[vvpan]

Which is largely why presidencies do not mess with the order they inherit too much (subjective statement I know). Most institutions and projects are not stressed and the government branches just keep doing what they always did. The current administration is an outlier, but we all know that.

[Gormo]

More to the point, it's why our political system does not give unilateral control over most of this stuff to the executive branch. That's the reason why the courts are regularly ruling against the administration -- they're pretending to legal authority they don't have in the first place.

[koolba]

> That's the reason why the courts are regularly ruling against the administration -- they're pretending to legal authority they don't have in the first place.

Lower courts. The track record of this administration at the SCOTUS is 90%.

[MichaelZuo]

The fact that it’s possible at all to inject plausible doubt, for even a few weeks, means that counterparties will be much more wary.

They will simply have less goodwill when an American team is on the other side of the table, and give less benefit of the doubt. (as compared to say if a Swiss team is on the other side of the table)

[Krasnol]

The problem is that the outlier might mark a beginning.

Seeing what's possible in this position, I doubt future US presidents will hold back.

[bruce511]

It doesn't matter I'd they hold back or not. The perception of political instability is enough.

If, as an investor, I'm asked to throw billions at a multi-year project, political risk is going to be on the PowerPoint.

You may think this current administration is an aberration, but it serves to prove that aberrations can happen. That the levers supposed to prevent this (congress, courts) are creaking. Sure a judge ruled for now, but this is a long way from finished.)

And that's enough to create doubt. Lots of doubt. The impact of this on long-term future infrastructure projects cannot be over-stated.

(Let's leave aside that this project was 6 years in the planning, during his first term, before construction start in 2022... which just makes the current behavior worse, not better.)

[piker]

There is a historical tide rolling in and out of presidential power. We’re currently in a high-power executive moment that began with the AUMF for Bush 2. The courts and Congress can act to curtail that authority somewhat and hopefully will. But a lot of the EO activity is ultimately just performative unconstitutional action that will be reversed, damaging as that process may be.

[gimmeThaBeet]

the aphorism that comes to mind with that prospect these days is: "populism is like cigarettes, it's not the first one that kills you, it's the last"

[hyperman1]

Indeed, the post-Trump period will have a choice to make. Either they continue the chosen path and dont regain trust no matter the next president, or congress and court add some serious limitations to the presidential powers so future dems and reps will never go Trump again.

I wonder if both parties see the need for that at this point. There still seems a lot of 'but we are the good guys' in both partys blocking deep reform. If I'm honest, it took 2 world wars to partially whack that attitude out of Europe, and it's slowly coming back.

[diego_moita]

> The current administration is an outlier, but we all know that.

No, it isn't. This administration is a rupture. It is the beginning of a new normal. Future presidents will try to emulate this guy.

You could say "outlier" when he lost in 2020. You can't say that after he came back. The American people wants this authoritarian populism. The SCOTUS enables it. And the world shouldn't trust both the American people and its crumbling institutions.

[graemep]

That could be a problem in itself. It certainly is here in the UK.

If you have two parties that have much the same policies you do not get necessary change and voting becomes meaningless.

[flakeoil]

The thing is that wether the ruling party is right or left there are limits to what they can do based on the real world we live in. For example there is a limit to how much they can lower or increase the tax. There is a limit to how much they can save on one thing and invest in another.

Often when a new party takes power, no big real changes are seen as it is not so easy to implement considering the real world. They have to go down some kind of middle path.

[iso1631]

A healthy state is an oil tanker - slow to steer, predictable in its direction, and it's broadly steered by public opinion rather than voting. With a large mandate you get to push a few polices through. Ideally if you get a leader pushing through a policy against his party's natural proclivities it's more likely to stick.

If you have a jetski which changes direction every 5-10 years that's terrible for long term investment, and terrible from a personal point of view too. Legalise gay marriage, then 5 years later it's oh no, lets make that illegal again.

Best to move to a stable country which isn't run by the whims of a dementia-laden madman.

[7952]

This applies to the UK particularly as a result of privatisation. Utilities, pensions and transport are completely dependant on previous government agreements that commit the public to long term expenses that sit outside tax. It takes debt of the government books, but also defuses responsibility. And becomes a necessary evil for getting anything done.

[Braxton1980]

No, what you get is less radical change which I believe overall is better even if it can make solving some problems difficult

[onlyrealcuzzo]

That's a bigger problem the worse your system is performing.

[pjc50]

For that, you need to look to the press.

Political parties are mostly relatively small and under-funded huddles of second-rate individuals, who get told what to do by billionaire-owned media.

It's interesting how many and varied "minor parties" which are more genuinely grassroots have persisted in the UK despite the difficulty in scrounging up funding from the actual public, and despite FPTP being theoretically stacked against them. It's very different to the US, which despite all the talk of Federalism doesn't seem to have local parties at all?

[iso1631]

> The current administration is an outlier

Is it? What stops the next one being an outlier, or the one after that?

Its going to take decades to recover from the whims of the US population (the plurarity of whom voted for this)

[cucumber3732842]

>Its going to take decades to recover from the whims of the US population (the plurarity of whom voted for this)

What does "recover" even mean?

Are we supposed to back to the good ol' days when the <pick federal agency> could hold a press conference announcing some grand new plan with <pick industry group> key person and <pick billionaire> standing in the background smiling because they know their people ghost wrote it to their benefit and the press would unanimously gush about how good it is if not copypasta the press release entirely?

Institutions are basically bankrupt of trust in the eyes of the public. Between that and the modern information distribution landscape the status quo circa like 1930something-2010something where the administrative parts of the state could "just do things" without organized resistance by the parts of the public that were on the losing end is likely never coming back.

Whatever you, and everyone else, wants to use state power to accomplish will likely have to dial back their ambitions and prioritize in accordance with the new reality of how much you need to fight for each thing, basically realign policy targets to be closer to the fat part of the "what everyone wants" bell curve. Maybe from there there will be a decades long re-accumulation of trust, but we don't know what the world will look like in the future and that may bring us to a very different status quo than the one we're exiting.

I know we all like to whine and screech about billionares and moneyed interests, but I think the new status quo is probably a bigger problem for them and other "string pullers" than the median member of the public who's getting shafted by it. Remember, the "status quo" of the last 100yr is what created the problems we have to clean up today and in the future.