I think it’s a bad framing to treat “unprecedented moves to expand executive power” and “natural extension of existing trends” as the same mental bucket. The two are not the same. A key problem in the US is that the existing trends over the last two decades have been bad when it comes to expanding executive power.
When it comes to the whole question of corruption and the rule of law, the way Robert Moses build a lot of New York was pretty corrupt and not really honoring the spirit of the rule of law. The Chinese had a lot of economic growth at the backdrop of a lot of corruption. Part of what strong rule of law along with no
Scott Bessent bullying Big Pharma companies with tariffs threats to get them to radically reduce the prices they charge with most-favored-nation drug pricing in the United States is pretty unusual. It’s a huge change from corporate lobbyists just getting what they want.
Of course, I know for many Trump supporters, the whole point is that he’s destroying a bunch of institutions that need destroying. I am actually pretty sympathetic to the idea that if you want a better government, you need to tear down the old one quickly. There might be enough differences of values here that there’s not much common ground to be had
I doubt that’s the case. If you look at what Marty Makary is doing at the FDA with actions like allowing Bayesian statistics for drug trials and generally creating incentives in the bureaucracy for faster drug approval, there’s a lot of common ground.
The NIH making moves in favor of animal rights over which PETA writes “Champagne corks are popping at PETA thanks to NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya’s landmark decision that will spare animals, help humans, and bring science into the modern era. Bhattacharya is also serious about the replication crisis and improving incentives for researchers in ways that’s
While the Trump administration did try to reduce NIH funding, congress still passed a budget with unchanged NIH budget so, overall FDA and NIH seem to be currently run nearer to rationalists values than the institutions previously ran.
Of course, there are also plenty of other areas where policy is substantially worse but if you see nothing that you like it’s likely because of biased news sources.
I think it’s a bad framing to treat “unprecedented moves to expand executive power” and “natural extension of existing trends” as the same mental bucket. The two are not the same. A key problem in the US is that the existing trends over the last two decades have been bad when it comes to expanding executive power.
I’m confused about what you mean here, the specific existing trend I was imagining was “unprecedented moves to expand executive power.” Which look different if they are on a steady trend, vs one guy radically doing much worse than trend.
If you take for example the Obama administration before the first Trump administration, it had the claim of the president being able to order an assassination of an US citizen away from the battlefield without any need to justify that assassination in a court of law. That was an unprecedented move to expand executive power.
The steady trend is that these kinds of moves to expand executive power are regularly made. Each administration takes the powers that their predecessors won for granted and seeks to expand them.
I think it’s a bad framing to treat “unprecedented moves to expand executive power” and “natural extension of existing trends” as the same mental bucket. The two are not the same. A key problem in the US is that the existing trends over the last two decades have been bad when it comes to expanding executive power.
When it comes to the whole question of corruption and the rule of law, the way Robert Moses build a lot of New York was pretty corrupt and not really honoring the spirit of the rule of law. The Chinese had a lot of economic growth at the backdrop of a lot of corruption. Part of what strong rule of law along with no
Scott Bessent bullying Big Pharma companies with tariffs threats to get them to radically reduce the prices they charge with most-favored-nation drug pricing in the United States is pretty unusual. It’s a huge change from corporate lobbyists just getting what they want.
I doubt that’s the case. If you look at what Marty Makary is doing at the FDA with actions like allowing Bayesian statistics for drug trials and generally creating incentives in the bureaucracy for faster drug approval, there’s a lot of common ground.
The NIH making moves in favor of animal rights over which PETA writes “Champagne corks are popping at PETA thanks to NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya’s landmark decision that will spare animals, help humans, and bring science into the modern era. Bhattacharya is also serious about the replication crisis and improving incentives for researchers in ways that’s
While the Trump administration did try to reduce NIH funding, congress still passed a budget with unchanged NIH budget so, overall FDA and NIH seem to be currently run nearer to rationalists values than the institutions previously ran.
Of course, there are also plenty of other areas where policy is substantially worse but if you see nothing that you like it’s likely because of biased news sources.
I’m confused about what you mean here, the specific existing trend I was imagining was “unprecedented moves to expand executive power.” Which look different if they are on a steady trend, vs one guy radically doing much worse than trend.
If you take for example the Obama administration before the first Trump administration, it had the claim of the president being able to order an assassination of an US citizen away from the battlefield without any need to justify that assassination in a court of law. That was an unprecedented move to expand executive power.
The steady trend is that these kinds of moves to expand executive power are regularly made. Each administration takes the powers that their predecessors won for granted and seeks to expand them.