Immobilizing E.U. Holdings of Russian Assets

By invoking Article 122 of the E.U.’s basic law, a clause that had been used most significantly during the Coronavirus pandemic and in the 2022 energy crisis, the E.U. in December, 2025 finally circumvented the twice-threatened veto by the state of Hungary and indefinitely froze €210 billion of assets of the Russian Central Bank that had been within the E.U.’s territory since Russia began its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine nearly four years earlier. I contend that the European Court of Justice, the E.U.’s supreme court, could apply a rational basis in a judicial review of the triggering of the emergency-conditioned article, especially because the Commission invoked the article in order to obviate Hungary’s threatened veto. Because every E.U. state except for Belgium and Hungary were for freezing the assets until Russia such time as Russia ends its militaristic aggression and compensates Ukraine financially for damages the Belgian and Hungarian state governments were violating the informal norm of consensus in the European Council and the Council of Ministers. Like the U.S. Senate, the European Council, which also represents the states, is like a club of sorts. The problem facing the Commission is that violating a norm is not a legal basis for obviating a threatened state-veto by invoking an emergency clause of the E.U.’s basic law, especially if no emergency actually exists after nearly four years of the invasion. Even though I am personally in favor of the E.U. obviating Hungary’s serial obstructionism that may be, at least in part, retaliation against President Von der Leyen’s Commission for having penalized the Hungarian government financially for having violated E.U. law, legal reasoning should not succumb to the gravity of the “black hole” of personal opinion.  There may be nothing so much like a god as a general on a battlefield, with power over life and death, but neither the European Commission nor myself is a general. In short, the Commission’s legal justification in invoking Article 122 is tenuous at best, even though countering Hungary’s Viktor Orbán’s abuse of his state’s veto-power in the European Council and the Council of Ministers was needed for the E.U. to be able to function within its enumerated competencies (i.e., powers).

The reason for indefinitely holding the Russian central bank’s financial assets that have been in the E.U. since the beginning of the invasion is so the E.U. could use those assets as a basis for making loans to Ukraine to bolster the sovereign state’s military position without the E.U. having to issue its own debt. “We are sending a strong signal to Russia that as long as this brutal war of aggression continues, Russia’s costs will continue to rise,” President Von der Leyen said.[1] The objective was to “make sure that our brave neighbour beomes even stronger on the battlefield and at the negotiating table.”[2] According to Euronews, the E.U. was able to shore up “its mightiest leverage,” push back against “external interference” and insulate “the money from the Kremlin’s war machine—all at once.”[3] The external interference was not really external, as this refers to the financially self-interested objection of the state of Belgium and the pro-Russian objection of Viktor Orbán of Hungary. Obviating self-interested states whose governors are willing to go against the other 25 states in the Council is laudable even though this objective can be traced back to the E.U.’s federal system, which must be taken as a given to the ECJ. To be sure, finding a way to do it by invoking an article of the E.U.’s basic law was not an easy task for the Commission.

“At first, the Commission suggested activating Article 31.2 . . . to switch the [6 months] renewal of sanctions from unanimity to qualified majority.”[4] The sanctions include holding the Russian financial assets. The article is vaguely, and thus problematically from the standpoint of constitutional language, based on “strategic interests and objectives.”[5] This wording could potentially enable the E.U., by qualified majority voting, to encroach excessively on governmental sovereignty retained by the states. That any state government could invoke “vital and stated reasons” of “policy”—again too vague—to veto any such bills that are in the strategic interests and objectives of the E.U. as a whole meant that the governor of Hungary could easily invoke its ties to Russia as vital reasons to veto the proposal to freeze the Russian assets indefinitely.

So, the Commission turned to Article 122, which applies qualified-majority voting rather than unanimity in the European Council (and the Council of Ministers) “in a spirit of solidarity . . . appropriate to the economic situation.”[6] Here too, the constitutional language is too vague. Hungary’s Orbán had been fragrantly violating the spirit of solidarity for years, and “economic situation” is so vague that the article could potentially be used to expunge unanimity from the federal level.

Furthermore, that Article 122 “bypasses the European Parliament” is also problematic because that democratically elected legislative chamber, the “lower house,” could otherwise act as a check on the Commission and the councils exploiting the article to rid the E.U. of the need for unanimity in the councils. Also, requiring a qualified majority vote in the Parliament would not in itself give the state governments the power to use their respective vetoes in the councils. One of the principal benefits of federalism, as distinct from confederalism, is the mechanism of state-federal checks-and-balances. Considering the American history of consolidation at the expense of the governmental sovereignty retained by the states, the vague constitutional language of Article 122 could be exploited. This is not to say that retaining the state-veto mechanism in the councils is at all healthy for the European federal system. Other means, such as requiring a qualified majority in the European Parliament, are consistent with federalism.

