On the Impact of an Electoral Landslide: The 2026 U.S. Congressional Election

Amid all the fanfare of an exciting election in which the opposition, riding an electoral “wave,” gains more (or even complete) control in a legislature, the tendency of an electorate is to assume that everything will change. Even utopian hopes can take wing. The sheer inertia of any political status quo is easily overlooked until reality sets back in as the ascendent group gets to work in a legislative capacity. Clipping the wings of a party that has enjoyed unfettered power does not necessarily mean that the opposition will be able to change existing governmental policy and laws rather than merely act as a stronger check on what had been perceived as the excesses of the other party when it was in power. To be sure, the power of an electorate (the People) to trigger such a check by voting for opposition candidates is a great benefit of representative democracy and is worthy of admiration. Imagine the alternative:  a party whose officeholders could go on and on, even to an extreme, even though most of the electorate objects and yet has no way to put in place replacements wo could counter the hitherto dominant party. This scenario does not have to be imagined; just look at countries such as North Korea, Russia, and China. Lest the accolades of democracy be oversold, the impact legislatively and in terms of U.S. policies, especially foreign policy, of the “blue wave” in the 2026 congressional election in the U.S. should not be overstated.

The American 2026 “midterm” election can be read in general terms as a rebuke of President Trump, and more specifically of his indifference toward, and lack of policy-attention to, the rising food and oil prices that were hitting many Americans hard. Trump’s military attacks on Iran, backed rather than rebuffed by the Republican-controlled Congress, contributed to oil prices shooting past $100 a barrel in time for the election, owing in part to Iran’s strategic constraints on the 20 million barrels of crude oil and petroleum derivatives that pass through the Strait of Hormuz daily. The president insisted that Americans should be willing to pay higher gas (and, relatedly, food) prices at home so the world (i.e., Israel) could finally be free of the bellicose threat of Iran. However, prior to the congressional election in November at least, the American and Israeli attacks had not succeeded in removing Iran’s Islamic regime from power even in spite of mass popular protests in Iran against that regime, which were quickly followed by brutal suppression before the emergent political freedom could blossom.  The inertia of a political status quo can indeed be formidable.

As it turned out, Iran’s nuclear bombs were just as real as Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction had been when President George W. Bush invaded Iraq more than two decades earlier, ignoring his father’s self-restraint in removing invading Iraqi forces from Kuwait without going beyond his international coalition to invade Iraq itself and remove Saddam Hussain from power. In fact, the American and Israeli bombing of Iran actually increased the number of voices in the Iranian government in favor of developing a nuclear bomb, especially as the world had looked the other way while Israel developed its own arsenal. So, a sense of basic fairness can be said to undergird the Iranian adverse reaction after the bombings. After all, Israel’s genocide in Gaza belied the assumption that an Israeli regime would be a rational nuclear power, as even the U.S.S.R. had been, and therefore be allowed by the world to have nuclear weapons. Any government in the Middle East having nuclear weapons is risky, given the intense passions that have given rise to high geopolitical tension and even violence in that region for decades.

Reducing the high price of oil, and thus gasoline and especially diesel, to “the Iranian War,” as if the upcoming Congress controlled by the Democrat group could lower gas and grocery prices enough (or even appreciably) simply by cutting off funds and enacting the War Powers Act, fails to take into consideration the other causes of the higher prices. For example, in late September 2026, Ukraine’s Military Intelligence (HUR) claimed that drone strikes had left 15 of Russia’s 38 major refineries completely inoperable and 12 running at reduced capacity. This, too, pushed oil prices higher than would have been otherwise been. Trump’s purchase of 4.8 million metric tons of Russian diesel, equivalent to 35.76 million barrels (enough to cover only 9 days in the U.S.), was hardly enough to make a dent in the price of diesel. Meanwhile, food prices had recently risen another 2.5% on an annual basis during the third quarter of 2026, on top of the cumulative 26% to 31.9% increase from 2020 to 2025. American farmers and truckers use diesel, whose price was spiking at the time of the election even though President Trump had undercut Ukraine, a country still being invaded by Russia, by buying diesel from Russia.

Although both Trump’s policy toward Iran and Ukraine’s drone-bombing of Russian refineries contributed to the cost-push inflation in the U.S., the upcoming Congress would have to more legislatively than end the “Iran War” and even put the U.S. on the side of Ukraine so that, with the E.U., that war could be ended with a negotiated settlement. Congress would have to do more, and I submit that not even an electoral wave is sufficient for such a legislative response as could really turn things around pricewise.

It did not help President Trump’s case in campaigning for Republican congressional candidates that he had even made fun of the Democrats’ new buzzword, affordability. Furthermore, he was silent on how rising energy costs could be reduced or countered by giving tax credits to the large American agribusinesses and corporations owning and operating grocery-store chains in exchange for lower prices. He was also silent on whether anti-trust laws, such as the Sherman Act and the Clayton Act, could be dusted off and applied finally to break up the two large agricultural-seed companies, which had been able to raise seed prices without worrying about competition from new entrants, and applied as well to the large regional and even national grocery chains that had kept grocery prices high after the Coronavirus pandemic. Had market competition existed in that industry in 2022, the artificially high prices in grocery stores during the pandemic would not have been undercut and thus out-competed. In short, the lack of competition in a variety of industries in the U.S. had arguably been a major contributor to the rising prices facing American consumers in buying necessities, for which demand is typically inelastic.

Adam Smith’s prediction that businesses and governments would collude to keep worker wages low—something that Nietzsche would insist is necessary for the development of culture—could be extended to collusion to keep competition from breaking out from new entrants (with low barriers to entry) in markets that had already become monopolistic or oligopolistic (i.e., just a few firms, which can set rather than just accept prices for goods and services). That not even Democrats were campaigning to restore market competition as part of a strategy to bring down oil and food prices goes to say that not even the electoral wave in the Democrats’ favor can be assumed to result in the sort of structural economic change that would be necessary to return affordability to American families. Not even the contours of the public discourses during the campaigns were wide enough. As valuable as a corrective election is to the viability of a democracy, not even a broad electoral mandate on election day is likely sufficient for adequate legislative and executive responses even in the face of the inelastic demand of consumers that enables monopolists and oligopolists to enforce their price-setting (rather than price-taking) on consumers without having to lower prices due to declining demand.

The insufficiency of even a broad electoral wave applies also to voters’ being motivated by reports of massive corruption, with Trump himself, his company, and even his relatives benefitting greatly in financial terms. Exit polls revealed that corruption too was a salient factor for many voters who effectively said no to the sitting president by favoring Democrat candidates for Congress. Those votes were also a no to the current Congress, controlled by Republicans, which had steadfastly refused to hold the president accountable for his overreaches, including decision to build a ballroom at the White House without seeking congressional approval. Trump himself, his company, and even his relatives were reported to be benefitting greatly in financial terms. Voters motivated to vote Democrat because of the corruption may have been incensed by the related financial enrichment not only of Trump’s two eldest sons, but also of his son-in-law, Jered Kushner, whose felon father Trump pardoned and even rewarded with the ambassadorship to France, whose government then chastised the ambassador for inserting himself in French politics in defense of Israel, which was still committing what the UN would classify as a genocide in Gaza. As for Jered, besides having a lucrative financial stake in planned real-estate developments planned for Gaza, his private-equity firm, Affinity Partners, had received substantial funds from the sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE. Given the rather obvious conflict of interests involving personal and business financial gain, it is significant that President Trump selected his son-in-law to be one of the principal negotiators working on not only the Russia and Ukraine conflict, but also that which concerns Gaza, and thus any planned real-estate development deals in Gaza.

