Commentary:
‘ L’état, c’est moi,” declared Louis XIV: “I am the state.” Louis was an absolute monarch, whose word was law, and serving France meant being personally loyal to Louis himself.
There were obvious advantages to such a system: no ambiguity about where authority lay, no time wasted in legislative debates, no need to cobble coalitions together to get things done. Yet Louis’s France, Europe’s most powerful state, was fought to a standstill by England and the Netherlands — a constitutional monarchy (after the Glorious Revolution of 1688) and a republic, with a combined population only a fraction as large.
And in the Anglo-French wars that followed, France generally got the worst of it, while sliding ever deeper into fiscal crisis — a crisis that eventually helped precipitate the French Revolution.
Why was an absolute monarchy weaker, in practice, than quarrelsome republics? One reason was that the very absence of limits on the ruler undermined French credibility: Whatever the king might promise, he could always change his mind. Not incidentally, France repeatedly defaulted on its debt, while post-1688 England, its king effectively constrained by parliament, never did. As a result, England was much more successful at wartime borrowing, and paid much lower interest rates.
Which brings us, as all things do these days, to Donald Trump — a man who has evident contempt for the rule of law and who, like Louis, sees no distinction between loyalty to the nation and loyalty to himself. The main difference is that Louis seems to have at least tried to understand the issues.
On Friday night, something unprecedented happened: The US government shut down temporarily even though the same party controls both Congress and the White House. Why? Because when it comes to Mr Trump, a deal isn’t a deal — it’s just words he feels free to ignore a few days later.
The story so far: Two weeks ago, Mr Trump said if Congress came up with a plan to protect Dreamers — undocumented immigrants brought here as children — while enhancing border security, he would sign it. Two days later, a bipartisan group of senators brought him a plan doing just that — and he rejected it, complaining about immigrants.
On Friday, Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader, seemed to have at least a short-term deal with Mr Trump, only to see it pulled back hours later. Working with Mr Trump is “like negotiating with Jell-O”, Sen Schumer fumed.
Finally, on Monday Democrats agreed to a three-week extension of funding in return for a promise from Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, of a vote on immigration legislation (we’ve heard nothing from Mr Trump). If this vote doesn’t happen, we’ll be back to square one on Feb 8. Anyone want to take bets?
Basically, the US government is lurching from crisis to crisis because its leader can’t be trusted to honour a deal. But what did you expect? Mr Trump’s whole business career has been a series of betrayals — failed business ventures from which he personally profited while others, whether they were Trump University students, vendors or creditors, ended up holding the bag.
There are two things you need to realise about Mr Trump’s utter unreliability. First, it has ramifications that go far beyond the recent shutdown. Second, it’s made possible, or at least much worse, by his enablers in Congress.
Think, for example, about the international consequences of a US president whose word can’t be trusted. Who can we count on to be a reliable ally, when no country knows whether America will stand by it if it needs help?
So far financial markets continue to regard the US government as trustworthy, even though during the 2016 campaign Mr Trump talked about forcing the nation’s creditors to accept less than they were owed. But does this government have any reserve of financial credibility if something goes wrong? Probably not.
In other words, Mr Trump’s unreliability is a big problem, over and above the substance of his policies. But here’s the funny thing: While his instincts are clearly autocratic, the Constitution doesn’t set him above the law. Congress has the power to constrain his actions, to force him to honor promises. His ability to keep betraying those who trust him depends entirely on the willingness of Republicans in Congress to go along.
The result is that promises from the US government are now as worthless as those from a tinpot dictator. We don’t yet know how high a price we’ll pay for that loss of credibility, but it probably won’t be small.