Such a check would be of value in terms of the indefinite freezing of Russian financial assets because the Commission interpreted “appropriate to the economic situation” to be invokable due to a “serious economic impact,” including in “supply disruptions, higher uncertainty, increased risk premia, lower investment and consumer spending,” as well as “non-economic drone incursions, sabotage and disinformation.”[7] Again, higher uncertainty and lower investment and consumer spending provide the Commission with virtually a wide-open door to obviate unanimity in the councils.

Earlier in 2025, the Commission had invoked Article 122 “to set up SAFE which allows member states to directly approve a Commission proposal [by qualified majority rather than unanimously] ‘if severe difficulties arise in the supply of certain produces’ or if a member state is ‘seriously threatened with severe difficulties caused by natural disasters or exceptional occurrences beyond its control’.”[8] Tellingly, it was the Parliament rather than a state government that objected, which is a telling indication that the Parliament should not have been excluded from the procedure to be followed according to the article.

With regard to the “emergency” said by the Commission to justify invoking Article 122 to indefinitely freeze the Russian financial assets in the E.U., the governor of Belgium, Bart De Wever, “questioned the existence of any EU-wide emergency,” as Russia’s invasion was nearing its fourth anniversary.[9] For instance, only 10% of energy in the E.U. was by that time from Russia.[10] Even though the E.U.’s evident economic woes, coupled with the vague wording of Article 122 and its limited jurisprudence, gave the Commission enough leeway to forge ahead,” using even “the economic situation” to invoke the article is highly problematic, especially as the obvious intent was to undercut the state-veto mechanism, which under the E.U.’s basic law at the time, was valid even though Hungary and Belgium were, for self-interested political and financial reasons, respectively, abusing the mechanism given the norm of consensus in the councils.

The upshot is that the E.U. could do better in tightening its constitutional, or basic-law, language, enlarging the coverage of the Parliament (especially as a check on the Commission). In the meantime, the ECJ should take a look at the Commission’s invoking of Article 122, especially on the Commission’s interpretation that “economic situation” really means “economic emergency,” which actually makes sense so to avoid the article from being invoked for virtually anything, and that an emergency was still the case almost four years after the commencement of the Russian invasion, which does not seem to be a valid claim. In the background is the consolidation by the U.S. of power at the expense of that of the member-states, and the related switch from the state governments appointing U.S. senators to them being elected by the citizens of the states. Citizens of a state may not vote so to protect the remaining governmental sovereignty held by their state, whereas senators appointed by state governors and/or legislatures would naturally have an incentive to keep an eye on the federal division of governmental sovereignty. Nevertheless, the veto power of the E.U.’s state governments, especially as there were 27 at the time of the invocation of Article 122 to freeze Russian assets, is arguably excessive and thus harmful to the E.U. level as well as the federal system itself, which should allow for federal oversight “with teeth” on abuses by state governments, especially in infringing on democracy and liberty.

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1. Jorge Liboreiro, “By Locking in Russian Assets for Good, the EU Is Finally Playing Hardball,” Euronews.com, 13 December 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.

The E.U.’s Borders Held Hostage by the State Veto

With E.U. states like Germany, Austria and Poland becoming increasingly active in patrolling their respective borders at the expense of the Schengen Agreement, it makes sense that the proposed E.U. budget announced in July, 2025 includes more money to protect the E.U.’s borders from illegal crossings. This is important because reinstituting controls on the borders of states contributes toward the visual of the E.U. coming apart geographically. Such a set-back may be worse for the E.U. than the secession of Britain was; in fact, letting that state go arguably strengthened the Union because the British government consistently refused to admit that the E.U. is more than a network of countries that the UK happened to belong to, which was the view of the former governor, David Cameron.

Out of the €74 billion in the proposed E.U. budget of President Von der Leyen “earmarked in the MFF to ‘make Europe safer and more secure,’ €26 billion” would “be dedicated to migration management, including issues related to reception of asylum seekers and other non-border related issues.”[1] In the existing 2021-2027 budget, €25 billion in total went to migration, with €14 billion for border management and €11 billion to asylum reception and integration.[2]

With the federal budgets covering so many years, reforms allowing for easier fast-tracking of proposals to augment a current budget may be advisable in the face of some states effectively shedding the open-state-borders Schengen Agreement. Additionally, the stipulation that any state government can veto a proposed federal budget could be revisited, as states differ on how serious infractions are at their respective borders and thus on the merit of increasing federal spending so the concerned states might pull back and revert to the Schengen Agreement, for claims of emergency by the activated state governments have been specious, and perhaps even outright lies.

That unanimity would be needed to pass the proposed federal budget, which in turn would hopefully strengthen the E.U.’s borders sufficiently that certain state governors could relax and withdraw their forces at their respective state borders ignores the political leverage that some state governors have exploited by using their respective vetoes at the federal level. A certain level of maturity all around is requisite to having the veto-mechanism with the understanding that it is to be used only when a state’s interests would likely be vitally impaired with the passage of a piece of legislation. Without such maturity, all kinds of dysfunctional politics and dogmatic obstacles can be expected in the European Council and the Council of the E.U. as the Commission and the Parliament look on in utter disbelief.