The fact that Democrats slated to be in the upcoming Congress were already disagreeing on how much time and effort to spend going after President Trump, his company, and his relatives on the alleged corruption means that the election could have more impact on curtailing future corruption than in holding Trump, his relatives, and even Elon Musk accountable for the corruption that occurred from 2025-2026. Within the Democratic group, it was not clear whether the congressional oversight on the existing enrichment constituted revenge, and thus should be minimal, or would serve a more legitimate purpose, such as enforcing the rule of law on an administration that had been enriching relatives and friends with impunity for two years. That President Trump would still be the chief executive of the U.S. Government’s executive branch for two years means that any findings by congressional investigative committees might not get very far in the Department of Justice. Again, the actual results of the “blue wave” would likely be considerably muted from what excited Democrats may have presumed on election night. Politics, and especially the mechanizations of government, tend to be incremental rather than radical.

The election’s impact on U.S. foreign policy could also be expected to be less than drastic, given the power of the presidency in foreign affairs. Even on the federal budget as concerns foreign affairs, compromise would be the best that the Democratic Congress could hope for, given the president’s veto power and the Democrats’ lack of votes to override vetoes. In fact, even powerful incumbent Democratic lawmakers could find themselves resisting calls from within the Democratic caucuses in the two chambers to radically change a foreign policy by cutting off funds. For example, continuing to aid Israel financially even as that country was inflicting what the UN had classified as a genocide in Gaza and enabling wanton violence against Palestinian property-owners in the West Bank had become a contentious issue, even though it was hardly foremost on the minds of the voters who voted for Democratic congressional candidates. Any hopes that the upcoming Congress would be likely to distance the U.S. from its ally, Israel, would ignore the political reality of AIPAC’s reach on Democratic leaders in Congress.

In the U.S. House of Representatives, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries was poised after the election to be elected Speaker of the House, and Sen. Charles Schumer, the Senate’s Minority Leader at the time, stood the best chance of being elected by the Senate Republicans as the upcoming Majority Leader.  According to the U.S. Federal Election Commission at the time of the 2026 election, AIPAC had given between $297,000 and $427,000 in political contributions to Jeffries’ 2026 campaign, with a total of between $1.28 million and $1.58 million received from the political action committee during his entire Congressional career. In political terms, he could be expected to act in Israel’s political interest in the 120^th Congress and therefore resist legislative attempts to defund Israel of American support. Even though Sen. Schumer, the U.S. Senate’s minority leader in the 119^th Congress, was not up for reelection in 2026, AIPAC contributed $515,698 to him during the 2025-2026 cycle anyway. During his entire Congressional career up to early November 2026, he had received approximately $1.73 million from pro-Israel political action committees (PACs), including NORPAC, DMFI PAC, and AIPAC. Therefore, he too could be expected to be beholden to Israel during the upcoming 120^th Congress even though the UN had determined that Israel was in fact committing a genocide in Gaza. In short, Israel stood to have two gatekeepers at the highest level in Congress during the 2027-2028 session, and President Trump would still be in the White House protecting Israel and even its embattled, scandal-ridden prime minister, whose arrest was still being sought by the International Criminal Court

Absent the politically improbable toppling of Jeffries and Schumer, both of whom hail from Brooklyn, Netanyahu’s partisan embrace of President Trump may not have come at the cost of retribution from the upcoming Democratic majorities in Congress. The claim by Netanyahu’s critics in Israel that it risked losing influence with Democratic lawmakers in Congress due to Netanyahu’s close relationship with Republicans may not be true. Even the election to the U.S. Senate of Michigan’s Addul El-Sayed, a skeptic of U.S. aid to Israel because of its multi-year genocide in Gaza, and Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s highly publicized decision to oppose any further U.S. military aid to Israel should not overshadow the political reality of protection that Jeffries and Schumer would likely continue to provide to Israel in defense of that country’s interests regardless of its crimes against humanity. That “some House and Senate members increasingly [had become] increasingly critical of Israel in the run-up” to the Midterm election should not be taken to mean that Israel would be left unprotected in the upcoming Congress.[1] The statement by Tzipi Livni, a former minister in Netanyahu’s government, that “Netanyahu gambled on the Republicans, broke the alliance that we maintain throughout all the years with both parties,” is simply not true.[2] Jeffries and Schumer are enough to dismiss Livni’s assertion. AIPAC and other, less visible means of instilling and protecting Israeli geopolitical interests throughout the U.S. Government means that even the “blue wave” itself not likely have a major impact on U.S. policy on (and funding of) Israel. Even President Trump’s electorally-timed statement that aid to Israel would be discontinued in 2027 should be take with a grain of salt.

Therefore, while it may be tempting to assume from the electoral success of many Democratic candidates for federal office in districts and states that had been electing Republican candidates to federal offices means that the 120^th Congress in 2027-2028 could be expected to enact laws across the board that would be very different from the political status quo in 2026, political inertia should not be counted out.  The entrenched support for Israel in Congress and the White House was likely commensurate with the entrenchment of business interests and related political interests behind the rising prices facing American consumers. The electoral “blue wave” would ineluctably eventually crash into the entrenchment, as if waking up the next morning with a hangover. Even though the world had turned against Israel due to its wholesale genocide in Gaza, shifting American policy on that ally would be a heavy lift politically. Even though nominal wages in the U.S. increased 22 percent, while cumulative inflation rose 18.9 percent, and therefore real wages increased only 3.1 percent from 2020 to mid-2026, gas prices increased by 85-87 percent, and grocery prices increased by 25.2-31.9 percent. Even so, Democratic candidates for Congress acted as if ending the “Iran War” would brin down prices, and corporate America, whose political campaign contributions and promises of lucrative jobs were substantial in 2026, would oppose structural economic change by the enforcement of existing anti-trust law.

Even though a surge in the electoral strength of an opposition party, fueled by a sufficient number of voters, indicates that the People can influence governmental policy and legislation in a representative democracy, especially by reducing the power of the hitherto dominant party, the inertia inherent in any status quo is formidable and should not be overlooked. Not even something as horrendous as a genocide being committed by an ally and as costly to consumers as the gradual encroachment by oligopoly and even monopoly in place of market competition in many industries of an economy may be sufficient to counter the political black ole tat provides such gravitas to the status quo. Put another way, take all the combined energy that is in a seismic-shift election—all of the energy of all of the voters who vote for the opposition party—and still only incremental change in the position of the “black hole” is likely. In the end, politics may come down to physics.

