The Death of Madison?

James Madison is widely seen as the man who gave the US its Presidential system of government - i.e., a bicameral legisliature with a separate executive. This is contrasted to the British parliamentary model that Canada and many former colonies of the United Kingdom inherited. Rather than a separation of powers, parliaments operate through a fusion of powers, where the executive comes from the legislative. In the UK this goes even further, where the House of Lords also serves as the final court of Appeal, fusing Judicial, Legislative, and Executive in the Parliament.

Interestingly, the Americans designed their system based on a misinterpretation of the British system by the French philosophe Montesquieu. In a very real sense, all the democracies of the world, Presidential and Parliamentary alike, all derive from Westminster. It's just that some of us are more honest about it.

Anyway, I was thinking about all that when I read this post by Mark Schmitt at TPMCafe:

Under Bush in the U.S., on the other hand, we have moved toward something that looks a lot more like parliamentary government, in which the ruling party moves with a single voice and when it fails to do so, the whole order is at risk. If Blair is more national leader than party leader, Bush has styled himself as much more the leader of an ideologically unified majority party than any American president in decades, including those such as LBJ who had solid congressional majorities. He is the first president, for example, to handpick the Senate majority leader....

The phenomenon of parliamentary democracies that surely seems weirdest to an American is the fact that a single loss can bring down a government. We are accustomed to having our "accountability moments" at regularly scheduled intervals, with all sorts of congressional victories and defeats in between. And there's something to be said for that. A president can be daring, can try to push Congress in certain directions, and can win some or lose some, get up off the mat and come right back and try again. Imagine, for example, if Bill Clinton had been prime minister rather than president. Rather than eight consecutive years in office, he would have been like one of those prime ministers who comes in and out of power several times, losing confidence votes, dissolving governments, and then forming new ones on new coalitions....

And just as in a parliamentary system, that works until it stops working. And when it stops working, the government is finished.

Here's hoping.

It's interesting to note that Canada, the UK, and US are all facing political - what, crises? That seems like too harsh a word in these cases. In any case, all are suffering from political weakness and low polls (though our Liberals look like the lions of the bunch. But when you look healthy compared to Bush and Blair, I'd still keep the Priest on speed dial - you never know when you'll need the last rites.

Meanwhile, Latin America will see a large number of elections in the coming year. Some are predicting a nationalist/leftist resurgence, sweeping away the neoliberal regimes that have been so cordial with the US. Then we have the US mid-terms a year from now. With 57% of US voters now saying that Bush deliberately misled the American people, there's a real chance of the Democrats retaking the House, though less so in the Senate. In any case, the House has all sorts of nifty powers, like subpoena, oh, and a little thing called impeachment. Even if my dreams aren't fulfilled, there's a real potential for a political shift - not just in Canada and the US, but throughout the continent.

Interesting times, as they say.