Perhaps it is an overstatement to say that a potential implosion of the E.U. from within could be allowed to run its course because of a refusal to exculpate the principle of unanimity, and thus the state veto, from the involvement of the state governments at the federal level. To exclaim, “The E.U. is NOT a federation!” as a kind of instinctual urge is not a retort; rather, it is the sort of stubborn oblique denial that pushes off reform that could save the Union. That some state governments subject to the Schengen Agreement were already using the emergency clause inappropriately when President Von der Leyen released the Commission’s upcoming budget for the E.U. is witness enough that the stubborn insistence by some governors to retain the state veto power at the federal (or Union) level has prevented the E.U. from being able to adequately enforce and fulfill its own competencies (i.e., enumerated powers). 

Is it not unethical to say, here is a power for you but we’re going to stop you along the way from being able to carry it out sufficiently even though it is your power? Is that not unfair, as well as counter-productive for the Union? Or are the circumscribed, petty interests of the parts greater than the interest of the whole where the benefits of collective action could otherwise be realized?

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1. Vincenzo Genovese and Eleonora Vasques, “Lion’s Share of Tripled EU Migration Budget Aimed at Border Management,” Euronews.com, July 18, 2025.
2, Ibid.

Negotiating from Weakness: The Plight of the European Union

To go to much effort to construct an economy on the scale of an empire only to refer instead to the economies within such a union, whether the E.U. or U.S. is to pay excessive homage to an ideology that can be termed Euroskeptic and anti-federalist, respectively. To refer to economies in one union and the economy in the other is just one means by which an ideology can distort a person’s reasoning and perception without the person being conscious of the underlying logical inconsistency. Such an inconsistency is incurred not only in “having it both ways” in the E.U. being a common market even as the states are referred to as economies even though many share a currency and thus a central bank, but also in referring to the federal system as if it were a mere “bloc,” or “network.”  In all of these cases of ideological word-games, the E.U. itself is minimized and thus implicitly marginalized from within. With Russia invading Ukraine and Israel eviscerating the Muslim residents of Gaza, self-marginalization for ideological purposes is indeed costly. Even referring to the federal official who is in charge of foreign policy as a “high representative” is implicitly denigrating and thus counter-productive to the E.U. being able to stand up to Putin and even Netanyahu in 2025.

The full essay is at "Negotiating from Weakness."

E.U. President Von der Leyen Survives A No-Confidence Vote

Falling short of the two-thirds majority needed to pass on July 10, 2025, the no-confidence vote on President Von der Leyen of the Commission in the E.U.’s parliament mustered only 175 representatives in favor while 360 voted against the motion and 18 abstained. Although commentators discussed whether the president was weakened anyway, a more important matter relates to the politics of the vote as distinct from the Parliament’s institutional interests as they relate to the Commission and the European Council. I contend that the Parliament, which represents E.U. citizens, has a vital interest that is vital to the E.U. itself in maintaining a balance between the collective power of the representatives of the citizenry and the power the state governments at the federal level. Parties making deals with Von der Leyen on policy positions undercut the vote as a means of holding the Commission to maintaining that balance.

For example, the Socialists and Democrats Party “extracted a pledge on the next long term budget in exchange for their support.”[1] The right-wing Patriots for Europe Party and Europe of Sovereign Nations Party both voted in favor of removing Von der Leyen, but certainly not because she left made a deal with the states to sidestep the Parliament on certain matters of policy, for those parties favor more power for the state governments at the federal level. In fact, those parties even deny that there is a federal level! Therefore, we cannot assume that the vote of no-confidence was on the matter of the Commission siding with the state governments to marginalize the Parliament.

The Commission under Von der Leyen had “invoked Article 122 of the Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) to set up SAFE which allows member states to directly approve a Commission proposal ‘if severe difficulties arise in the supply of certain products’ or if a member state is ‘seriously threatened with severe difficulties caused by natural disasters or exceptional occurrences beyond its control.’”[2] Because the Commission and the state governments were able to set up a federal defense-loan program without the approval of the European Parliament, and thus the citizens of the E.U., Roberta Metsola, the head of the Parliament, wrote to Von der Leyen of the “deep concern” in among the representatives that excluding the Parliament meant “putting at risk democratic legitimacy by undermining Parliament’s legislative and scrutiny functions.”[3] The democratic legitimacy of the federal level depends on the involvement of the Parliament, as it is the only institution representing E.U. citizens directly, rather than state governments, which have their own institutional interests even apart from state residents.

It is highly significant that Metsola “stressed that ‘the European Parliament is not questioning the merits of this proposal for a regulation’.”[4] The objection was not one of policy; rather, the concern was based on the democratic viability and overall balance of the E.U. itself as a federal system. By involving policy in the deal-making leading up to the censure vote, certain political parties in the Parliament undercut that institution’s interest in protecting itself against the Commission giving too much power to the state governments at the federal level. The Socialists should not have extracted a political gain from Von der Leyen, and the Green Party members should not have voted on the basis of how much Von der Leyen had prioritized environmental policy. Instead, the parties apprehensive about the Parliament having been circumvented by the state governments and the Commission should have voted to offset the state-rights ideology of the far-right parties in the Parliament. Had this been done, the next Commission would have been very cautious about circumventing the voice of the people by making deals with the governors of the several states. 