 

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1. Isabel Kershner, “Election Results Show Israelis that U.S. Relationship Is on Tenuous Ground,” The New York Times, November 5, 2026.
2.Ibid.

The E.U. on Negotiating Britain’s Secession: Traumatized Officials

As the war between the U.S.A. and C.S.A. (1861-1865) attests, the secession of a state from a political union in which governmental sovereignty is “dual” (i.e., both the union and the states are vested with it, such that it is divided, albeit not evenly) can be arduous. Although a “velvet” secession sans warfare, the secession of the state of Britain (UK) from the E.U. required lengthy and painstaking negotiations. In the case of a union of states, something more than integration occurs not only economically, but also politically. Anti-federalist rhetoric, such as in referring to the E.U. (or U.S.) as a “bloc” with “members,” and even with potential “associate members,” does absolutely nothing to counter the political reality of federalism wherein governmental sovereignty resides both with the union itself and the state governments. Officials in the E.U.’s Commission were prudent, therefore, in being hesitant regarding the possible re-accession of Britain as an E.U. state as talk on that possibility swirled in Britain in 2026 just after Andy Burnham became the prime minister and suggested that he would be open to a referendum. This occurred exactly a decade after the referendum on “Brexit” had passed and only six years after the actual secession. Between 2016 and the end of January, 2020, E.U. and British officials—federal and state, respectively—engaged in painstaking, even traumatic, negotiations. That this harsh characterization came from the E.U. side is consistent with my thesis that the vote in Britain to secede, or “exit,” from the E.U. was based on a rejection of the governmental sovereignty held by the E.U. rather than its states. E.U. officials would not have taken kindly to even the subtle suggestion that the E.U.’s portion of sovereignty did not really exist.

Speaking at a meeting with Britain’s Defence Secretary Wes Streeting ahead of the more formal meeting slated for November 20, 2026, the E.U.’s foreign minister, Kaja Kallas, said that some E.U. officials were still traumatized by what the media outlet Euronews characterizes as “the difficult and often bitter negotiations that followed” Britain’s referendum in 2016.[1] Reading between the lines, I suspect that Kallas meant that the British negotiators had behaved rudely and perhaps even in a hostile manner—essentially burning their bridges and thus making it more difficult for the E.U. to welcome the British back should they once again seek to become a state in the Union. Hence, while Kallas was meeting with her counterpart, Wes Streeting, her message was for the British to ”focus on participating in the EU’s existing defence frameworks in the short term rather than opening talks” on possible accession. The old adage, what goes around comes around, may apply here. There’s “a lot of traumatized people in Brussels over Brexit,” she said at the time.[2]

Just one year prior, in 2025, Britain had opted out of the E.U.’s €150 billion Security Action for Europe (SAFE) defense loan arrangement because the UK government had concluded that the estimated €4 billion to €6 billion entry fee “didn’t represent value for money.”[3] Besides the fact that the refusal is not in line with Kallas’s suggest that both sides prioritize “practical areas of cooperation before considering more ambitious steps,”[4] the transactional approach excludes the broad political judgment that would be necessary for the British to treat accession as a political rather than merely a transactional or even financial decision. Put another way, the financial cost/benefit analysis does not include the political judgment of whether to become a semi-sovereign state in a union that is as much political as it is economic and social.

In fact, the British treating relations with the E.U. as primarily or exclusively financial may itself be residue from the category mistake in having incorrectly viewed the E.U. as an economic network rather than a political, semi-sovereign union when the UK was a semi-sovereign E.U. state, and thus subject to federal law, directives, regulations, and ECJ rulings. Former UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s statement while in office that the E.U. was just one of the international networks to which Britain belonged demonstrates just how mistaken the “Brexit” faction in the UK was regarding categorizing the European Union. Were the E.U. merely a network, then of course it would be a mistake for the E.U. to claim or have any governmental sovereignty, and it was precisely this perceived mistake that was being the vote to secede from the Union. That E.U. officials knew otherwise—that the shared and exclusive competencies (i.e., domains of governmental sovereignty) of the European Union were valid and lawful under E.U. Basic Law—may account for why at least some of those officials felt traumatized by the mistaken British negotiators who were ideologically beholden to E.U. being instead in the “network” category. Such a cutting category mistake based in ideological denialism doubtlessly would not have gone down well even if only subtly as subterranean inuendo during the secession negotiations.

Accession should only proceed if enough of the British as well as their Parliament accept the validity of the E.U.’s shared and exclusive competencies as enumerated domains of governmental sovereignty, and thus that the E.U. is indeed an empire-scale federal Union of semi-sovereign states rather than sovereign countries. This is the bottom line for accession. If this stipulation is not met, the E.U. would be stronger without the British, and they in turn would be better off staying out of the European Union rather than going back to being serial objectors within the Union. In other words, the ideological fault line that prompted the secession must be dealt with in the UK before any accession-proposals are made. To be sure, going historically from being the host kingdom of an empire to a state in a federal empire-scale union is a difficult pill to swallow; it could be decades from 2026 before the British are psychologically ready for accession, even though Britain as a host kingdom (with the king rather than Parliament having the imperial power) and a semi-sovereign state (with the E.U. having the imperial role) bears a certain equivalence rather than being so much a step down.[5]  

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1. Shona Murray, “Brussels Still ‘Traumatised’ by Brexit, EU Foreign Policy Chief Warns,” Euronews.com, 2 November 2026.
2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid.

5. See Skip Worden, British Colonies Forge an American Empire, available at Amazon.

American Federalism: Idaho and Massachusetts on Guns

The proverbial expression, or retort, that the U.S. is not a France with a large back yard (i.e., simply more territory), or the equivalent—to say that the E.U. is not Texas with a large front yard—is oriented to the important difference between (early) modern empire-scale unions and states (i.e., polities) thereof. An empire is constituted by many (i.e., not just a few) polities that are culturally heterogenous (i.e., different from one another). Even though since at least 1871, Canada’s provinces have stretched across a continent, the number of provinces (10) does not meet the number qualification to be considered an empire even though Quebec and British Columbia are obviously very different culturally (including linguistically). In contrast, at 27 and 50 members, the E.U. and U.S. respectively qualify on both counts—interstate cultural/political diversity and the number of states. Even though the E.U.’s linguistic interstate diversity has greatly exceeded that which existed even in 2026 among the U.S. members, U.S. has its own dimensions of cultural difference that are palpable and salient between member-states, and particular pairs of states can even be said to be divergent on specific dimensions. It may even be that the E.U. states are more homogenous than are the U.S. states on such dimensions. For example, attitudes towards people having guns—including semi-automatic machine guns, so not just guns for hunting—differ between American states substantially and more so than between E.U. states.

