Congress scholar here.

Sorry, saw that one coming too.

Really, it’s all in Linz (1990).

April 07, 2026 - 13:52 UTC

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I don't remember if we read Linz in the class I took on the American Presidency in college (our main text was Skowronek), but this was my takeaway from the class regarding the consolidation of authority in the executive.
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Unlikely you would've read it. In the discipline it was mostly thought of as a comparative (rather than Americanist) piece. Only really started getting ported over to domestic politics post-Trump.
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Had to look that up, not being an academic in this field, and, well, sigh. Thanks, though.
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Smh same
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Do you have a thread about this somewhere?
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Sorry no. Short version: presidential systems create incentives for the president to take a personalistic leadership stake in the party, and for other party members to go along with it. In most presidential countries this leads to unstable democracies.
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Linz, Juan J. (Juan José). "The Perils of Presidentialism." Journal of Democracy, vol. 1 no. 1, 1990, p. 51-69.

muse.jhu.edu/article/225694
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Honestly that's fair.
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When history is judging it's too late.
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BRB. Just downloaded it off MUSE to read so I can accurately cite the death of our democracy.
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