Generally speaking, protecting the viability of the federal system itself, including the checks and balances at the federal level, does not get done by prioritizing political deals and even particular policies, as if the pushing for certain policies in the aggregate were tantamount to protecting the system of governance itself.

1. Jeremy Fleming-Jones, et al, “Von der Leyen’s EU Commission Survives Parliament Confidence Vote,” Euronews.com, July 10, 2025.
2. Alice Tidey, “MEPs Vote for Parliament to Sue Commission over €150 bn Defense Loan Programme,” Euronews.com, June 25, 2025.

3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.

Putting a State in Charge of the E.U.

If only Ukraine could become the 51^st member-state of the U.S., rather than the 28^th state of the E.U., given the veto of Viktor Orban of the E.U. state of Hungary on the E.U. annexing Ukraine. Besides the inherent problems that come with relying so much on the principle of unanimity in the European Council and the Council of the E.U., mislabeling the prime minister of the state that chairs the legislative committees known collectively as the Council of the E.U. as the E.U. president not only marginalizes the federal officials, including President Von der Leyen, who, as the head of the E.U.’s executive branch, can rightfully be considered as the president of the European Union. In contrast, government officials of a state chairing legislative committees can hardly be said to collectively be the “presidency” of the European Union. Behind the promotion of this fallacy is the anti-federalist, or Euroskeptic, political ideology that misconstrues the E.U. as merely a network of intergovernmental relations between the states.

Although the E.U., like the U.S., splits governmental sovereignty between two systems—that of the union and that of the states, the two unions have different ways in which state officials participate at the federal level. The official participation roles are greater in E.U. institutions than in U.S. institutions at the union level. In his book, Federal Government, Kenneth Wheare makes the point that federalism has two systems of government, neither of which is a “level” above the other. He is correct because the sovereignty remaining with state governments, which in both unions includes all residual sovereignty, is not “lower” than the exclusive or shared competencies, or enumerated domains of power, delegated to the federal governmental institutions. The fallacy of “levels” is much easier to grasp by looking that the European Union than the United States because of the extent of official roles in certain E.U. governmental institutions for state officials, whereas in the U.S., state officials lost their direct participation when U.S. senators became elected offices rather than by appointment by the respective state chief executives/heads of state/commanders in chief (i.e., “governors” being those who govern) or legislatures. This difference may be why so much governmental sovereignty will not be transferred from the system of state governments to the union’s governmental institutions in the E.U. by 100 or 200 years in the E.U. as in the U.S. as of the 249^th anniversary of the thirteen colonies boldly (as there was considerable risk) declaring themselves to be free and independent countries, then already in a military alliance (i.e., the Continental Congress).

On the day before the 249^th anniversary of 13 British colonies in North America declaring themselves to be sovereign countries, Ukrainian President Zelensky attended “the opening ceremony of the Danish EU Presidency in Aarhus.”[1] Depicting or characterizing Denmark as the “EU Presidency” is misleading, for the reference is to officials of that state chairing policy-domain specific committees rather than standing for the E.U. itself. The exaggeration is at the expense of recognition that the Commission’s head, Von der Leyen, a federal rather than a state official, has a greater claim to speak for the European Union. As president of the E.U.'s executive branch, Von der Leyen delivers the annual State of the Union address at the Parliament chamber, just as the president of the U.S. delivers the State of the Union in the U.S. House of Representatives' chamber. It is revealing that just before the Parliament's vote of confidence in Von der Leyen on July 10, 2025, a lawyer specialized in E.U. law predicted that even if the vote is favorable to Von der Leyen, more "and more [E.U.] citizens will ask themselves, is she really the right person to lead the E.U. in such turbulent times."[2] It is not as though the rotating 6-month "presidency" of whatever state government is chairing the committees known collectively as the Council of the E.U. could claim to be at the helm, and thus step in for a weakened Von der Leyen. 

Generally speaking, putting a state in charge of the E.U. would be loaded with intractable problems. In June of the same year, the governor of the E.U. state of France presumed to speak for the European Union rather than just for his state on foreign policy, effectively (and I suspect intentionally) sidelining the E.U.’s president and its foreign minister, an office that is deliberately mislabeled as the “High Representative” to appease Euroskeptics. 

Regarding the involvement of the state governments at the federal level, the President of the European Council, António Costa, had a greater claim than the chair of legislative committees to be referred to as a president, and Macron of France was not the federal official standing for the European Council. That the governor of the E.U. state of Denmark “vowed to support Ukraine’s accession process” to be annexed by the E.U. and to use the “presidency of the E.U. Council to put ‘maximum pressure’ on Hungary to lift its veto on Ukraine” being annexed by the E.U. is less significant than the pressure than the federal officials António Costa and Ursula von der Leyen could apply on Hungary’s governor.[3] In response the emphasis, for example, of the Danish foreign minister chairing the other state foreign ministers in one of the committees in the Council of the E.U., Viktor Orban could more easily relegate Von der Leyen, Kaja Kallas and António Costa and thus deflate pressure from the E.U. itself, which is greater than a committee of state officials chaired by a Danish state official.