In October 2026, the citizens of Massachusetts were preparing to vote on a ballot question that concerns “whether to uphold a 2024 law requiring all firearms to be serialized and registered with [the government of Massachusetts] and broadening a ban on ‘assault-style’ guns.”[1] If approved, the question would “continue an array of gun restrictions passed overwhelmingly by the Democratic-led Legislature . . .”[2] At the time, Massachusetts had one of the lowest gun-ownership rates in the Union. Massachusetts was the second state, behind Hawaii, “to enact a comprehensive gun registry.”[3] In such a political culture, wherein gun restrictions had been passed overwhelmingly, it can be assumed that most people (or at least most voters) likely thought that people keeping assault-style guns at home would be absurd (and absurdly dangerous).

Meanwhile, in Idaho, “the Republican-led Legislature placed a nonbinding question on the ballot seeking voters’ advise on designating ‘the state gun of Idaho.’”[4] At the time, “(a)bout 3 and 5 Idaho adults live(d) in households with guns, which ranks among the highest rates” among the member-states.[5] Jason Monks, the Majority Leader in the Idaho House of Representatives, said, “There’s no much more patriotic in Idaho than guns—and the importance of guns in helping to found our country and settle the West.”[6] It can thus be said that a gun—even a semi-automatic machine gun—is itself a political symbol, and perhaps the most important one, in Idaho, whereas in Massachusetts guns were typically viewed at least as of 2026 as dangerous and thus to be legitimately subject to restrictions—the only question being how many and how restraining.

Clearly, “Massachusetts and Idaho are about 2,000 miles (3,200 kilometers) apart—literally and figuratively—in America’s gun debate.”[7] That debate—and more specifically the extent to which the political “centers of gravity” in the two members of the U.S. differ—is but one of a myriad of ways by which the American countries differ in the U.S., such that that union of states is indeed comparable to the E.U. in that respect, rather than being a homogenous whole whereas the E.U. states are so very different. This is a common misconception in Europe, which can be redressed at least to some degree by contrasting Massachusetts and Idaho on guns.

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1. David A. Lieb, “Massachusetts and Idaho Put Guns on the Ballot. One Seeks to Restrict Them, the Other to Honor Them,” APNews.com, October 25, 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.

The E.U. Investigates an Online Travel-Reservation Company: Consumer Protection in Hospitality

The case, or rationale, for government regulation and oversight of the “hospitality” industry (e.g., hotels, booking companies, etc.) is not merely made on the basis of monopoly or oligarchy in the industry at the expense of market competition, but also on issues concerning business ethics and managerial competence at not only hotel companies (as well as with franchisees), but also separate travel-reservation companies. The European Commission was therefore on solid ground in launching an investigation into a online travel-reservation company in 2026.

To be sure, running a hotel, with customers staying at such short intervals, is admittedly difficult, given the need for constant coordinating amid the comings and goings. This is no excuse, however, for dysfunctional management, such as in hiring incompetent or “misaligned” employees in the first place, and later retaining such hires as are discovered to have task or attitude deficiencies. Furthermore, the hotel/motel industry’s franchise model seems particularly prone to franchisees whose obsession on reducing expenses by trifling with amenities goes on as if the customers, or “guests,” do not pick up on the underlying pettiness and greed. Ending the “complimentary” breakfast at 9 a.m., for example, as some Marriot hotels were doing at the time to reduce the number of customers being able to make it in time is unethical if done to reduce expenses on the food. So too is the practice in hotel house-keeping departments to conveniently interpret the placement of a “Do Not Disturb” sign on room doors as meaning that housekeeping service is not wanted that day, even in the afternoon. Housekeepers can reduce their workload by such a convenient assumption with impunity, and lying about whether a sign is on a room’s door can be easily used to reduce a workload even more. Even in how reservations made not directly through the hotel’s company, but, rather, online using a travel-reservation service/company to get lower rates, front-desk managers of hotels are known to relegate those “cheaper” reservations to inferior rooms, such as ones near elevators and not having views. To be sure, a case can indeed be made that customers who pay higher rates warrant better rooms, or at least preference in choosing rooms, but the typical prejudice of hotel managers against “third party” reservations as being inferior can easily translate into such customers, or “guests,” feeling inferior as victims of prejudice. In short, the profit-motive is alive and well in the hospitality industry, where even extending a reservation must contend with the contractual mindset of hotel companies wherein rate for each additional night is to be maximized by demand and supply; daily expediency trumps investing in repeat business by building a customer basis and even customer loyalty. In short, loyalty does not compute in a daily revenue-maximizing, transactions-oriented managerial mentality. At least in the U.S., that mentality really got going once people could shop online for rates in the 2000s or 2010s. In short, the case for government oversight of the “hospitality” industry is an easy one to make, especially since the advent of computer technology used by the industry. The E.U.’s investigation of Booking.com, an online travel-reservations company, announced in October, 2026 should therefore not come as a surprise.

The E.U.’s “investigation into online travel platform Booking.com” came amid “concerns that it has failed to adequately address fake listings and phishing scams.”[1] A phishing scam is one in which personal/financial information of customers is extracted for nefarious purposes such as identity theft. E.U. federal authorities accused the management of Booking.com of having “underestimated the impact of fraud and unlicensed accommodation on its platform and has not done enough to prevent users’ data from being exploited by scammers.”[2] The E.U. commissioner for technology, Henna Virkkunen, said at the time that E.U. citizens “should be able to book their holidays without fear of being scammed.”[3] Additionally, the Commission was taking a look at Booking.com “because it did not clearly label as ads those listings whose providers paid for a higher ranking in search results shown to users.”[4] This charge shifts the focus from the providers using Booking.com to that company’s own management. Together, the opportunity of collusion at the expense of the “users” is high enough that government oversight was justified.

Another American travel-reservation online platform, that which was run by Super.com, was also ripe for investigation because that company operated at the time in travel, financial tech, and savings company—all of which came under the Super+ membership. How the company’s hybrid prepaid Mastercard, useful for cashback and credit-building, and the cash advances feature of the savings feature related to the travel-platform could have been examined by regulators for possible structural conflicts of interest. Even just within the travel platform itself, the company could have been accused of false advertising because once a potential customer clicks on an advertised rate, a new page comes to the fore (“checking for rates”) and often times a new, higher rate appears as the only option. In other words, one rate may be shown when a customer is deciding whether to use Super.com, Travelocity, or Priceline, but once the rate shown by Super.com is clicked, Super.com’s algorithm checks for rates! This process is inherently unethical because the initial rate shown on a list of rates shown by other travel-platform companies is shown as the rate that Super.com is offering; there should not be any need for that company’s algorithm to then check for rates, and even worse, for a higher rate to then be presented as the lowest possible in using Super.com. 

