THE ART OF THE BROKEN DEAL
“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.
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.
On Friday night, something unprecedented happened: The U.S. government shut down temporarily even though the same party controls both Congress and the White House. Why? Because when it comes to 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, Trump declared that if Congress came up with a plan to protect Dreamers 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.
On Friday, Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader, seemed to have at least a short-term agreement with Trump, only to see it pulled back a few hours later.
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 Trump). If this vote doesn’t happen, we’ll be back to square one Feb. 8.
Basically, then, the government of the world’s greatest nation is lurching from crisis to crisis because its leader can’t be trusted to honor a deal. But what did you expect?
There are two things you need to realize about 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 U.S. 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, at least, financial markets continue to regard the U.S. government as trustworthy. But does this government have any reserve of financial credibility if something should go wrong? Probably not.
In other words, 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 U.S. 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.