In other words, the paralyzing impact of retaining vetoes in the European Council and the Council of the E.U. is exacerbated by falsely portraying a state government as the “Presidency of the E.U.” The Parliament and the Commission even together may be too weak to counter the power of the states in the E.U. governmental system within the federal system; mislabeling a state as the E.U. Presidency only exacerbates the imbalance, even if it is a policy of officials of that state to resist the veto of another state. The E.U. is more than being the simple aggregate of the states, and the European Court of Justice, the European Commission, and the European Parliament are all institutions of the E.U. that manifest the E.U. being more than the sum of its states. Just as balance is important between the system of state governments and the system of the federal government in a federal system, so too balance of power is important between the branches of government, and in this respect the federal government should be distinguished from state government within a federal system because only in the former are some institutions representing states and others represent federal citizens. It is important that the power of the state officials in union institutions not overwhelm the power of federal officials in other union-institutions, lest particular state interests dominate those of the whole. Denmark may have its own economic and political interests with respect to Ukraine, whereas Von der Leyen and Kallas represent the E.U.’s interests rather than those of any state. Overstating the salience of the state governments in E.U. governance at the expense of federal officials.

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1. Evelyn Ann-Marie Dom and Jorge Liboreiro, “Ukraine Will Do ‘Anything’ to Advance EU Accession Talks Despite Hungary Veto, Zelenskyy Says,” Euronews.com, July 3, 2025.
2. Sandor Zsiros, "EU Parliament Censure Vote Leaves von der Leyen Weakened, even in Victory," Euronews.com, July 10, 2025, italics added.

3.  Evelyn Ann-Marie Dom and Jorge Liboreiro, “Ukraine Will Do ‘Anything’ to Advance EU Accession Talks Despite Hungary Veto, Zelenskyy Says,” Euronews.com, July 3, 2025.

On the 2025 Political Convention of the European People’s Party

Competition within a pollical party and recognition that a political party is indeed a political party are essential or at least advantageous to any political party in a democratic system. Moreover, a republic, even if it contains smaller republics but is not just them in aggregate, deserves to be recognized as such rather than implicitly relegated by erroneous nomenclature that is designed to appease skeptics so they won’t rise up to resist the federal republic itself. “Let the chips fall where they may” is, I believe, an expression from gambling. Another expression comes from playing cards: Call a spade a spade. These two expressions evince truth and power, whereas hiding behind false notions is sheer weakness. Much of my writing on the European Union is oriented to strengthening it, as well as to gleam lessons for both the E.U. and U.S. by comparing and contrasting them as federal empire-scale unions of states.

Rubber-stamping closed-room decisions is hardly uncommon at conventions of political parties. The E.U.’s European People’s Party is no exception. At the annual convention in 2025, the party’s leadership appeared “quite monarchic” in spite of the fact that the E.U. was “the world’s second largest democracy,” and that President Von der Leyen had been touting the value being placed on democracy.[1] At the convention, Manfred Weber was re-elected by 502 of 563 votes “while his loyal ally Dolors Montserrat was elected unopposed to the position of secretary general with 91% of the votes cast.”[2] The lack of intra-party competition could be expected to have an impact politically on the E.U. itelf, as the “ascendant” EPP included E.U. Commission President Von der Leyen, 13 commissioners, and 188 representatives in the Parliament.[3]

With the E.U. being a few years over 30 years old, the EPP in the E.U. could be likened to the Congress Party in India during the twentieth century. To be sure, the latter party eventually lost its dominance, and the EPP could be expected to lose its early foothold too. Beforehand, however, a democracy deficit can exist not only when one party dominates at the federal level of an empire-scale polity of polities, but also when such a party is monocratic at the party level.

In other words, a multiplier effect can be in the mix when dominance is salient within a party that in turn is dominate in a government, and an executive branch, a legislative chamber elected by citizens, and a supreme court do indeed constitute a government even if denial has a firm foothold in the public square. In fact, for the media to mislabel a political party’s convention as a congress, which is actually an international meeting of sovereign countries, and a union such as the E.U. as a bloc undermines the credibility of a party and union. Both a democracy-deficit and enervating ideological (i.e., Euroskeptic) misnomers imperil a federal system, especially if the states hold most (but not all!) of the governmental sovereignty. 

For the Commission to be able to enforce even its exclusive competencies (i.e., enumerated powers), it is important that that executive branch be representative rather than oligarchic and known to be something more than of a bloc, which is a temporary grouping for one purpose. The E.U. was not intended to be temporary or of just one pillar. Indeed, the third pillar belies any claim that the E.U. is merely an economic international organization. International organizations such as NATO and the UN have no governmental sovereignty of their own, and do not have legislative chambers whose representatives are directly elected by citizens. International organizations do not even have citizens! A little intellectual honesty can go a long way.