The advent of computer technology in the making of hotel reservations has heightened rather than diminished the need for government oversight and regulation. The profit-motive clearly plays a significant role in the writing of the algorithms, and this should come as absolutely no surprise because companies are profit-making machines and are thus oriented to their own financial interest. In a hotel room, a card that urges customers to reuse a bath towel because “we care about the environment” can and should be taken as a subterfuge; the motive behind the sign is exclusively to reduce the expense that the hotel pays for its linen and towels to be laundered. The appeal to caring can even be looked at as mendacious, or at least as raising the specter that a management is fine with misleading customers. An organizational culture of unethical conduct at the expense of customers can indeed be glimpsed by such small “red-flags.” “Hospitality” managements can indeed be very petty—going so far as to dilute orange juice and reduce the thickness of waffle-makers, for example, so as to reduce the costs of the foodstuffs to the hotels. Hotel and especially motel managers and franchisees can be incredibly selfishly and greedily shortsighted at the expense of repeat business. That is, the hospitality industry is rife with exploits that can and should be of interest to government officials who are oriented to consumer protection rather to the financial interests of (regulated) companies or industries whose political-campaign donations to elected representatives and candidates for such public offices can be very persuasive both in legislatures and regulatory agencies. The associated theory is called regulatory capture. In investigating Booking.com, the E.U.’s executive branch may have been resisting that, though it is possible that a more politically-connected competitor of Booking.com had been pushing for the investigation in what is known as the strategic use of regulation to gain market share and even heighten the barriers to entry by potential competitors. An effective regulatory apparatus should both investigate companies and ensure that markets remain competitive rather than become oligopolistic or monopolies.

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1, Greta Ruffino, “EU probes Whether Booking.com Is Doing Enough to Tackle Fake Listings and Phishing Scams,” Euronews.com, 21 October 2026.
2, Ibid.
3, Ibid.
4. Ibid.

Political Wins as God’s Will

Albeit homo sapiens, which in Latin means the wise species of humans, we have a tendency to outdo ourselves on our petty, partisan perches in pontificating on God’s will, as if we know it even though we can merely believe in God, rather than know God, here defined as the Abrahamic deity—a supreme being within (immanent) and beyond (transcendent) Creation. This “beyondness” is of the sort that goes beyond the limits of human thought, perception, and emotions, and even intuition. Because God’s will is not based in Creation since God is the Creator, the matter of that will can only be a matter of belief rather than knowledge as far as we are concerned, and that belief must contend with the human discretion that is inevitable in interpreting scriptural passages, which, depending on the verse, may be literal, figurative, allegorical, or symbolic. Even within the Christian Trinity, only the Father knows when the Second Coming of Jesus Christ will occur. In the Gospel of Matthew (24:36), Jesus says, “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” Does this mean that of the three persons (Latin) or manifestations (Greek) of the Christian deity, only the Father is omniscient (i.e., all-knowing: knows absolutely everything)? It would seem so. The Holy Spirit may come through the Son, but only the Father is omniscient, and thus the Godhead. In verse 34, Jesus has just said, “Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.” Even if “that day or hour” is up to the Father, while Jesus only knows that the Son will come on clouds to judge the living and the dead sometime within the lifetimes of the people to whom he is speaking, omniscience would require even the exact second to be known; otherwise, the knowledge is not complete (i.e., omni). That Jesus is wrong concerning his prediction does not mean that he is with sin; only that he is represented in the New Testament as being of the god-man type. Now, if Jesus Christ in the Gospel of Matthew does not have complete knowledge of when the world will end at the final judgement by Christ himself, then human claims to know the contents of God’s will can safely be relegated as arrogance as if it were on stilts during a flood, for such presumption should be underwater rather than lording itself in pontificating to other mortals. With all this as context, the partisan rhetoric and genuine beliefs of the U.S. House Speaker, Mike Johnson, while he was campaigning in 2026 for Republican candidates for elected office in the U.S. House, can be situated and analyzed from well within the religious domain.

The full essay is at "Political Wins as God's Will."

Reforming E.U. Governance: On the States’ Conflict of Interest

A conflict of interest is the privileging of the interest of a part, by that part, over a conflicting broader interest, such as the public good. In exploiting such a conflict, a part of a whole puts the part’s own interest, and therefore benefit, above those of the whole to which the part belongs. A state government in the E.U., for example, could veto governance reforms of the federal government because the state would benefit in some way, even just in terms of retaining its portion of governmental sovereignty, even though the E.U. itself would be harmed. Exploiting a conflict of interest is selfishness in governance. The underlying assumption is that the part is greater than the whole. Aristotle warns of such misordered concupiscence, which is the placing of a smaller good above a higher good.

In October, 2026, the European Commission—the E.U.’s executive branch—introduced far-reaching proposals to the E.U.’s governance system with an eye to the accession of a slew of new states being likely in the years to come. Marta Kos, the Enlargement Commissioner, said at the time, “The main question has been: is the EU fit for another enlargement?”[1] I contend that the answer to this question depends on whether the officials of the state governments were willing to resist the temptation to exploit their personal and institutional conflicts of interest, for the proposed reform would transfer more governmental sovereignty from the states to the Union. No one who loves power gives it up easily. The countries in the U.S. at its outset “bit the bullet” in agreeing to give the Union some limited (enumerated) powers (or competencies) by giving them up. The war had ended, so united military action was not the motive; rather, the Americans had realized that the confederal Articles of Confederation (1781-1798) had not worked because the states were still fully sovereign and thus any one could block federal legislation. Unlike the U.S., the E.U. has been federal rather than confederal—dual rather than full state sovereignty—since its founding in 1993. Even though there had been amendments since 1993, the disproportional, obstructive amount of governmental sovereignty of the states as of 2026 was arguably counter to the effective governance at the federal level. By comparison, the disproportional sovereignty of the American members thirty-three years after 1798 was similarly problematic. The E.U.’s plight in 2026 was similar to that, rather than to the shift from the Articles of Confederation to the adoption of a federal government in the U.S. in 1789 because the E.U. has had dual (i.e., state and federal) governmental sovereignties since 1993. 

The specific reforms may be different, but the E.U. and U.S. are indeed comparable. Labeling E.U. states as “members” and the E.U. itself as if it were a “bloc” have been used as obvious tricks to obscure and outright deny the comparison rather than merely to appease Euroskeptics as if they would suddenly have temper tantrums were the E.U. explicitly labeled as a federal (not even confederal!) political union of states. While at Yale, I spoke to the E.U. ambassador to the U.S. on this point; she was concerned about the impact that use of the correct labels would have on Viktor Orban in the E.U. state of Hungary. I told her that she was overestimating what he would do, and enervating the E.U. (especially expectations regarding what the E.U. could do) in the process by allowing Euronews and other media companies to incorrectly use “bloc” to refer to the E.U. I have zero influence.

In October, 2026, among the Commission’s proposed reforms was the “idea of extending qualified majority voting . . . particularly in foreign and security policy, where a veto [by one state] can undermine the EU’s ability to project geopolitical weight abroad.”[2] The political power in 27 states all sailing in the same direction in a Union is one of the main benefits of the E.U. itself, so retaining the veto of the states in the European Council and the Council of Ministers has enervated the E.U., as if tying one of its arms behind its back. Unfortunately, the proposal itself is lame because the Commission was proposing merely to identify “areas where so-called passerelle clauses could be activated, allowing the [European] Council to move from unamimity to qualified majority. Activating those clauses, however, itself requires unanimity,” meaning that one state could veto the change on any legislative or policy proposal to which the passerelle clauses apply.[3] When something is so obviously stupid, the expression, “you can’t make this up” applies—meaning no one would imagine such pathetic stupidity to be possible for a human being. The reason for the lame proposal is doubtless the refusal of governors of the states to give up the power of the veto even though even at 27 states, the E.U. already needed qualified majority rule on foreign and defense domains. The refusal is essentially the exploitation of a conflict of interest, both in terms of personal and state power.

