November 13, 2026
Every presidential administration is a little solar system, with the president as the sun. The planets are his cabinet secretaries and the leading members of his party in Congress, who orbit around him under his gravitational pull. The moons of all the planets are state politicians and the media; their movement has a predictable pattern, but it’s subject to the gravity of the planets, not just the sun. Comets are events: wild cards out of nowhere that can be handled but not predicted, such as terrorist attacks, hurricanes, wars between foreigners, and elections abroad.
Finally, there is an asteroid belt composed of friends, campaign donors, and clients. Some are honorable public servants. Others are moochers and sycophants. Every politician since ancient Greece had this to contend with. The Romans had a formal patronage system to control it. Modern American presidents deal with the asteroids by giving them domestic jobs in the government, appointing them ambassadors abroad, or granting them economic opportunities. All these means of keeping the asteroids in the belt - instead of flying around destroying each other or the solar system - are fraught with peril. The big risks are corruption in contracts, pay-to-play patronage posts, and the appointment of clowns, crooks, or duds to positions requiring experience, judgment, and skill.
The asteroid belt is mostly comprised of lightweight hunks of worthless minerals, though some are made of precious metals or rare earths. Beneath a few of the largest asteroids lurk giant, hidden creatures like the one that almost ate the Millenium Falcon in Star Wars. You don’t know their names yet, but you might. The Democrats soon to run Congress will pick through every executive action of the past two years like gleaners in a famine.
Americans understand how the political solar system works; even the asteroid belt. But they want competence and despise corruption. Any party or politician that appears incompetent and will not punish corruption from its own side will pay at the polls. Americans see their purchasing power shrink, along with their opportunities to make a better life for themselves and a future for the families. They see institutions in decline, a threadbare social safety net, and structural budget deficits. They don’t understand why, so they grasp at straws and heed demagogues. When people are scared and angry, socialism is at its most appealing. Yet populism isn’t much better, if it delivers equally empty promises of more free stuff with no responsibility.