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1. Jeremy Fleming-Jones, “The EU’s Biggest Political Party Met in Valencia—What We Learned,” Euronews.com, 30 April 2025.

2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.

On Electing a U.S. President: The Case of President Biden’s Age

One of the reasons why the delegates at the U.S. Constitutional Convention devised the Electoral College to elect the federal president was that they thought that even at 7 million, the population of the U.S. back then was too large for the even just the propertied people, who could vote, to know the candidates very well, if at all. At over 300 million, the U.S. population during the presidential reelection campaign of Joe Biden had to rely on the mass media and the political elite, including statements by the White House, for information on whether the sitting president was too old to serve viably in a second term. The limited number of presidential electors in the states would presumably be small enough that they could have the opportunity to size up the candidates in person. But with electors from fifty rather than just thirteen states, such an opportunity would not be likely. So given the exponential growth of the United States both in terms of member states and their respective populations, the originally anticipated benefit of the Electoral College would not still hold even if the two major political parties had not taken over the College. Even if the states’ respective electors were able to spend enough time in person with the candidates, the parties had ensured that those electors could not be autonomous and thus exercise their judgment. Instead, judgment could only be made at a distance by the massive American electorate whose perspectives have been very vulnerable to intentional manipulation through and even by the media. Put another way, the American people have been vulnerable to making a bad choice based on faulty information. This makes American representative democracy itself vulnerable.

Under most circumstances, a president’s staff can manage how the president comes off to the public. The presentation can thus differ from how the president really is. Yet in casting a vote, a voter should be able to size up how the candidates really are. This is crucial when one of the candidates is already 81 years old. The Biden-Trump debate in June, 2024 was a rare opportunity to see both men beyond the reach of their respective handlers, and thus to get a glimpse of both men as they really were at the time. Whereas Don Trump came off as focused, the president was disoriented at times and generally appeared to suffer simply from old age. There is no fault in that; the fact that the rare glimpse came as a surprise to many Americans demonstrates the extent to which any president is managed on nearly all occasions for public consumption and thus how wrong the voters’ view of an incumbent can be. This insight, more than whether Joe Biden was too old to serve a second term whose beginning was still six months away, was universally missed by the media.

As if to confirm the realization of how much a president’s appearance is managed, and thus misleadingly positive as to a president’s person, the “Biden campaign said the president had a cold to explain why he sounded so hoarse and weak. But Biden’s stumbles right from the beginning [of the debate] played into his biggest vulnerability—his age.”[1] That a cold would not account for a person being disoriented and that Biden had no nasal congestion or even sneezing apparently did not occur to the president’s handlers. Their next explanation was that the president was suffering from jetlag from having flown internationally, but that he had not done so in 12 days also apparently did not occur to the campaign. As neither of these episodic explanations worked to diminish the rather obvious fact that old age is a condition rather than being merely showing in an isolated episode or event, the president himself tried again by telling a group of Democratic governors that he had not been getting enough sleep. If only getting more sleep could extinguish the general effects of old age, nursing homes would be empty. 

Not unexpectedly, “Biden’s comment left several of the governors in the room frustrated.”[2] Yet after the meeting, three governors “painted a positive picture of the meeting during a news conference [outside the White House], adding that Biden is ‘all in’ and ‘in it to win it.’”[3] That the White House had governors speak publicly after the meeting to reassure the electorate of the president’s viability without mentioning that some of the governors had just been frustrated by the claim that an episodic lack of sleep could somehow account for the general condition of old-age demonstrates just how deceivingly the electorate is manipulated and thus how erroneous its view of the president can be without the people realizing it. How could they? The implications for impaired electoral judgment based on (deliberately) faulty information are clear. Without realizing it, the electorates of the States could vote for a second term not unlike that of President Wilson's.

Even in portraying the president’s old-age as if it could possibly be a “one-off” episode, Biden's handlers were taking advantage of the fact that they could manage how the president comes off in almost all of his public appearances. Sitting down for an interview on the radio and television, and reading a speech from a teleprompter at a campaign rally are just a few examples of how the handlers can make the president’s debate “performance” appear to be a “one off” bad performance relative to the others. It is precisely because of the deceiving effect of the handlers that "Democratic Rep. Brad Sherman . . . told CNN that the president needed to do a prolongued and live television interview unlike the recorded one on ABC."[4] The implication is that the public had not seen Biden without guide-rails on ABC and thus could not judge from that appearance how he might do on his own behind the scenes in thinking through and using judgment in an international incident. That Biden's handlers had given a radio host a list of questions to ask the president during a radio interview and that the same questions were asked in other interviews, also after the debate, also attests to the widespread impact of the handlers[5]. I contend that voters should have been informed of this "stagecraft" so they could realize the extent to which their perceptions of the president were being manipulated and thus could lead to bad or impaired judgment in voting.