Similarly, the proposal by 11 states in September 2026 “to explore curbing obstructive foreign policy vetoes on the basis of sincere cooperation, notably through greater use of constructive abstention,” is lame.[4] Were he still the governor of the E.U. state of Hungary, Viktor Orban would have laughed at pressure to merely abstain rather than wield his state’s veto. The proposal ignores the nature of raw political power and thus should not even have been proposed.

The Commission’s proposal to curb the state veto on 150 steps in the accession process, and the proposal “to make more use of enhanced cooperation, which lets at least nine member states pursue deeper integration on matters of crucial or strategic interest where blockages exist” are more realistic.[5] Allowing the veto only at the very beginning and at the end of a potential state’s accession process makes so much sense that allowing the veto on each of the 150 steps points to the excessive attachment to power at the state level at the expense of governance and administration at the federal level. The conflicts of interest described above could thus be expected, and yet the Von der Leyen administration could be said to be sidestepping rather than confronting the reality of likely exploitation at the expense of the Union.

Another way of seeing the excessive attachment to power at the state level is by looking at the insistence by the states that each one have a commissioner. Even though the Lisbon Amendment to the E.U.’s Basic Law states that the Commission should have a number of commissioners equal to two-thirds of the states, chosen by “strictly equal rotation” that reflects the interstate diversity in the Union, “the European Council unanimously decided to keep one commissioner per member state . . .”[6] Small states in particular have resisted losing a commissioner, but the underlying reason has more to do with state governments being too desirous of power at the federal level, ironically at the expense of federal legislative and executive activity.

The chances of the reforms passing, given the rather obvious self-interests of state officials and their respective legislatures, were expected to be low even by officials in the Commission when the proposals were announced. “Some things are drafted to be killed,” one E.U. official told Euronews.[7] Lest the state officials be viewed as exorbitantly selfish people childishly refusing to give up any more power, it should be remembered that the process by which the federal level in the U.S. gained power at the expense of the member states in the nineteenth century spanned decades, and extended most notably in the New Deal federal social programs during the Great Depression in the 1930s, so perhaps it is too much to ask the E.U. states to give up their vetoes and their right to their own commissioner within the span of a few years in the mid-2020s under the urgency of enlargement. In other words, perhaps the E.U.’s planned enlargement was proceeding too fast; maybe the matter of adding more states should have been held off until proposals to reduce the application of the state veto mechanism could politically surmount the conflicts of interest existing at the state level, for even with 27 states, the veto in the European Council and the Council of Ministers was already an obstruction, especially on foreign policy and the ability of the E.U. to provide a united defense of the E.U. during Russia’s multi-year invasion of Ukraine.

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1. Luca Dertuzzi, “EU Commission Throws Down the Gauntlet to Member States,” Euronews.com, 6 October 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.

U.S. President Trump Pressures the G7 to Release Oil Reserves

Is democracy more susceptible to being run by large corporations or to mob-rule? I contend that the police and military power of the U.S. eviscerates the risk of a mob of people making much headway against a government. That same power can be used by American governments to enforce policies that are in the financial interests of companies. In fact, some retail companies hire weaponized police employees to enforce not only municipal law (against shoplifting), but also company policies, as if they constituted law and therefore legitimate a police response rather than action by a security guard. To be sure, even security guards act sometimes as if they were police officers, and too many consumers fall for the presumptive ploy to intimidate. Security-guard companies even uniform their respective employees to look like police, even SWAT, officers, as if impersonating a police officer were not a crime. In terms of the American political economy, elected representatives of the American governments looked the other way in whether to invoke anti-trust law to break up large American companies even as gasoline and food prices soared—in the case of food, from 2020 when the pandemic enabled grocery stores to price-gouge, and in the case of gasoline, especially in 2026 when Iran was choking off the Strait of Hormuz. Those representatives as well as the media companies were silent on not only the need for market competition in consolidated industries, but also the excessive power of large corporations—even multi-national corporations, which are not loyal to any country—over elected representatives and their respective appointees. In too many cases, the companies being regulated actually write the law for Congressional committees—an obvious conflict of interest. Meanwhile, the American voters are typically titillated by superficial matters, essentially tricked, as if being oriented to symptoms were crucial to voting. The tricks can include ploys even by a sitting U.S. president to make the economy look better just before an election.

For example, on October 2, 2026, countries in the G7 “agreed to release up to 100 barrels of oil from strategic reserves over four months in a coordinated effort to bring down soaring energy prices, with a particular focus on diesel.”[1] The E.U.’s executive branch “pushed back against what it described as US ‘threats’ to force [the G7] to act.”[2] In particular, the E.U. objected to President Trump’s threat of “a possible US diesel export ban.”[3] That threat worked. As of the following day, G7 countries “had so far released 325 million barrels of oil and oil-derivative products from strategic reserves, from the 400 million barrels promised in March.”[4] Why the apparent urgency? I contend that the upcoming U.S. Congressional elections in early November had a lot to do with President Trump’s motivation, for poll after poll showed that many voters were upset about the cost-push price increases in gasoline and food. Voters with such angst would doubtlessly vote for candidates in the Democratic group, rather than in Trump’s Republican group. So, the president had strong political motive to get gas prices down as soon as possible.

Although the rapid release of 325 million barrels so suggests both urgency and the G7’s compliance in line with Trump’s political interests, the G7 countries had discretion as to when to release both the 325 million barrels and the 100 barrels agreed to on October 2^nd. This means that Trump’s political objective could to some extent be scuttled from abroad by G7 countries holding off as many barrels as possible until after the Congressional elections. That such a strategy is laudable can be grasped by analyzing the ethics of the Trump’s ploy.

It would certainly be no compliment to voters in America were they to change their minds in voting simply by a last-minute drop in gas prices. The ploy itself disrespects voters because it is premised on the assumption that they can easily be tricked into voting for the status quo simply because of a brief (and probably temporary) increase in the purchasing power of American consumers from lower gasoline prices. I submit that at least voters who are college-educated are capable of ignoring such expedient political ploys.

It is less probable that even an educated electorate would vote at least in part from having conducted an analysis of structural political-economic factors, such as the price-setting power of monopolies and even oligopolies. A monopolistic company has overwhelming market-share in an industry, whereas oligopolistic industries are characterized by having a few large producers. Both Trump administrations consistently refused to apply anti-trust law to break up the mega-sized American oil companies, the two large companies dominating the agricultural seed market, and the large grocery-store chains (companies). The consolidation of both the agriculture, grocery, and oil industries in the U.S. is at the expense of market competition, and thus possibly lower prices. Whereas in the Gilded Age, Americans were well aware of anti-trust law, such as was used to break up Standard Oil, such law was seemingly non-existent after the Coronavirus epidemic when grocers felt no downward market pressure to lower prices. Similarly, when Iran was squeezing the Strait of Hormuz, the American media was silent on what effects the application of anti-trust law to the few, large American oil companies could have in diversifying supply chains so the U.S. could be less reliant on the Strait, and perhaps then less motivated to bomb Iran. A person looking just past one’s nose rather than farther is more likely to fall while walking.

