Telos What Happened This week
Our Sunday week in review and look ahead at what's coming
PROGRAMMING ALERT: Please join me tomorrow at 2:45 PM ET on Substack Live for a conversation with Steven Levitsky about Trump and “competitive authoritarianism.”
Levitsky is co-author (with Daniel Ziblatt) of the New York Times bestseller How Democracies Die and Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point.
In February, Levitsky published (with Lucan A. Way) “The Path to American Authoritarianism,” an enormously influential essay in Foreign Affairs arguing that “democracy is in greater peril today than at any time in modern U.S. history.”
“What lies ahead,” Levitsky and Way wrote, “is not fascist or single-party dictatorship but competitive authoritarianism—a system in which parties compete in elections but the incumbent’s abuse of power tilts the playing field against the opposition.”
I re-read the piece over the weekend, and it’s shockingly prescient. Levitsky is in high demand these days, and we are fortunate to have an hour of his time tomorrow to discuss what is surely one of the most important issues of our time.
You can use the comments on this post to suggest questions. You won’t want to miss being a part of this conversation.
Week in Review
1. Steven Vladeck inaugurated our master class series with this conversation on habeas corpus. (That’s ice water for the record!)
2. Liza Goitein made it difficult for some Telos subscribers to sleep at night with this conversation about presidential emergency powers. To me, this is one of the most under-covered issues of the year. The system is blinking red on this.
3. Paul Krugman explained the last century of tariff policy and warned that Trump’s global trade wars—and their risks to the economy—are not close to being over despite last week’s partial climbdown on Chinese tariff rates.
Krugamn Part 1:
Krugman Part 2:
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I read the NY Times; this morning the news that Trump can "remove the temporary protected status of more than 300,000 immigrants." Send these human beings...to where??? It makes me sick.
After witnessing our support of Holocaust 2.0 in Palestine, one conclusion is that no one is safe now. All citizens in the USA are at risk one way or another, except of course those in power and billionaires.
I live in Mexico and will never return to the USA. My Substack and DOCS show that I support not just Free Palestine (whatever that means)m, I support their protector: Hamas. And, I view the Houhtis as biblically on the side of humanity.
I'm glad I found you; and since my hero Judge Luttig supports you.. So, I did immediately. I know you are focused mainly on the US politics which I have tried to avoid, but I guess it's unavoidable. I have been studying the Israel thing since they started bombing Oct 7. Hey Israel! What about your people in there??
They're just collateral damage that the IDF failed to Hannibal Directive before they got carried into Gaza. Israel has 6+million other Jews. They don't need those hostages except as an excuse to make up for their humiliating failure to cover that area.
As a Arts, Lit, Philosophy person, this is all new to me. Big study to take up my 85 year old mind.
Do you buy into the theory that American voters have a split (ticket) personality; i.e. they will vote for referendums and local candidates that advocate for progressive causes but they still want One Dude at the Top who is more authoritative? Outside of president, most candidates who try to imitate Trump have lost.