A performance, such as is staged for a television interview or a campaign rally, is not at all like an ongoing condition such as old-age, which goes on. Even though the condition of old-age is more apparent on some days than others, the underlying condition itself is ongoing, and in fact gradually gets worse even if the people closest to the person don’t notice the change and think he is ok. 

To intentionally portray such a condition as merely a bad performance (rather than a condition) by engineering good performances is intellectually and ethically dishonest. Leaving the electorate with a false impression, taking advantage of the distance between the people at the president, is precisely why the founders wanted the Electoral College. In other words, it is bad for American representative democracy that manufactured images of a president can have, and indeed have had an inordinate influence on voters' judgments. Shock from observing President Biden unfettered, and thus himself, during the debate reflects back on just how good a president's handlers are in crafting a "brand" for public consumption. That it is rare that the American people get to see the proverbial "man behind the curtain" (an allusion to the movie, The Wizard of Oz) can be inferred from just how shocked viewers were in glimpsing President Biden reacting in real time. 

Not satisfied with leaving viewers with their valid conclusions from what they had seen of the the president during the debate, self-interested presidential handlers with an agenda—winning the election—tried to supersede the common-sense conclusions as if they were invalid or incorrect. The president had a cold. He had jetlag. He had not been sleeping well. Anything but the truth. Even if the cause of the condition of old-age were a lack of sleep, smart voters would ask themselves what might happen were President Biden called to the Situation Room in the White House even as early as 10pm (and what about at 3am?) in 2027 to handle an emergency abroad involving the U.S. military. 

Ignoring that serious implication from their own narrative, the handlers scrambled nonetheless to get the president to a podium and teleprompter, and then, days later, to a television interview, as if the condition that the public had just seen during the debate were merely episodic too (and thus outweighable by the other appearances), the president’s handlers even got surrogates, including sitting governors, to publicly attest to the official narrative, which was that the president was fine and was "all in." Faced with this full frontal "corrective," how could the electorate's judgment on election day possibly reflect their authentic observations during the debate? Good judgment based on accurate empirical data is requisite to a voter being able to make a good decision on who should be president of the United States. 

The American people were left with oblique references on television by Jake Tapper of CNN and Carl Bernstein, one of the famous Nixon-Watergate reporters, of admissions heard behind closed doors by people who had witnessed Biden in person enough to know that the president had actually been disoriented on as many as 20 occurrences, especially during the preceding six months. Bernstein said on CNN, "The people I've talked to have all been to Ron Klain [Biden's chirf of staff] in the last year to say, 'We have a problem.'"[6]. That such stuff doesn't usually get out (and isn't meant to get out) and thus reach the American electorate is a large part of why the delegates at the Convention anticipated the need for an institutional check, the Electoral College, on the electorate itself should it make a bad decision. The need for such a check was live and well in 2024, and the Electoral College had never worked as intended, so there was a problem even though it was below the radar of public discourse in the media.

The Founders’ astute insight that not even 7 million citizens could know the candidates for the federal presidency well enough to exercise effective judgment in assessing them at the ballot box was behind the invention of the Electoral College. Even if it had ever worked as a check on bad judgment that can occur at a distance, the College could not be relied upon as such a check by 2024.

Historically, the main officeholders at the federal level of a federation, including the Holy Roman Empire, were chosen by officials at the state level rather than by the individuals in the states. In having state governors in the European Council nominate a candidate for President of the European Commission, the E.U.’s executive branch, the E.U. is in sync with the historical federal thought. Although the electors of the Electoral College in the U.S. meet by state, such that each state votes for president, state officials did not, at least as of 2024, have a role in selecting the federal president. 

That representatives elected by E.U. citizens in the European Parliament vote (as a parliament) on the nominee also deviates from the historical thought, which has state-level officeholders select federal officeholders. In American terms, the European Council nominating a candidate and the European Parliament voting on that candidate is roughly as if the U.S. Senate nominated a candidate for president and the U.S. House of Representatives voted on that candidate. Both unions instantiate modern federalism, which is a hybrid as governmental sovereignty is split between the state and federal institutions/governments, so the U.S. would not have to look very far for compatible ideas on how to modify the way its federal president is selected. This is not to say that the U.S. Senate should nominate candidates for president and the U.S. House should vote (not by state) to elect a nominee; rather, some role for governors and/or the Congress might serve as a viable check on the electorate, given the extent to which handlers manipulate the electorate and can thus cause it to make a bad decision on election day. 

Given the falsity in how handlers manage the presentation of a president, including President Biden, it should not be surprising that the American people make some bad decisions as an electorate. How many Americans in 2016 anticipated how President Trump would react to losing the election in 2020? The public image of the man in 2016 differed strikingly from the man himself, yet how many Americans knew even that such a difference existed (and exists for any occupant of the White House). 