After the Coronavirus pandemic, American media companies, elected representatives, and even their respective appointees were obsessed with the superficial symptom labeled “inflation,” as if monetary policy were the only thing that could be applied. Price-setting by an oligopoly of a few large companies, and cost-push inflation whether from the price-setting or issues with supply chains, are not due to excessive (relative to GNP) monetary supply. “Inflation” does not distinguish these very different things.

To the extent that large corporations, whether monopolies or in an oligopolistic industry, have too much financial and therefore political power over members of Congress and the U.S. president, the refusal of the U.S. Justice Department to enforce anti-trust law so as to render as many industries as competitive markets is no surprise because corporations are financially oriented to maximizing their market-share. Being able set prices so as to gain what is called monopoly rents is the dream of any CEO, especially if the bonus component of compensation increases with higher profit. So even beyond there being too few competitive markets in the U.S. due to the failure of the U.S. Government to apply anti-trust laws is the even more intractable problem of there being a plutocracy (i.e., rule by private wealth) usurping the democracy. If a representative democracy is not strong enough to counter these tendencies that operate at the expense of the American consumer, then it may be that democracy is more susceptible to plutocracy than to mob-rule; both Plato and Aristotle contend that mob-rule is the bad side of democracy. Trump’s expedient ploy, based on the premise that a short-term, last-minute, drop in the price of gasoline, is two degrees of separation from a policy that goes after the more endemic, structural, problems in the U.S. political economy.

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1. Marta Pacheco, “G7 Agrees 100 Million-Barrel Emergency Oil Release amid US Pressure over Diesel,” Euronews.com, 2 October 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Simon Ormiston, “IEA Says 325 Million Barrels of Emergency Oil Release, with 75 Million Still to Come,” Euronews.com, 3 October 2026.

On Britain’s Possible Accession after Seceding from the Union

Secession is a nasty business. Both Britain and South Carolina learned that lesson. Whereas the American member-state failed to secede from the U.S., Britain succeeded in seceding from the E.U. The parallelism presented here is no accident, for just as the U.S. federal system has been charactered by dual sovereignty—both the Union and the members having at least some governmental sovereignty—so too does the E.U.’s federal system. In deciding whether or not they want Britain to become an E.U. state again, the British ought to keep this fact in mind. 

Calling states “members” makes no difference to the divided sovereignty; in neither the E.U. nor the U.S. are the states fully sovereign, and neither the E.U. nor the U.S. itself is fully sovereign at the expense of any sovereignty remaining in the so-called members (i.e., states). In contrast, to refer to countries that belong to an international organization such as NATO or the UN as “member-states” just compounds the category mistakes that have been oriented to the false assertion that the E.U. and U.S. are qualitatively different rather than of the same (empire-scale) level and political genus (modern federalism of dual sovereignty). Just as sovereign countries formed the E.U., such countries formed the U.S., which at first was nothing more than a military alliance, and then a confederation of sovereign countries, and finally, from 1789, a federal system characterized by dual sovereignty. 

That feature of (early) modern federalism was salient for the British voters who voted to secede from the Union. In fact, their refusal to accept the E.U. having any governmental sovereignty was hardly absent from their judgment to vote in favor of their state seceding from the Union. Such a fundamental divide—between the actual sovereignty held by the E.U. and the Euroskeptic denial that such sovereignty even exists—is more important than other “pros” and “cons” that the British voters considered in voting on secession. So it is unfortunate that after Britain seceded, the question of whether the state should once again become a state has been dominated by “pros” and “cons” without giving much attention to the more fundamental matter of sovereignty.

In late September, 2026, British Prime Minister Andy Burnham “told a Labour Party conference that he would present ‘options’” concerning the relationship between the former E.U. state and the European Union.[1] He told his group’s delegates, “We could stay as we are. We could look at what George Osborne has said about a customs union, we could look at what the Liberal Democrats said about the (EU) single market, or we could go all the way.”[2] He went on to say, “We have to look at what is doable and what would be the problem is (sic) and cons of each.”[3] That is to say, they would have to look at the problems associated with each option. Such a practical, piecemeal approach ignores the more fundamental problem that existed when Britain was state: namely, getting the E.U. itself wrong, meaning mis-categorizing it in its basic, or constitutional, law, as if it were, as the former prime minister, David Cameron once said, “a network to which Britain happens to belong.” International networks, or “blocs,” do not have supreme courts that can overrule state courts, a parliament whose representatives are elected by federal (i.e., E.U.) citizens, and an executive branch. Blocs do not have three branches of government that individually and together, constituting a government, have at least some sovereignty.

Fundamentally understanding what the E.U. is politically is incompatible with being in the Union. This incompatibility dwarfs the particular advantages and disadvantages of various options. That is to say, if Britain is to become a state in the Union again, acceptance of the dual sovereignty enshrined in the E.U.’s basic law should be requisite by the British government and a majority of the electorate voting in a referendum. A house divided cannot stand, especially if each state retains a veto in the European Council and the Council of Ministers; the UK could “enforce” its erroneous disavowal of any E.U. sovereignty by holding federal legislative and executive action hostage. Put another way, if a majority of the British, as well as the British legislature, approaches the E.U. as if it were an international organization or bloc, the E.U. would be executing a self-inflicted wound by allowing Britain’s accession as a state. Obviously, other options, such as a customs union, would be fine, but to be a state, the UK would need to accept the fact of dual sovereignty.  

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1. Mared Gwyn Jones, “UK’s Burnham Floats Going ‘All the Way’ and Rejoining the EU,” Euronews.com, 30 September 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.

On E.U. States Negotiating the E.U. Budget

Having state governments at the front in putting together a federal budget is problematic for several reasons. Those governments can easily form ideologically clashing groups that result in stalemate at the expense of the federal level. That states have a built-in political interest in safeguarding their own turf means not only that they would tend in a positive sense to ward off too much federal encroachment at the expense of the states and federal-state balance necessary for the check-and-balance function of federalism, but also that the states could exploit a structural conflict of interest to deny the federal governmental institutions adequate sovereignty and money to act effectively in the common or general interest as represented by the union rather than any one state or subset of states. The lack of progression of negotiations in the Council of Ministers in 2026 on the upcoming seven-year federal budget demonstrate that perhaps the European Parliament rather than the Council of Ministers should come up with the budget and sent to the European Council for passage.

