The debate this evening among Democrats could, if translated into Spanish, easily be mistaken for one occurring in Latin America. One candidate is the spouse of a former president. All candidates promise an expansion of government and an increase in handouts to the popular masses (to be paid for by taxes on those who have unjustly become rich).
“America’s Fragile Constitution” is an enlightening Atlantic magazine article on the parallel political systems operating in the Americas. While the rest of the world mostly operates with a parliamentary system, in which one party takes responsibility for running the government, the U.S. has a presidential system that closely resembles a monarchy. Who else has done this?
Since the american Revolution, many new democracies have taken inspiration from the U.S. Constitution. Around much of the world, parliamentary systems became prevalent, but some countries, particularly in Latin America, adopted the presidential model, splitting power between an executive and a legislative branch.
When, in 1985, a Yale political scientist named Juan Linz compared the records of presidential and parliamentary democracies, the results were decisive. Not every parliamentary system endured, but hardly any presidential ones proved stable. “The only presidential democracy with a long history of constitutional continuity is the United States,” Linz wrote in 1990. This is quite an uncomfortable form of American exceptionalism.
So lay out the pupusas, humita, and empanadas for your guests tonight…
[Separately, when listening to Bernie Sanders, these words may be helpful:
“Probably the greatest harm done by vast wealth is the harm that we of moderate means do ourselves when we let the vices of envy and hatred enter deep into our own natures.” — Theodore Roosevelt, 1902.
“I cried because I had no Gulfstream G650 until I met a man who had to fly a turboprop” — attributed to Al Gore, boarding one of his chartered Gulfstream G550s.
]
Hasta la Victoria Siempre!