To be consistent with historical federal thought, state legislatures and governors, rather than the Congress, would either elect the federal president or at least act as a check on the American people as an the electorate. It has been said especially in American anti-federalist historical thought that state officeholders are "closer to the people" because there are fewer people in the state-level districts than in the Congressional constituencies. But some states are quite populated themselves. Some big states, such as Illinois, California, Florida, and New York, could have a level of even smaller legislative districts by being federal themselves, hence with their respective sovereignties split between the state-level government and those of states within a given state. Such federated states would be like the E.U. states of Belgium and Germany. Chicagoland in Illinois could be like Bavaria in Germany. Having grown up in northern Illinois well outside of Chicagoland, I can attest that the Chicago metro is like another country even within Illinois (although I am a native Cubs baseball fan), even if Europeans like to assume that U.S. states are like provinces. 

Such a system of American federalism within federalism would resemble the federalism theory that Althusius describes, based on the Holy Roman Empire, in his Political Digest (1603). In that theory, the officials of the immediately lower "rung" select the officeholders of the next higher level. Given the E.U.’s process for selecting its executive-branch president, the U.S. could realistically incorporate at least one element of historical federal thought: namely, that the selection of at least one federal official could involve state-level legislators and/or heads-of-state. Because modern federalism, which both the E.U. and U.S. instantiate, is a hybrid only partially incorporating from the historical federal thought, a role for the Congress (like that of the European Council and the European Parliament in the E.U.) is an alternative candidate for a check. 

I submit that some hybrid of either state-level or federal-level office-holders could add a badly needed check-and-balance to the U.S. federal system of governance. In this respect, the E.U. is structured better than is the U.S., as per how a federal president is selected.

In conclusion, the issue of President Biden’s age in 2024 gave the American people an opportunity to see a basic vulnerability in how the federal presidency is filled, and looking to the E.U. affords the Americans a glimpse of a possible solution. How many American voters in 1968 and then again in 1972 had spoken with Richard Nixon in person without his handlers present and could thus realize how morally and criminally compromised the man really was? Sadly, even incumbents are marketed as if they were brands, and votes “buy” one on election day. So much more was at stake in 2024 than President Biden’s age, though insight on how that was being deceivingly managed by the president’s handlers could give Americans a sense of how vulnerable they really were even to their own judgments, given the misinformation. That the excuses of a cold, jetlag, and a lack of sleep—all under the incorrect premise that old-age is episodic rather than being a condition—are so pathetic and that being interviewed by a journalist, reading from a teleprompter at a (caffeinated?) rally, and meeting with governors could possibly be effective counterarguments should have given even Biden supporters pause concerning how an occupant of the federal presidency was being determined by 2024. The failure of the Electoral College could thus be understood as leaving the U.S. vulnerable.

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1 Domenico Montanaro, “4 Takeaways from the First Presidential Debate,” NPR.org, June 28, 2024 (accessed July 4, 2024).
2 Edward Dovere, “Biden Tells Democratic Governors He Needs More Sleep and Plans to Stop Scheduling Events after 8 p.m.” CNN.com, July 4, 2024.
3. Ibid.

4. Stephen Collinson, "Biden's ABC Interview Does Nothing to Quell the Existential Crisis around His Campaign," CNN, July 6, 2024, italics added.

5. Lauren Koenig, Samantha Waldenberg, and Betsy Klein, "Radio Host Who Interviewed Biden Says Aides Provided Questions in Adavance," CNN, July 6, 2024.

6. Joey Garrison, "'I'm the Nominee'," USA Today, July 5, 2024.

Chinese President Xi Exploits a Vulnerability of the E.U.

Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Europe in May, 2024 “amid concerns in Europe over Chinese support for Russia’s war in Ukraine and European markets being flooded with cheap Chinese electric vehicles.”[1] Although these matters were at the time properly matters for the E.U. rather than its states, Xi oriented his visit to the state level, and in particular to states including France and Hungary that had “special bilateral relationships” with China.[2] In other words, the Chinese leader sought to exploit the E.U.’s vulnerability wherein state governments have sufficient sovereignty to undermine the federal level. I contend that the state leaders should have refused to meet with Xi, redirecting him to meet with federal officials.

The full essay is at "China Exploits a Vulnerability of the E.U."

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1. Yuchen Li and Wesley Rahn, “Did China’s Xi Jinping Expose Disunity in Europe?” Deutsch Welle (DW.de), May 10, 2024.
2. Ibid.

Democracy and State Governments at the E.U. Level

In mid-February 2012, Mario Monti of the E.U. state of Italy addressed the European Parliament. In his speech, he advocated increasing the legislative body's power. The Parliament's 754 representatives represent E.U. citizens just as the members of House of Representatives represent U.S. citizens. The representatives in both of the legislative chambers are democratically elected to represent the people in local or regional districts rather than states more generally. The chambers are “national” in that they bypass the state governments. The latter are represented in the European Council of Ministers and in the U.S. Senate, both of which are legislative in nature and thus can be stylized as the “upper chamber” in federal lawmaking.

The complete essay is at Essays on Two Federal Empires.