From every reasonable account, the Trump administration’s tariffs are An economic disaster. Then why did it happen?
One explanation is that it is just democracy at work. President Donald Trump Campaign more or less to do what he just didthe voted public elected him. So we’re here.
At best it is part of the story. In fact, it may be more accurate to regard Trump’s tariffs as a symptom of democracy decay – The United States transitions to a strange hybrid system that combines traits of authoritarian and democratic.
If democracy in the United States works properly, Trump will not be able to unilaterally impose such extensive tariffs. Congress, not the president, has constitutional powers to increase taxes – of course, tariffs are taxes on imports.
However, the basic design of the US system has collapsed, allowing The president usurped the authority far outweighed health. In many policy areas, the presidential function is not like a Democratic CEO who acts under restricted circumstances, but more like an elected dictatorship.
Historically, authoritarian governments (elected or otherwise) have suffered from fatal flaws: They have no ability to stop people from whims about policies and cause national disasters in the process. This trend is why democracy produces outstanding policy outcomes in the long run. Why did the United States, not Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union win the 20th century.
In short, tariffs show the real benefits of democratic decline. This is not only a matter of abstract principles, but also the difference between stability and disaster.
Decline in the United States causes tariffs
Political scientists when Donald Trump and Elon Musk began wasting the federal government in February, Adam Pulzeelsky announces himself “Loss.” Although Przeworski is one of the world’s most prominent democratic scholars and the author of many of the definitions of the field, he cannot find the right vocabulary to describe what is going on in the United States.
Although “Trump was elected in fair elections,” his subsequent policy agenda constituted “a revolutionary change in the relationship between state and society” that sought to replace the rules and norms that define democratic politics in very different ways.
Understanding the United States in this more textured sense, as a country that is both democratic and undemocratic, helps us get rid of the collapse of Trump’s tariffs and makes us more meaningful.
On the one hand, voters who chose Trump are getting one of Trump’s signature policies. Sometimes, in democratic countries, the agitator wins the election – the issue is old and you can discuss it in the Republic of Plato.
Democratic countries, on the other hand, rely on legal rules that restrict executives to prevent any such incitement from becoming dictators. In the American system, this means a complex constitutional checks and balances—one of which is a constitution that gives Congress and Congress the right to tax. However, Trump does not require a statutory mandate to raise tariffs, but is using it Emergency legislation with extensive wording Final operation is carried out around the legislative branch.
This is what a hybrid political system looks like in practice. The United States still has free, fair elections in all levels of government, which is democratic in this sense. But elections do not matter in the way they should, because the people’s representatives in Congress do not play the decision-making role of their constitutional distribution. This is an authoritarian component of the current American system, which enables the president to undermine the global economy.
The transition from democracy to Frankenstein’s amalgam has been going on for decades.
The main culprit was Congress, which was neither able to serve as the supreme legislative body due to the combination of partisan and political cowardice. Instead, it began delegating a lot of its own power to executives.
Sometimes, this is intentional – authorizing the president to develop policies through the executive body to create “executive state” conservatives. Sometimes, it is unintentional: Congress will ambiguous emergency powers of the president, which should have worked in a narrow situation, but actually allow the president to act unilaterally in various “normal” policy debates. Sometimes Congress simply does nothing on key policy issues – forcing the president to try to solve them with a broad explanation of his own power.
The judiciary should also be blamed. While the Supreme Court occasionally stepped in to address the president’s over-introduction, this is done In accidental partisan way. Furthermore, it has long been handed over to the President on key issues such as immigration, trade and war.
Observers of the liberal left and liberal right have warned for decades that the growing executive power has brought problems for democracy and good decision-making. Obviously, in hindsight, they were right. However, part of their neglect is that other checks on the president seem to keep executives consistent.
Some of them are internal administrative inspections. The White House relies on the Office of Legal Counsel (a group of senior executive lawyers) to express independent opinions on the legitimacy of various policy options. Internal policy stores like the Economic Advisory Council provide informed expert opinions that will guide the president to make more evidence-based decisions. In severe cases, the Justice Department will explore potential criminal activities of executive staff.
Other checks are more informal. Fear that the loss of public opinion war could prevent the president from taking a particularly radical stance. The president’s own moral code, even if possible, should only be done, and also provides a soft check for abuse of power.
But now it is obvious that all these internal mechanisms are voluntary. Trump has already sterilized his authority and (apparently!) has no judgment on what people expect from the highest office.
It turns out that the rest of the political system, especially Congress – creates the conditions for us to descend into a hybrid political system. The only obstacle left is the norm about how the executive branch should work, a norm that a firm president like Trump can easily crush.
Tariffs show why our hybrid system is so dangerous
Sometimes the bets in this conversation can be a little blurred. Why is this important when we live in a hybrid system rather than a complete democracy? Sure, the president may be strong, but if we still have elections, will everything be fine in the end?
Tariffs provide one of the clearest examples of why this is important to everyone: Without democracy, the quality of our decision-making can become dangerously worse.
Political scientists have long found that, on average, democratic countries bring better results to their citizens than authoritarian countries. They produce higher economic growth rates, excellent technological innovation, better public health services, and even more likely to win wars.
One of the key reasons for the success of democracy is its formal decision-making process. Because laws change the law through legal and transparent procedures, i.e. laws that are subject to open debate and legal oversight, they are more likely to have a good understanding of the best available evidence and can be corrected if something does not happen well.
Authoritarian and mixed regimes abandon these constraints, which allows them to change policies faster. But it also allows one person or a small group to make radical decisions with catastrophic consequences on a whim.
Think of Mao Zedong’s huge leap in China, which is a direct product of the leaders’ insistence on a communist ideology that is disconnected from reality. While Trump’s tariffs are far less evil – Big Leap forward Kill 18 and 32 million people – same Formal The problem caused these two errors.
In a recent example, look at the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The disaster began with Putin’s personal idea of the Ukrainian nation being fake, and this territory was taken for granted by Russians. The idea changed from Putin’s personal obsession to actual war, because no one could stop him.
If fully implemented, Trump’s tariffs will be remembered as his cautionary tale. When he ran for them, he would not be able to implement the entire tariff package if he went through the normal constitutional tax process. The fact that the United States does not function as ordinary democracy, conducting multiple inspections of the administration allows Trump to act on his trait ideas in the way Mao Zedong or Putin.
Now, Trump still has the potential to quit the edge. But even if he did it and avoided the worst, it should be clear: the long decline of the American democracy means we all live under the axe.
If this wasn’t the moment it landed, there would be another one.
