the achingly obvious oddity of deciding that Trump, whose experience on the public stage largely consists of marketing her clothing and jewelry lines, and her efforts to get her father, Donald Trump, elected, was qualified to sit between Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund, and Chrystia Freeland, the Foreign Minister of Canada.
.. maybe the make-believe about Ivanka coming up with world-changing ideas is harmless, if it means that her father will look kindly on the World Bank—although a report, this week, in the Washington Post about the conditions in a Chinese factory run by the contractor who makes her brand’s clothes (extremely low wages and long hours) does not quite fit into the picture.
.. He’s been a tremendous champion of supporting families and enabling them to thrive in the new reality of a duelling—”
When asked, more specifically, how she advised him, she said, “It’s been an ongoing discussion I’ve had with my father most of my adult life, and we’re very aligned in many, many areas. And that’s why he’s encouraged me to fully lean into this opportunity and come into the White House and be by his side.” The implication was that nepotism was one of her father’s virtues, and proof of his good character.
.. when NBC News asked her about admitting Syrian refugees to the United States, she said that it should be “part of the discussion, but that’s not going to be enough in and of itself.” The resulting headlines suggested that this constituted a break with her father. But how, exactly? Refugees are “part of the discussion” when he rails against them; and “not going to be enough” could just as easily refer to what the President sees as the need for “extreme vetting,” or letting in only Christians. She referred, for a second time, to the areas “in which I’m fully aligned with my father—which are many.” “Many” could mean anything,
.. Foreign countries and companies might appreciate the idea that they can more easily handle Donald Trump if they lavish his daughter with attention; this is a common enough practice when dealing with authoritarian governments.
Trump is now talking about consolidating his own power
“I think, you know, the filibuster concept is not a good concept to start off with,” he said.
So there you go. Trump is frustrated with the pace of legislation after 100 days, and his answer is that he wants to change the rules.
.. Whether this is just him blowing off steam or signaling what lies ahead, it’s significant. Because it suggests a president, yet again, who doesn’t agree with his own powers being limited or even questioned. Remember when senior policy adviser Stephen Miller declared “the powers of the president to protect our country are very substantial and will not be questioned?” This is more of that kind of attitude.
.. We’re a far cry from the presidential candidate who decried President Obama’s executive orders, suggesting they were an indication of a weak leader who couldn’t bend Congress to his will. Trump is now admitting that he can’t bend Congress to his will, but he blames the system rather than himself.
.. Whether he targets the filibuster specifically or not, his attitude toward his own power is clear: The more, the better. He’s already gotten a taste for rolling back the filibuster, and after just 100 days of frustration, he already wants more.
Canada is not a great democracy, but do we care?
The majority of powers the Turkish president gained — the freedom to appoint cabinet ministers and senior judges without parliamentary approval, the power to unilaterally dismiss parliament, the power to decree certain sorts of laws without parliament at all — are all powers the Canadian prime minister already has. Yet no one would claim Canada is less than a full democracy, and it’s worth pondering why.
Any Canadian loudly worrying about the replacement of Turkish democracy “with what amounts to a dictatorship” — in the words of the Globe and Mail editorial board — should take a moment to consider how Canada’s political system would look if a third world tinpot proposed adopting it.
.. We can certainly question the Turkish government’s intentions. President Erdogan has clear authoritarian tendencies and exists in a country with an authoritarian political culture.
.. Yet the Erdogan administration’s official justification for last week’s amendments (and presumably the motive of the 51% of Turks who voted for it), that is, the need to make government more efficient and effective, is a common justification for the more authoritarian aspects of the Canadian political system as well
.. Canadian prime ministers come to power by winning control of the lower house of parliament, an achievement which almost never requires winning a majority of the popular vote. PMs then appoint members of the upper house directly, which means it can be taken for granted that any legislation they propose will quickly sail into law.
.. by the end of his term Harper had appointed seven of the court’s nine justices
.. America, with its feuds between the White House and Congress, and contentious Supreme Court nomination hearings, is often explicitly cited as an example to avoid, a system in which “nothing gets done” because there are too many competing poles of democratic authority.
.. the Canadian system, in which a prime minister is elected once every four years and given more or less free reign to do as he wishes
.. What’s feared is not a political system, but the particular ideologue running it. What’s feared is chauvinistic strongmen, not strongmen per se.
Erdogan’s American Enemies List
“Erdogan has eviscerated the press inside Turkey but it frustrates him that he can’t control people outside,” Mr. Rubin says. Mr. Erdogan imagines that democratic leaders such as President Trump and Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel wield as much power in the U.S. and Germany, respectively, as he does in Turkey. He expects Mr. Trump and Mrs. Merkel to silence writers such as Mr. Rubin as a matter of diplomatic courtesy.