Check out my digital garden: The Missing Premise.

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Cake day: June 30th, 2023

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  • There’s a few ways in practice.

    1. Court decisions are binding broadly. The conservative capture of the Supreme Court is political genius, honestly. They tend to have the final say regarding policy.

    2. Federal agency rules are also broadly binding. EPA rules that limit greenhouse gas emissions, for example, apply everywhere in the country.

    3. State legislatures are often less polarized, which facilitates a more productive legislature.

    4. State agencies, like a state environmental department, mirrors its federal counterpart but is more localized.

    5. Non-state organizations can get things done, though their interests are often limited and not necessarily in the interests of the broad public as state and federal institutions are.

    6. International institutions can ‘set the tone’. They may not have any power to actually do anything within a specific jurisdiction, but people within those jurisdictions can draw policy inspiration from international organizations and try for something locally binding.














  • In a sense, that’s how this works and always has.

    Presidents are very limited in what they can do by design. Most presidential campaign promises rely on the planets to align (i.e.: Congress to actually do it’s job and legislate, which it often doesn’t). Presidential failure is misnomer, imo, because it’s Congress who writes the laws. Biden’s executive orders can be overturned as easily as he overturned Trump’s. At best, the president provides a vision on where he thinks the party should go but Congress does the heavy lifting.

    And if he fails, not only do we not get the progressive promises, but the other president takes more away.

    That’s how conservatives think too about their president: if he fails, not only do they not get to roll back the administrative state, but then a progressive can tax the more to put more criminals on the street.

    The misconception is that this must be a bad thing. What makes it bad is that Republicans are bat shit insane and want control of everything. But if their views were not moderate and they believed in democracy, then it wouldn’t be so bad. Still disappointing though.


  • Term limits.

    A president’s first term tends to follow a particular pattern: bold action at the very beginning to see what they can get through Congress. They focus on things that will improve their chances to be re-elected. Biden likes to cite the Inflation Reduction Act and it’s policies and some others.

    Toward the end of their first term, they start looking forward to our year long election season. There’s less policy implementation and more campaign promises.

    Assuming they get re-elected, they can’t be president for a third term so why not go bigger than the beginning of thy first term? Now they can get to work with worrying about the political consequences because there are none for them. And the greater their accomplishments in their second term, the better their party looks.

    In short, political incentives differ between terms, with term limits making bolder action more desirable and likely.