?) in which eventually, if they succeed, again in theory it removes the President and... puts in his place his chosen replacement. It has never successfully done this, so from there we're in uncharted waters but it's hardly obvious that it is an effective procedure. In contrast the Westminster Parliament routinely disposes of Prime Ministers who lose its confidence, it's already happened once in my lifetime and it's not some multi-week procedure in which there's some performance of a judicial process, just a simple question: Does this Government retain the Confidence of the House? Margaret Thatcher decided on this course of action on a Monday, on Wednesday morning she rose to say, "Mr. Speaker, I beg to move, 'That this House has no confidence in Her Majesty's Government.'" and by the next morning the Callaghan minority government had fallen.
  - Amezarak 1y ago
    The length of time the process takes is entirely under the control of Congress. It could be done in a day if they wanted. The longer time periods seen with Clinton and Trump were to attempt to gin up the political support to follow through.
    - tialaramex 1y ago
      I was concerned with facts, whereas you seem focused on a fantasy about how you wish things were. But your fantasy doesn't matter at all. US-style Presidential Republics are a known bad design, the US nation building projects stopped doing this themselves because it doesn't work, the United States itself is just a slower decay, it's not an exception. The problem wasn't the Crown, that's the big takeaway. Giving the same power to a guy who doesn't have a hat doesn't fix the problem. You need to hold this much power in commission, that's the lesson that gave us the present British arrangement - the Lord High Treasurer was much too powerful, so his power was given to a commission, today its First Lord though not nearly as powerful as the Lord Treasurer, is too powerful, that's the Prime Minister you gestured at - the formal office is "First Lord of the Treasury", with the Chancellor being Second Lord, and the whips taking subsidiary parts of the commission. If you ask me we should further re-divide this power. But just giving all that power to one man (and in the US it has always been a man) is even worse. The US President has powers that a King had, which made sense in the 18th century but stands out today - that's why Trump can corruptly pardon people for example.