Last year, we used Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson’s "Why Nations Fail" as a lens for asking a very simple question with very complicated consequences: are American institutions strong enough to withstand a president who treats many institutional boundaries as optional suggestions?
This year, we return for the sequel. And as with many sequels, the explosions are bigger, the plot is less believable, and several supporting characters from Season One have either been fired, investigated, defunded, sanctioned, or asked to explain themselves on cable news.
The framework remains the same. ""Why Nations Fail"" argues that nations prosper when their institutions are inclusive: power is distributed, rules apply broadly, courts are independent, economic opportunity is open, and leaders cannot simply convert public office into private advantage. Nations decline when institutions become extractive: power is concentrated, the law becomes a weapon, public resources flow toward insiders, and the people in charge try very hard to remain the people in charge.
So, after two years of the second Trump presidency, where do U.S. institutions stand?
This discussion will look at the major pressure points: Congress and war powers after the conflict with Iran; the Supreme Court’s role in checking presidential power, including tariffs; the Justice Department and the danger of prosecution as personal payback; attacks on law firms, universities, civil servants, and the press; the use of tariffs as both economic policy and executive muscle; and the increasingly blurry line between public office, family business, crypto money, foreign favors, and old-fashioned “nothing to see here” ethics.
We will also ask whether the other branches of government are checking presidential power, accommodating it, or politely holding the door open while it walks past them. Is Congress reclaiming its constitutional role, or mostly sending strongly worded invitations to be ignored? Is the Supreme Court acting as a guardrail, a referee, or a very slow emergency brake? Is the Justice Department still an institution of law enforcement, or is it becoming the customer-service department for presidential grievances?
The goal is not to debate whether one likes or dislikes Trump’s policies in the ordinary partisan sense. The goal is to ask a more institutional question: are these policies strengthening inclusive institutions, weakening them, or turning them into extractive tools for rewarding friends, punishing enemies, and keeping power concentrated?
In short: last year we asked whether American institutions were under stress. This year we ask whether they are bending, breaking, fighting back — or quietly being renovated into something we may not recognize.