In late September, 2026, state officials (European affairs ministers) met “for another round of negotiations . . . Despite a shared ambition to reach a deal by the end of the year, negotiations [appeared] to have stalled, with significant differences still unresolved.”[1] The stalling due to significant differences, including on E.U. taxation, was not new. The E.U. Commissioner for the Budget, Piotr Serafin, observed at the time, “this is my fourth [Multiannual Financial Framework] negotiations, so I have to admit that some of the discussions come with a sense of déjà vu. Many positions are quite predictable, as they have been consistently repeated over the last decades.”[2] The longstanding intransigence suggests that ideological differences, which tend to be intractable, were in the mix. One benefit of being in a political union is that federal institutions can bridge over divisions that are “dug in” at the state level, essentially breaking the “log jams” (i.e., entrenched tree branches in the water blocking the flow of a river).

Besides being able to overcome divisions between states, the federal level does not contain state-level jealousy of an active federal government; the conflict of interest that, if exploited by state governments to “starve” the federal institutions of federal tax revenue or adequate money to spend, does not exist in the European Parliament because the representatives thereof are directly elected by E.U. citizens rather than appointed by state governments. In fact, such direct federal election renders the Parliament a fitting institution to construct a federal budget—more so than the Council of (state) Ministers. This is particularly so because of the existence of federal taxes not contributed by the state governments as by quota, for instance. For their part, the state governments could have their “up or down” say in voting by qualified-majority vote in the European Council on a budget that has been passed by the Parliament. As for the Commission, its recommendations would be heard at the committee level in the Parliament in the crafting of the federal budget.

More generally, the state governments arguably have too much influence at the federal level. Some direct involvement, rather than even by elected senators who represent the states but not necessarily their respective governments as in the U.S., is prudent as a check against too much federal encroachment on the states as has happened in the U.S., but too much direct involvement by state governments at the federal level can enable the exploitation of institutional or structural conflicts of interest—such as from jealousy of the power of federal officials and institutions. Even at 27 states, the E.U. has suffered from want of federal authority due to the power of the state governments to invoke a veto in the European Council and the Council of Ministers. Retaining the veto as more states are added to the Union would itself suggest that the state governments have too much obstructive power at the federal level. Put another way, a conflict of interest exists in depending on state governments to give up their veto power at the federal level. Generally speaking, the existence of structural conflicts of interest in a federal system is not a good thing for any federal system; such conflicts should be unwound both institutionally and in terms of processes (e.g. voting in the Council of Ministers).

The U.S. is hardly free of such conflicts. That justices on the U.S. Supreme Court are appointed by one federal institution and confirmed in office by another federal institution and yet those justices go on to hear disputes between the federal government and a state (or states) represents a conflict of interest; it is like having one football team appoint the referee, and then would anyone be surprised when 90 percent of the rulings during the games involving that team are in favor of it? The vast majority of federalism cases before the U.S. Supreme Court have been decided in favor of the federal level. No surprise. What is surprising is that this blatant conflict of interest has been virtually invisible in spite of the percentage of federalism cases having been won at the expense of the states. In the E.U., a similar insight regarding having the Council of Ministers and the European Council so salient in the construction and passage of the federal budget would make for a more perfect Union.  

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1. Eleonora Vasques, “EU Budget Talks Face Deadlock Despite Push for Year-End Deal,” Euronews.com, 22 September, 2026.
2. Ibid.

Misalignment of U.S. Fiscal Policy and the Federal Debt

In September, 2026, U.S. President Trump announced his intent to have the U.S. Government send $5000 to every American, which would cost that government about a trillion dollars, in the event that Trump’s Republican group retains control of the U.S. House and U.S. Senate in 2027 after the upcoming “midterm” election. The attempt to sway the electorates to vote for Republican federal representatives and senators paid no heed to the $40.2 trillion debt of the U.S. Government. Even characterizing the proposed payments as “dividends” ignored the fact that the money would have to be paid for, either by federal taxes, tariffs, or issuing more Treasury bonds (i.e., federal debt). It was not as if the payments would go out from money that the government already had. Such electioneering so misaligned from prudent fiscal policy amid such a high public debt raises the question of whether a government “of the People” can govern responsibly rather than merely in line with instant gratification.

At his Republican “Midterm” convention in September, 2026, President Trump said, “If we win, we’re going to get you $5,000. So that’s it. Very simple.”[1] Actually, it is not so simple. Republican candidates for Congressional office had good reason to “sidestep the idea.”[2] Firstly, financing the “dividends” by issuing additional Treasury bonds would add $1 trillion to the extant $40.2 trillion federal debt, unless additional taxes would be enacted to pay for the $5000 checks to every American. The yields on Treasury bonds were already rising, making it more expensive for people and businesses, as well as the U.S. Government, to borrow money, and putting downward pressure on the stock market, making it more difficult for corporations to raise capital. Although the Federal Reserve raising interest rates and the relatively high inflation were factors behind the increasing bond yields, the fact that the public was holding about $32 trillion of the U.S. Government’s debt suggests that yields had to rise in order for so much debt to attract bond holders, for as bond prices decline, bond yields rise. So although AP News reported at the time that the rise in bond yields “has accelerated recently because inflation has remained stubbornly high for years,” the need of the U.S. Treasury department to attract investors as the amount of outstanding Treasuries bloats should not be ignored.[3] Even the media was slighting the economic headwind from the $40.2 trillion public federal debt.

The problem of bloated public debt—not counting those of the member states!—had also been absent during the 2024 presidential election campaign “season” in 2023. Neither of the main candidates for the office meant to safeguard the viability of the U.S. Government needed to respond to concerns raised by the electorates in the member-states, which indicates that perhaps a government “by the people” can sidestep, or even be inherently inclined to obviate hard fiscal-policy choices even amid a public debt that is greater than the annual economic output. Neither Trump nor Harris were pressured by voters or journalists to address whether, or how, to reduce the massive debt-load; hence Trump, once elected, felt free of political constraint to urge Congress to extend his tax cuts rather than to raise taxes and dedicate the proceeds to reducing the debt. Even as California produced a balanced budget in 2026, the U.S. federal budget deficit for fiscal year 2026 reached about $2 trillion as of August, 2026 according to the Congressional Budget Office. That’s $2 trillion added to the U.S. Government’s debt in that fiscal year alone. The fiscal imbalance is starling, hence so too is the proposal of $5,000 for every American. 

While it may be tempting to blame the president exclusively, such blame in a government “by the People” ultimately accrues to the citizenry itself. Jefferson and Adams agreed not on much, but that a viable republic really needs an educated and virtuous citizenry was assumed by both men, and thus this article of faith can be said to be nonpartisan, and thus patriotic in nature. Virtuous people take heed of being too much in debt as a instance of public irresponsibility, whereas profligate, selfish people are happy to send the bill to future generations without heeding even baleful economic indicators such as rising debt yields.  

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1. Mike Catalini, “Trump Pushes His $5000 ‘Dividend’ Pledge If GOP Wins Midterms,” APnews.com, September 18, 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Stan Choe, “Wall Street Drifts Lower as Bond Yields Rise and Oil Prices Swing,” APnews.com, September 18, 2026.